The Pathfinder Tales Library

Novels

Prince of Wolves by Dave Gross
Winter Witch by Elaine Cunningham
Plague of Shadows by Howard Andrew Jones
The Worldwound Gambit by Robin D. Laws
Master of Devils by Dave Gross

Journals

The Compass Stone: The Collected Journals of Eando Kline edited by James L. Sutter
Hell's Pawns by Dave Gross
Dark Tapestry by Elaine Cunnningham

Short Stories

"The Lost Pathfinder" by Dave Gross
"Noble Sacrifice" by Richard Ford
"Blood Crimes" by J. C. Hay
"Certainty" by Liane Merciel
"The Swamp Warden" by Amber Scott
"The Secret of the Rose and Glove" by Kevin Andrew Murphy
"Lord of Penance" by Richard Lee Byers

Hell's Pawns © 2011 by Paizo Publishing, LLC. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means digital, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, or conveyed via the Internet or a website without prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embedded in critical articles and reviews.

Paizo Publishing, LLC, the Paizo golem logo, and Pathfinder are registered trademarks of Paizo Publishing, LLC; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game, Pathfinder Campaign Setting, and Pathfinder Tales are trademarks of Paizo Publishing, LLC.

Story by Dave Gross.
Cover art by David Bircham and Kieran Yanner.
Cover design by Crystal Frasier.
Interior art by David Bircham.

Paizo Publishing, LLC
7120 185th Ave NE, Ste 120
Redmond, WA 98052
paizo.com

ISBN 978-1-60125-349-1

Originally published in Pathfinder Adventure Path #25-30.

Chapter One: The Plaza of Flowers

The boss says the Plaza of Flowers is an ironic name, proving even he can be wrong.

He tells me that a century ago blossoms spilled over every windowsill, but now the black-and-crimson banners of Asmodeus trail down from the upper balconies. And where he remembers flowerbeds encircling a fountain, eight viewing stands now surround a scaffold. Those stands teem with the gowns of the merchant daughters who hope to attract the eyes of the noble bachelors buzzing just beyond the picket of house guards. Matrons and spinsters clad in earthen tones sit to either side of each blossom while their lords and brothers mingle with the unmarried men, smoking cigars and nosing sachets to smother the stench of so many commoners.

A hawker shoves past me and cries, "Skewered pork, sizzling hot!" I barely stop myself from giving him the elbow before one of the other groundlings filling the space between stands and scaffold beckons him away before the smell can make me sick. I don't understand those who can eat on Judgment Day.

The sun reaches its zenith, but the canvas drape still conceals the central scaffold. The delay can mean only the Palace wishes to view the proceeding, and I say a little prayer of thanks to Desna—silently, of course. Waiting for the Royal Carriage to arrive is a boon to the vendors, and it gives the working class a little more time away from their labors. The benefit to me is that the royal interest reverses the usual order of events. Paralictor Ivo Elliendo likes to build suspense, so the most spectacular event is usually reserved for last.

On the scaffold, a knobby-kneed herald emerges from behind the canvas. He looks to either side, shuddering with exaggerated fear when the guards eye him up and down. The groundlings laugh, recognizing him as one of the Fools of Thrune, a jester from House Sarini sent out to amuse them while they wait. I lose interest the moment he raises a trumpet to his lips and blows out a length of crimson silk and a pair of sagging pillows meant to suggest he's blown his lungs out through the horn.

I see plenty of familiar mugs among the groundlings: stevedores, stable hands, street sweepers, barmaids, a seamstress I once gave a memorable night on the Bunyip Dock. A pickpocket I know tips me a wink as he pats a mark on the shoulder while his adolescent accomplice dips his hand in on the other side. A few others touch their chins or smile when they see me. I nod back.

No one from the stands throws me a greeting, but more than a few know me better than they'd admit. I know several of them better than I'd like their husbands to know, but to most I am only the silent bodyguard of Count Varian Jeggare. The only one among them bold enough to return my gaze is Ivo Elliendo.

The Paralictor glides out of the stands where he has been receiving the compliments of the ladies. His tall figure stands out like a plow cutting through a garden. The sharp red scourges on the ribs of his black leather jack give him a gaunt silhouette.

He squints when he spots me, and I can feel his scorn hot on my face. What else can I do but shoot him my toothiest smile? All around him, ladies who had followed his gaze snap up their fans to shield themselves from the sight of a mouth that I'm told looks like a drawer full of knives. The commotion distracts Elliendo, and when he sees he is surrounded by a halo of fluttering fans, his lined face darkens.

Elliendo stalks away from the stands and mounts the stairs, followed as usual by two hulking Hellknights. I begin to frame a prayer for rotting steps before deciding that's too much to ask, even on Judgment Day. On the scaffold, Elliendo peers north at the approach of the golden Royal Carriage down the Imperial Promenade. He snaps his fingers, and the clown retreats behind the canvas to a clatter of applause. Once the carriage halts and the window shades rise just enough for the occupant—no doubt some minor Palace official, rather than the Queen herself—to peer out, the canvas on the scaffold falls away to reveal the Instruments of Judgment.

In the center is a blazing furnace in the shape of a three-faced devil. From each of its gaping jaws juts a bramble of iron implements: knives, spears, chains, rods, brands, and most conspicuous of all the Tines of Cheliax. Each is a two-pronged fork sized for a giant, and today there are two of them.

Arrayed between the furnaces are racks of torture devices retrieved from every civilized nation on Golarion, and several not so civilized. The spiked cages of Geb are a crowd favorite, and two of them already hold prisoners. One is a fat man who begins screaming the moment he is revealed, while the other is pock-faced Gellius Bonner, the Butcher of Merrow Lane.

I fell into the Bonner case when the boss sent me to nose around the tannery across the river. I was supposed to catch a stable master selling the carcasses of his lady's mysteriously sickened horses. That went nowhere, but I spied the tanner sneaking out of his own home well past midnight. Curious, I followed him into town, expecting to discover nothing more than a mistress in some Cheapside flat. Instead, he led me to Bonner's shop, where he joined six men wearing crude robes. Bonner greeted them with some fiendish phrase, though I could understand only a few words before he led them downstairs. I let myself in for a peek. When I saw the yak-headed thing Bonner conjured and what they intended to offer it, I ran to Greensteeples and beat on the boss's door until his sleepy halfling butler woke him. With a few questions, Jeggare confirmed that the cult was demonic, not diabolic, so he sent a message directly to the Temple of Asmodeus, who in turn asked the Hellknights to capture the cultists, minus a few who resisted arrest. They even recovered two boys who had not yet been devoured.

The discovery broke the cases of more than a dozen missing children, disappearances that Elliendo had publicly sworn to solve. As he was not on duty that night, he was surprised to hear the criers' announcement of another mystery solved by the celebrated Varian Jeggare.

If it were for the murders alone, Bonner might have met his Judgment at the edge of an axe or, if it were only one or two killings, in hard labor for a decade. The devil-worshiping lords of Cheliax, however, do not suffer the denizens of the Abyss in the city. For consorting with demons, Bonner earned his special voyage to Hell.

While not an admirer of the spectacle, I make a point of witnessing the Judgment of anyone convicted on one of our cases. This time, the boss insisted that I bring something to confirm it was Bonner and not some magic-masked substitute who did the dance of the Tines. He sent me to the Plaza of Flowers with a couple of sakava leaves plucked fresh from a plant in his greenhouse.

Once the Instruments are unveiled, four proper heralds stand on the corners of the scaffold and announce the list of Judgments. Behind them, brawny shirtless men in red hoods prepare the braces for the Tines.

When a couple of the big men unlock Bonner's cage, I slip the sakava leaves from a sleeve pocket. The size of my thumbs, they are thick green ovals with tiny white hairs glistening with oil. Just before I crush them, someone calls my name.

She is taller than me, which is not too uncommon, but most of that height comes from a pair of legs snugged in black calfskin trousers with tiny stars and suns cut out along the outer seam to reveal bare skin. Her blouse hangs loose except in just the right places to make a celibate throw himself off the roof. Her big hazel eyes are too far apart with heavy eyebrows, but they look fine above a long nose pierced above one nostril with a tiny ruby. The stone sets off a hint of late-summer red in her brown hair.

I'm staring at her over the little green leaves.

"Elliendo isn't exactly fond of me. Or anyone."

"Are you Radovan?" she asks again. I could listen to her say my name all day, but then she ruins it by adding, "Count Jeggare's servant?"

"His bodyguard." Immediately I think of three or four suave answers.

"My messages to Greensteeples have gone unanswered, and I require the count's assistance," she says. "And naturally his utmost discretion."

"Naturally," I say, but before I can give her the pitch, I feel a sharp poke just below my shoulder blade.

"Say goodbye to the girly, copper-tongue," reeks a voice inches beneath my ear. I know who it is from the stench of garlic and boiled eggs.

"Not now, Ursio." I try to sound casual, but the scratch he gave me starts to itch. Out of the corners of my eyes I see a couple of shapes that must be his backup. "I'll stay in this very public place while you and your playmates go climb your thumbs."

"These bolts are tipped with black lotus venom," says Ursio, and I know it's his treasured hand crossbow with its steel "fangs" jammed into my back. "You'll be dead before your body hits the street."

It seems unlikely that Ursio has acquired the deadly and expensive poison, but on the scaffold I see the hooded men dragging Bonner to a table, where a third man awaits with a pair of curved knives held high for the crowd's acclaim.

I crush the leaves and wipe their oily surfaces over my eyes. It stings at first, and then my vision blurs and snaps back to vivid clarity, better than my usual vision but with an unreal heightening of every hue. Bonner looks the same, although his fervid muttering breaks into a panicked gobble. I'm not sure the sakava leaves have done their magic, but then I notice a fiery halo around one of the hooded men. Behind him, huge leathery wings twitch as his fellows hold Bonner screaming to the table.

"Now," says Ursio. He shoves hard enough to make me drop the leaves.

"Zandros said to bring him back in one—" One of the figures behind me has a boy's voice with a country drawl, cut off by a smart crack to the head.

"Quiet," says a third voice just behind my elbow. He snuffles back a load of phlegm, and I know it is Rennie the Quick, a halfling notorious for the instant conjuration of makeshift blades.

"My apologies," I say to the woman. "My schedule is busier than I thought."

"Wait," she says. "Where will I meet you?"

"You won't," says Ursio. He pulls my arm and shoves his weapon into my back.

Rennie grabs the other arm, and they guide me away from the crowd. Behind us, Bonner screams like a damned soul, which soon won't be a simile. I know what the torturers are doing to him, but I'm glad I don't have to watch as they slice open his skin to sew in packets of writhing scarabs imported from the dank crypts of Katapesh.

Ursio and his henchmen guide me into the narrow alley just north of Mercy Street. We thread our way through a platoon of cooks grilling skewered meat over coals. Whenever one notices the crossbow pressed against my back, Ursio growls a threat that stifles all curiosity.

Eventually we turn off the main alley into a cul-de-sac containing a sewer grate. While I know Ursio has gotten his hands wet for Zandros more than once, I remember what the boy said. No one knows the sewers better than Rennie, so he is the one usually sent to deliver messages or escort those summoned to the Goat Pen unseen.

"What's it to be, boys?" I take a couple of big steps forward and turn around with my hands in clear sight. I get a good look at them.

The boy is pale as harvest straw, and he weighs about as much as two handfuls of the stuff. The way he keeps glancing at Rennie and Ursio for direction, he must be a raw recruit. He holds a broken chair leg close to his hip, afraid someone will spot him with the weapon.

Ursio looks the same as when I first met him, as if someone had taken a proper dwarf and dragged him through a garbage dump. The beads and fetishes tied in his tangled beard look more like the detritus of last week's suppers, and he has more brown teeth than yellow. The last two fingers of his right hand once fed a shark, or a crocodile, or a bunyip, depending on which story you hear. I like to think he lost them in a bet.

Rennie, on the other hand, looks nothing like I remember. The halfling's always been known as "the Quick" among the Goatherds, a gang so mean and ugly that I had to leave on account of my good looks. Now I see that "Ratface" would suit him better, because in the weirdly sharp vision of the sakava leaves, I see his usually pocked face smoothed over with brown-black fur, his prominent nose elongated into the pointed snout of a halfling-sized rodent.

I gape at Rennie, maybe a little too obviously, but the boy buys it and takes a step back. Ursio ignores my mugging, but he spares Rennie a glance before fixing his tiny black eyes on me. "Zandros wants a word."

Obviously they see a halfling, not a wererat.

"They have no idea, do they, Rennie?"

The halfling scowls, confused but with a dawning realization hardening his jaw.

The boy takes another step back. Ursio jabs his crossbow at me. "None of your tricks, Hell-spawn."

"The trick is on you," I say. "Or have you always known why Rennie knows the sewers so well?"

"I'll cut you," hisses Rennie. A blade fashioned out of a blacksmith's rule appears in his furry grip. Even as I tense for an attack, the sakava vision wavers, and I see Rennie as the others do. The rat was cuter.

"Those leaves I rubbed on my eyes show me things the way they are," I say. "You're still ass-ugly, and the kid is a kid, but Rennie here is one of those wererats Zandros thought we wiped out last—"

I leap back just in time to avoid a slash across the belly, but Rennie nicks my favorite jacket. My back hits the alley wall, and I kick Rennie in the chest, forcing him back.

"Stop it!" shouts Ursio. The point of his crossbow drifts away from me, but I'm not close enough to make it work. I stagger a few steps closer to him, pretending to move away from Rennie.

"He's tricking you," cries Rennie. He turns toward Ursio, losing his halfling appearance along with his temper. "You halfwit!"

Ursio's face twists up as he retreats. Rennie should know better than to insult the sensitive dwarf.

"Don't you talk to me that way, you sniveling slip!" He points his bow directly at Rennie, whose mutton-chop whiskers have spread over half his elongating face.

Rennie hisses, and the boy falls over himself trying to get away. He knocks his head against a box of coals and lies stunned on the street. The diversion is enough for me to reach Ursio.

I grab the crossbow just as he starts to turn it toward me. He pulls the trigger, but the string snaps over my hand, flipping the bolt harmlessly against the alley wall. I kick him behind the knees and he falls, still gripping his weapon. I bring my elbow down on his arm and hear a satisfying crack as my spur splits the bone.

Ursio screams as I spin away. Rennie is no fool. Seeing Ursio crippled, he leaps toward me.

His whole body transforms, claws tearing through his soft leather shoes to let his black nails clatter on the cobblestones. He is even bigger than before, swelled with blood as he scrabbles toward me. I carry no weapon potent enough to slay a lycanthrope, and Rennie knows it.

Just then, a thunderous roar fills the alley. Rennie freezes, his ruff standing out from his neck, whiskers twitching. The roar becomes a rumbling growl moving closer to our sewer niche. It is unmistakably the sound of a great cat.

Rennie squeals and leaps past me, wrenching the sewer grate away and vanishing into the stinking hole. I consider following him, but then a shadow falls upon me.

The woman from the plaza peers around the corner cautiously, a thin scroll dangling from her hand. The glittering mist from the expended magic trails off the parchment. She glances at the sewer entrance, then down the alley where I see Ursio staggering away, cradling his broken arm. Not far away, the boy moans and clutches his head. I offer him my hand.

"You all right, kid?"

He hesitates, eyes wide.

"I'm not going to hurt you," I say. "What's your name?"

He takes my hand and I pull him to his feet. "Gruck," he says.

"What about you?" The woman touches my arm. "Are you all right?"

"Never better," I tell her. "Thanks to your little trick."

"Oh, that was nothing," she says. "Just a little exercise I'd been copying."

She sees me looking past her shoulder and turns to see Ivo Elliendo flanked by his Hellknights. Beside me, the kid gulps, and I lay a heavy hand on his shoulder to keep him calm and still.

"What is this commotion?" demands Elliendo. His eyes have already lit upon Ursio's dropped crossbow, and he idly smacks his folded gloves against his left palm.

"My friend Gruck here was just delivering a piece of evidence," I say. "This crossbow might have been used in some Cheapside robberies last year. Gruck found it in a pawn shop and thought of me."

Elliendo steps closer, and his Hellknights step behind us to cut off escape. They bring a whiff of brimstone into the alley.

"I heard a loud noise," says Elliendo. He slaps my hand away from Gruck's shoulder with his gloves and chucks the boy under the chin to get a good look at his face. The scrapes are obvious. "Has this half-breed assaulted you, boy?"

The kid doesn't even flick his eyes toward me as he says, "No, I fell."

"Ah," says Elliendo. "How did you fall, boy? What precisely caused your fall?"

"It was—I saw a rat run out at me. A big rat."

"Indeed," says Elliendo. "That does not explain the sound."

"Biggest alley cat you ever saw," I say, holding my hands about three feet apart.

"I asked the boy, hellspawn. When I desire your—"

"It's true, Paralictor," says the woman.

Elliendo peers down at her. "And who might you be, Miss…?"

"Henderthane," she says. "Pavanna Henderthane."

Elliendo's stern countenance melts into a gentler expression. "My condolences. Einmarch Henderthane was a loyal servant of the crown." He seems ready to say something more, but he glances at me and the kid before deciding against it. "I trust whatever business you have with this person is nothing to do with—"

"It is a personal matter, Paralictor," she says. "I know you understand."

His curt frown says he may understand, but he doesn't like it. "Very well," he says. "I see no reason to delay you further. Good day, Miss Henderthane." Ignoring Gruck and me, he clicks his heels and nods a bow toward her before pivoting on his heel and striding away with his Hellknights in tow. I like the way his half-cloak swirls when he does that. He must spend hours in front of the mirror practicing.

"Nice job, kid." I turn toward Gruck, but he is already trotting down the alley. I shrug and collect Ursio's crossbow and the misfired bolt. Sniffing it, I am relieved to detect the stench of sewer moss, not a proper poison. My scratch will itch for a while, but I won't need to spend my savings on a magical cure. I look at Pavanna and say, "I owe you one."

"Then get me an interview with Count Jeggare." She smiles, as pleased by the game as by her success at it.

"It doesn't work like that," I tell her. Before she can protest, I add, "But I'll see what I can do. Let's discuss it over a couple of ales."

"You're buying," she says. That's all right by me.

Three hours later I hop over the wall behind the boss's gardens, wave to the groundskeeper, and let myself in through the kitchen door. Inside, I bump into Malla, a plump human almost as short as her lone slip assistant. The place smells of fresh rye, and I make a show of craning my neck to spot a loaf to filch while snaking a hand in to pinch her bottom. She shakes a rolling pin at me. Our daily pantomime.

"How is the weather upstairs?" I ask.

"Gloomy," she says. "His lordship was asking after you."

I wind my way through the labyrinth of the servants' area and up the stairs to the foyer, where I glance up. The enormous portrait of Pontia Jeggare stares down with an expression of stern benevolence. I never met the boss's mother, of course, but even eighty years after her funeral, she remains the lady of the house. I tip her a wink, because I think she'd have liked me.

The butler intercepts me at the top of the steps. His arms are full of parcels and letters, an overwhelming load for a halfling.

"Make yourself useful," he says, thrusting his burden toward me. He nods in the direction of the library.

The boss still calls it the library even though the two floors of ceiling-high bookshelves are hidden by a calamity of bric-a-brac. On three long tables filling half the lower floor is an array of stuffed and mounted creatures. Among the dead menagerie are jars of dried plants, bones, rocks, muddy fluids, and a few nasty-looking creatures preserved in dark liquids. There are weapons and parts of weapons, costumes from far countries, paintings and carvings, shards of pottery, animal skins, nautical devices, dwarven measuring tools, brushes, clamps, magnifying glasses, and terrariums. The place looks like a warehouse full of
all the confiscated belongings of a legion of crackpots and packrats.

The other half of the room contains several globes of the world, and models of the nearby worlds in a gnome-built contraption the boss calls an orrery. More than anything else, on easels and tables and podiums, the boss has maps. A few are the grand inked and illustrated maps agreed upon by sages and ministers of states, but most are hand-drawn, some of them so recently or so long ago that charcoal dust rises from the parchment at a touch.

The boss slumps in a stuffed leather chair by the fire, one knee hooked over the arm. A fine crystal glass full of a concoction he calls Faerie Fire dangles from his long fingers. That's a bad sign, because the potent liquor puts him in a darker mood when he's been brooding, as he has ever since the Bonner case.

"I know what will cheer you up," I say, setting the parcels down on another chair. "We have a new challenge." The boss doesn't like "cases," "jobs," or "missions." He likes "problems," "puzzles," and "conundrums."

He sighs and runs a hand through his black hair, thick and long as a horse's tail. His dark violet eyes are half-lidded, and I would almost swear his tapered, half-elven ears are drooping just before he leaps out of the chair.

"They're here!" He tears open one of the parcels and sets aside a stack of journals. The second is a small crate that he fumbles over for a moment before letting me pry off the lid. He reaches in and from the packing straw withdraws a mask of painted mahogany. It is the face of a Mwangi spirit. This I know because of some of the boss's previous acquisitions, all of them sent by the so-called Pathfinders who report their excursions to him.

Realizing I've lost his attention until he has revealed each of the new treasures and the accompanying reports, I take a seat. When he isn't looking, I pour the remaining Faerie Fire into a potted Qadiran olive tree. As he reads the letters from his Pathfinders, I light one of those pungent Taldan cigars he detests. At first he is oblivious to the distraction, but then one of my smoke rings passes between his face and the vellum he is reading. He carefully refolds the letter and turns toward me, waving the fumes away until I stub out the cigar on the back of my hand and tuck the butt into a sleeve pocket.

"Out with it."

I tell him Pavanna's story.

"She believes her father was murdered despite the ruling of natural death."

"Which it couldn't have been," I say, "because the cleric she hired to contact her father's spirit can't reach it."

"That does not prove murder," says Jeggare, "but it is an anomaly."

"The real puzzle is why her brother would inherit the entire estate, after her father announced publicly that his will included a generous legacy for her."

"It is not unusual for disinherited nobles to make such claims," he says. "And the executor of Henderthane's estate is reputable."

"The boss is relentless in his pursuit of justice... when he feels like it."

"But there was no bad blood between father and daughter, or even between brother and sister," I say. "It's a mystery."

"No," says Jeggare. He spots his empty glass and shoots me a suspicious glance. "It is a tedious family squabble."

"What about the mother?" I say. "In the event of his death, she was to have received an annuity. It is common knowledge."

"Yes," says Jeggare, "it is common, tawdry, and completely devoid of gravity."

He is in a particularly foul mood, and I don't want to make it worse, but more than that I don't want to tell Pavanna that I can't return her favor.

"I suppose you're right, boss," I say. "Elliendo said you'd never take up this one."

Sometimes that ploy works, but not this time. With a bored sigh, Jeggare turns back to pluck at his Pathfinder reports.

"‘What could interest Jeggare about a disinherited opera singer?' he said." I think I capture Elliendo's sneering tone, even if perfect mimicry is not foremost among my talents. While he hasn't been to the opera for months, it is one of Jeggare's cyclical passions. "‘To him, the disgrace of Drulia Henderthane is far too sentimental an affair for him to risk his—'"

"Drulia Henderthane?" says the boss. "You neglected to mention that name."

"She's the mother."

"I was there the night she performed." His voice takes on a wistful tone, and for a moment I think I'm in for a story. Instead, he stares across the library, forgetting about the Pathfinder reports as his mind drifts back in time. I know better than to interrupt his reverie. It means he is reaching a decision. I thrust my thumbs between my middle fingers for luck.

"Very well," he says, striding to the wall where he pulls the cord to summon his butler. "I shall send a message to House Henderthane. While we await a reply, wash yourself. You smell of sulfur and the sewers, and also of an expensive Andoren perfume."

"It was strictly business, boss."

"Once you are clean, fetch your livery."

When I wear that ridiculous footman's costume, I feel I should be grinding one of those dwarven music boxes and capering for coppers in the street. "But boss—"

"No arguments," he says, and I know this is only the beginning of his revenge.

Chapter Two: House Henderthane

The most notable legacy from Count Varian Jeggare's elven father is the red carriage.

Half the size of the other famous vehicle in Cheliax, it displays nothing like the royal carriage's gold leaf or nine hundred tiny carvings of the city's war heroes, diabolic and otherwise. Elven braids line its seams and twist into elaborate knots at its joints, but its lacquered panels are otherwise unadorned. The deep color comes from the wood itself, harvested over a hundred years ago from the Verduran Forest. Four men can ride comfortably inside, if no one slouches. Sometimes the boss lets me join him there, but not this afternoon. He's still irritated that I brought him the Henderthane case.

From the footman's perch, I can see over the head of the slip driver, another advantage of the boss's mostly halfling domestic staff. I would enjoy the breeze if the Jeggare livery weren't strangling me. As I tug at the collar, I spot a familiar figure at the corner of Ivy Lane. He turns away, but I've already marked him as one of Ivo Elliendo's informants. Despite his celebrated intellect, the paralictor hasn't realized his men's faces are known throughout the city.

Just as I'm about to slide open the tiny window to warn Jeggare we're being watched, I hear him call out to the driver to turn west, toward Cheapside. He has a good eye, the boss.

The misdirection takes us on a detour far enough into the dock district that the scent of spring gardens surrenders to the fishy stink of the waterfront. A few Goatherds spot me and turn away from the half-barrel they use as a dice table to hoot at my costume. I shoot them the tines, and their jeers turn to curses.

The driver snakes through Cheapside and back toward the center of town. The stone and timber buildings give way to the red-veined black marble that has spread like a cancer from the heart of Egorian. Half the noble houses have beggared themselves to make their buildings uniform to the royal fashion, and the other half are queued up with builders. One day the infection will reach Old Egorian, and I wonder what the boss will do.

House Henderthane was one of the first to rebuild in the new style. Its crenellated towers make the ivy spires of Greensteeples look like a country chapel. I half-expect to spy watchmen patrolling the roof, but that'd be only fitting for the manor of the family responsible for arming the troops of Cheliax. At the sight of the red carriage, the guards open the gates and direct the driver to the entrance, a grand pair of studded doors beyond a circular gravel drive.

When I hop down to open the carriage door for the boss, I notice the doormen stiffen at the sight of me. I'm the sort of thing they're paid to keep away from the house, but while I wear the Jeggare livery, there's nothing they can do.

"Welcome to House Henderthane, Count Jeggare. I am Niccolo, at your service." The majordomo is a wasp-thin human somewhere between fifty and sixty years old, judging from his gray. He seems to have misplaced his chin. When he bows to the boss and sneaks a glance at me, he reveals no disdain for my fiendish ancestry. "Lord Henderthane awaits you in the master's den."

We follow him through a grand hall with sweeping stairs leading up past a chandelier big enough to sink a fishing boat. He leads us down a mirrored hall, and I wink at an endless army of the three of us, human, half-elf, and hellspawn. Niccolo opens a door and steps through to announce, "Count Varian Jeggare, milord."

The room is all lacquered oak and taxidermy. I recognize maybe half of the wild beasts whose heads some Henderthane servants removed after their masters had slain their prey. Those on the east wall all seem to be from the Mwangi Expanse, as are several tribal shields and spears that look similar to artifacts the boss displays in his own library.

The late Einmarch Henderthane's portrait rests on a desk moved against one wall like an altar. Black crepe surrounds the frame, and a litter of calling cards and small mementos lies before it. The artist captured a robust, jocular face of a man perhaps fifty years old, so the painting must have been recent.

The boss bows with that old-fashioned hand gesture I've seen no one but actors imitate. I guess it was in fashion decades ago, but it still charms the nobility. Beyond him, a man and a boy nod back, while beside them a woman in silks and lace dips behind her fan in a deep curtsy.

"It is an unexpected honor, Count Jeggare," says the boy. He is small, but his adult clothes and erect posture make it hard to tell his age. His voice hasn't dropped, but he speaks like a practiced orator. "I am Morvus Henderthane. This is my uncle Orxines." He pauses to let the man make another curt nod toward the boss. Orxines is tall and fair, with a neat little yellow beard that I envy. On the other hand, I save money on barbers.

"And this," says Morvus, turning to the young woman, "is my sister Pavanna."

I choke. This frilly vision looks nothing like the woman who put a hook in my—well, let's call it a heart—just a few hours earlier. Her hair is pinned up in an architectural fantasy, and the freckles that fascinated me over a few beers have vanished under a fine dusting of powder and rouge. When she lowers her fan to favor the boss with a smile, I recognize the bow of her lips and the faint mark where her nose-ring had been. She doesn't look at me.

"Enchanted," the boss says. "If I am not mistaken, I once had the privilege of your acquaintance some years ago, at the opera."

Pavanna's smile fades as she tries and fails to recall his half-elven face. It has not changed much in her lifetime.

"You were surrounded by a fleet of admirers," says Jeggare. "It is no wonder that you do not remember."

She blushes in a way that makes me feel she does it on purpose, and I feel the heat on my own cheeks. The boss is smooth with the ladies, when he can be bothered, and I hope he's only feigning interest. I saw her first.

"I understand you wish to inquire about my father's death," says Morvus.

The boss hesitates, and I know he's caught off guard by the boy's directness. "My apologies, Lord Henderthane. Please accept my sincere condolences on your loss. I understand how painful it is to lose a parent so young."

This always works, but I've seen it so many times that I know it for the ploy it is. Jeggare's mother was hardly young when she died, but his eighty-year mourning is one of his most famous eccentricities. I notice it takes the edge off Morvus's inquisitorial expression.

"Of course," says the boy, but his uncle puts a hand on his shoulder.

"We are aware of the aid you have provided our peers in difficult circumstances, Lord Jeggare," Orxines says. "But I assure you we require no such assistance. Lord Henderthane has made no request for your services."

The way he says the last word is what the upper class think of as a veiled insult, but there's nothing veiled about it, even to a gutter-rat like me. The boss understands it too, but he doesn't let on. Plenty of his peers see his arrival as the scandal instead of the remedy. He says, "I come at the request of another member of the family."

The boy's furrowed brow tells me that he has no idea who contacted Jeggare, since he has more cousins than I've had hot meals, but Orxines glances at Pavanna. Morvus says, "Let us discuss the matter further."

Niccolo clears his throat. When I turn toward him, he crooks his finger to lead me away. I glance at the boss, and he nods. To the Henderthanes, I've been dismissed. To the boss and me, I've been put to work.

I follow Niccolo out of the den and through increasingly less fabulous halls until we descend through a hidden door beneath the entry stairs. There the ceilings are barely higher than seven feet, and the walls are painted plaster. After a few turns, we reach a long hall with rooms to either side, all with windows at face level to allow the servants no privacy behind doors.

"As your master's visit will be short, I've got no chores for you," says Niccolo. His fine speech slips off like a doxy's skirts now that he's below stairs. He jerks his head toward a busy room. "You can have a cuppa tea in the kitchen."

I squeeze in between a couple of housemaids folding napkins at the kitchen table. They make a show of moving away, but when I give one the little smile, she looks down to hide her face. When she peeks back up, I tip her a wink and get a giggle.

"Here now, don't you bother them girls," says a woman I take to be the mistress of the kitchen. She must outweigh me by half, but it's all muscle and grit. She slides a clay mug of steaming tea across the table toward me. "They're dreamy enough without your encouragement."

While thinking of a way to break the ice with the tough old gal, I appraise the other servants. An under butler counts the silver while the maids responsible for it stand nearby, awaiting his verdict. A boy brings a yoke with two pails of water in for the woman I take to be the cook, and she points him to a scullery maid scrubbing what appears to be the last in a large collection of copper pots. Two more servants, a man and a woman, inspect bushels of produce and call out quantities to a one-armed man who checks off a tally with a drooping quill.

"What's a classy girl like Pavanna doing in a place like this?"

All of them are human, which tells me that the Henderthanes are a particular breed. Most noble houses employ at least a few halflings, knowing that they accept lower wages. Besides, for sweeping chimneys and other cramped jobs, you can't beat a slip.

Just before I can crack wise with the water boy, who looks a likely mark for gossip, I hear a woman's voice in the hall whisper, "What's he doing here?"

"Never you mind, Rusilla," says Niccolo. "Go check on your girls upstairs. Last week the guest rooms were in no state for visitors." Without turning my head, I peer over to see the majordomo turning away a woman in a maid's apron. She has a round, simple face with childlike eyes opened wide at the sight of me.

"But it's always a scandal with that one's master," she says.

Niccolo gives her a gentle push, but she is immovable.

"Go now, Rusilla dear," says a woman from behind her. I can't get a good look without giving away my attention, but with a sidelong glance I get the impression of sculpted cheekbones and hair wrapped tighter than a tourniquet.

Niccolo closes the kitchen door and draws the newcomer close into a whisper as Rusilla retreats. They face each other, so I look directly at them through the glass. The newcomer is a tall woman of severe beauty. In her iron-gray hair is pinned a nurse's bonnet.

Why has he come? says the woman. She has excellent diction, so it's easy to read her lips.

Niccolo shrugs and says something about the late Lord Henderthane and not knowing the details. I catch her name on his lips—Korva.

Then why aren't you still there? she says. I want to know every word.

He begins to protest but resigns with a sigh and marches back toward the den. Korva looks at me, and I meet her gaze as if only just seeing her. I try the little smile, but she gives me nothing back before turning on her heel and walking away.

"Such a fuss," says the cook. She brings the kettle over to give me a warm-up. "Why has your master come to Henderthane, hmm?"

"I was hoping you could tell me."

"Something about the late master's tryst, no doubt," says the man tallying carrots and cabbages. "The harlot must be blackmailing the young Lord."

"Who would believe the word of a hellspawn whore?" says the cook.

Sometimes the best way to get the servants talking is just to listen, but I feel their eyes on me, and I know my cues. Since the masters of Cheliax first conjured diabolic legions rather than surrender another rebel holding, no one is more loathed than us hellspawn. That doesn't stop the men of Egorian from visiting devil-blooded doxies, especially those with certain features not found on human women. I recite the common protest of men spotted leaving a hellspawn brothel: "Only a fool believes a Tall Tail."

After a moment's silence, the girl beside me stifles her laugh with the napkins she is meant to be folding, and then the cook guffaws. You can always bet the staff have heard of the city's most notorious hellspawn brothel.

"Asmodeus knows what pox she gave him," says the tally man.

"Enough of such talk," says the cook.

I file away this information and change the subject. "Mistress Henderthane looks familiar."

"Don't get any ideas," says the cook. She gives me a warning scowl before turning her back to review a list by the stove. I listen to the household gossip for a while, but none of it sounds useful.

My boredom must be obvious, because the giggling maid nudges me with her knee. I lift an eyebrow.

"You might have seen Mistress Pavanna at the Palace," she whispers. "She skips her calligraphy lessons to visit her mother."

"At the Palace?" I can't help sounding impressed, but then I realize the maid knows perfectly well I'd never been within a street of the Royal Palace. She means the "Palace" in Cheapside.

"Aye," she says, lowering her voice further. "Her impresario tried to get her a place back in the opera chorus, but after the misfortune, there wasn't a hope."

"I know who you mean," I say. I have no idea. "That impresario by the name of..."

"Pandarus the Pleaser, he fancies himself."

Before I can ask another question, Niccolo leans into the kitchen to crook a finger at me. Time's up.

When we return to the den, the boss is sketching a map of the Mwangi Expanse in the air. Morvus hangs on his description of intertribal relations while Orxines gradually moves toward the door in a bald effort to encourage Jeggare's departure. Pavanna looks at Jeggare and her brother with a curious expression on her face. Is she puzzled? Disappointed? I can't read her beneath all that lace and powder.

"You should lecture at the Academy," says Morvus. His voice is charged with enthusiasm. "No one there knows half as much about Mwangi culture as you've just told me."

"It is a hobby horse of mine," says Jeggare. His understatement is lost on everyone but me. He has already spent two human lifetimes on his various hobby horses. "It would be a pleasure to share what I have learned with your fellows."

"A splendid idea," says Orxines. "However, I am sure the Academy schedule is fixed for months to come."

"But Uncle," says Morvus, "schedules can be changed."

"Of course," says Orxines. I can tell from his tone he's saving his objections for after we leave.

Morvus says, "It was an honor to meet you, Count Jeggare."

The boss bows a little lower than before. "The honor was entirely mine, Lord Henderthane." More bows and courtesies, and soon Niccolo has us back out beside the carriage. The edge of the sun has fallen beneath the silhouettes of the western buildings as we drive past the gates. Once we're out of sight of the guards, the boss has the driver stop and beckons me inside.

"What did you learn?" he says. I tell him about Korva and Rusilla, the rumor about Einmarch's doxy, and Pavanna's visits to the Palace of Jubilations.

"Excellent," he says. "Unfortunately, I spent most of our interview deflecting questions about the identity of our employer."

"Pavanna looks a lot better out of all that foofaraw."

Jeggare looks at me.

"I meant in different clothes."

"I found her quite fetching as she was," he says. "Did you note the family resemblance to Morvus?"

"I was in there for only a couple of minutes." Most of that time, I confess to myself, I was looking at Pavanna, but since they have different mothers, it's no surprise she looks nothing like her brother.

The boss raps on the roof. When the driver opens his little window, Jeggare says, "To Ruby Street."

It isn't the worst place in Cheapside, but no one boasts of going to the Palace. I've been there a few times to talk to afternoon drunks as they gaze mournfully up the singers' skirts.

The driver parks near the Ruby Street entrance, over which a sign advertises the name of the establishment in garish colors: The Palace of Jubilations. Above that is a long faded line of dancing girls kicking up their skirts. Paint flecks snow down on us as I push through the saloon doors.

We pause a moment to let our eyes adjust to the gloom. Red and green shades cover the lamps, casting carnival colors over the crowd. A couple dozen men slouch over their drinks, a few of them slurring the sad clichés of their lives to each other but most staring at the one bright point in the room.

On a little stage in the corner stands a woman in what might have been an opera gown before someone cut the front of the skirt up to her thighs. Green-white light shines up from the little wells surrounding the stage, and motes of lime drift around her feet. The merciless light emphasizes the failure of her heavy makeup to mask the years of disappointment on her face.

The sultry love song makes few demands on her voice, but I can tell she has a little talent. I can also tell it's only a little. Anyone who can really sing ends up in the opera chorus or in a legitimate playhouse.

"Drulia Henderthane," says the boss.

He filled me in on the way over. Einmarch Henderthane's second wife was a chorus girl in the Royal Opera. After the death of the first Lady Henderthane, Einmarch took a fancy to the ingénue, who was quick to believe his promises of making her the toast of Egorian. In thanks for the birth of his second child, Morvus, Einmarch used his political influence and no small weight of his fortune to persuade the masters of the Opera to elevate Drulia to principal soprano.

The rest of the story everyone in Egorian society knows. Woefully short of talent, Drulia gave a single performance before the mortified nobility. The peers were all very polite, but alehouses across the city crackled with mockery within moments of the closing curtain. All that remained was full retreat, and when the opera reopened two weeks later, it was without Drulia Henderthane. The marriage lasted slightly longer.

"Mrs. Henderthane doesn't seem overly dismayed by her husband's death."

A barmaid finds us before we find a table. I flash the little smile and hand her one of the boss's coins, whispering "Pandarus" in her ear. She points us to a table just big enough for two goblets of wine before disappearing through a drape behind the bar. Moments later, a rotund little man with tiny brush strokes for mustaches bustles out from the curtain. He snaps his fingers at the bartender and points to our table before joining us.

"Pandarus the Pleaser, my lords." He makes an obsequious bow before pulling up a third chair with a flourish. "How may I be of service?"

"The singer," says the boss. "We'd like to meet her."

Pandarus smiles, and I see two gold teeth in his mouth. From that point, it's just a question of haggling before he takes us backstage.

The girls at the Palace share a common dressing room, and they aren't girls, strictly speaking. Most are older than me, a few old enough to be my mother. When Drulia's set is finished, she returns to sit before a dressing table cluttered with jars of cosmetics and a carafe of wine with a single pewter goblet. Another woman leaves to take her place on stage while two others sit around staring at us. I put a couple of Jeggare's coins in their hands, and they get lost. I have to put twice as many into Pandarus's fat fingers before he stops hovering. As he departs, Drulia plucks a slim brown cigar from his breast pocket and holds it just above her shoulder. I take the hint and fetch a candle from her dressing table. She cups the flame and draws a light.

The boss skips the courtesies he displayed at the manor, which I figure is a good call. Drulia wasn't born a Henderthane.

"I am looking into your late husband's death," he says.

"Pavanna hired you." It's not a question.

The boss never gives up his clients. When Drulia looks at me, I shrug.

"No one loved him more than she did," she says. "I suppose no one else loved him at all."

"You do not seem surprised that we are investigating his death," says Jeggare.

Drulia takes a long drag off the cigar. "Nothing surprises me anymore."

"How did you hear of it?"

"Pavanna told me," she says. "It was the last time I saw her, just before the funeral."

"You did not attend?"

She sets the cigar on the edge of her dressing table and wets a cloth in a basin. "What do you think?" she says. She begins wiping the caked powder from her face.

"But what of your son?" asks Jeggare. "Didn't he need you?"

Drulia sets aside the washcloth to look at him. The kohl is smeared in a half-spiral around her eyes, but I see her son's features clearly in the proud tilt of her head. "Morvus never needed anything his father didn't give him."

"His Uncle Orxines was there to support him during this difficult time."

"Uncle?" She emits an anemic laugh and picks up her cigar. "‘Uncle' Orxines is headmaster of the Scions Academy. No doubt he wants to make sure Morvus doesn't withdraw his tuition during ‘this difficult time.' Morvus must decide how to spend his portion of the inheritance."

Jeggare considers her words and says, "Morvus is sole heir to the Henderthane estate."

Drulia almost drops her smoke. "There must be some mistake. Einmarch showed me his new will when he reduced my inheritance. Pavanna was to have a third of his holdings outside the city."

"But you also have heard nothing from his executor since Einmarch's death?"

"No," she says. "But that's no surprise. Einmarch kept sending me money after we separated, even though I told him I didn't want it. I supposed he figured I'd already had my share and wrote me out entirely."

"But not Pavanna."

"He doted on that girl. We all did. She was the one bright spot in the family, even after the embarrassment of my one-night stage career."

"What about Morvus, your own child?"

Drulia takes a long drink of wine. Then she smokes her cigar and stares at the dirty wall. I'm beginning to think she's done talking when she says, "It's the strangest thing, but I have never loved that boy, not from the moment I first held him. I know how that makes me sound. But to me he was always the thing Einmarch wanted, the thing he wanted me for. A son. Now his sole heir."

It's one of those turns in conversations that makes me tense for the kill, as Jeggare pounces at moments of weakness, striking with the question no one expects. It can be thrilling, if you have the stomach for it. He moves his chair to sit closer to Drulia, placing himself in her vacant eyeline. She looks up at him, and I see her lips tremble for an instant.

"I was present during the night of your performance at the opera," he says. I cringe in anticipation. "The role was entirely wrong for you, madame. You are no soprano."

Drulia straightens her back as if bracing for a mortal insult.

Jeggare places a hand on hers. "But as I left the opera that night, there was no doubt in my mind that you belonged on that stage, in another part, not one that had been forced upon you. I hope to see you upon it again one day."

As we leave the Palace, the boss steps into the red carriage and closes the door before leaning out of the window to hand me a pouch of coins. "Perhaps you can learn something of this Tall Tail rumor tonight."

I don't relish the thought of walking through Cheapside in the Jeggare livery, but before I can complain, the driver pulls away. I look around to see whether anyone I know has spied me in this costume, and across the street I see Old Maccabus leaning against the sidewalk rails in front of a pawnshop. Glancing up and down Ruby Street, I spot a couple of the big young scrappers Zandros sends out from his headquarters in the Goat Pen for the rough stuff. They whistle a signal to their unseen companions. They've thrown a net around the Palace, and around me.

Mac crooks his finger, and I weigh the advantage of a head start against that of knowing what he wants to say. With his halo of white hair and a perpetual squint, he looks more like a bookkeeper than an enforcer, but he's the one Zandros sends out for the quiet work. Sometimes that means a soft word in your ear. Other times it means something other than a word. I go lean against the railing beside him.

"I'd bet on you if you ran," he says. "Today and tomorrow, maybe all week. But not for long."

"What's got him so worked up?"

Mac puts his hands in his pockets and shrugs. "I'm not even supposed to be here, but I finished my rounds early and saw the boys headed this way. Figured they could use some adult supervision. Make sure no one got his arm broke."

I imagine the wounded Ursio screaming for my head, not that Zandros would usually do more than laugh at the dwarf's misfortune. Still, it's probably better that it's Mac who arrived to ride herd on the young toughs. Ursio would as soon have them kill me as bring me in.

"Figured you go in, show some respect, find out what the old goat wants." Mac looks me in the eye like an uncle giving advice. "No harm in listening."

He's made his point. I won't have a peaceful hour until I face Zandros, and I can't keep looking over my shoulder while investigating the death of Pavanna's father.

"All right?" says Mac. He pushes off from the rail with his hands still stuffed in his pockets.

It's pretty damned far from all right, but I grunt a reluctant affirmative. Together we walk west toward the waterfront, a wake of gangsters forming behind us.

Chapter Three: The Goat Pen

Walking down Eel Street toward the sunset, I notice again how much the silhouette of the Goat Pen resembles a monstrous crouching toad.

What was once a wheelhouse that raised the big cargo winches had been condemned after the collapse of the Eel Street Dock. Through one of his intermediaries, Zandros bought the stable as well as an adjoining smithy and salt house for a pittance. In the twenty-odd years since, he's tasked his henchmen with shoring up the sagging interiors, but they've done nothing to maintain the exterior. The outer surfaces are dotted with blue mold, and all the walls slump inward to give the place the appearance of a predator tensed to leap. The windows are boarded shut except on the smithy entrance, beside which hangs a scabrous painted board depicting a frothing mug atop an anvil.

Maccabus and I walk in through the single saloon door. With a jerk of his head he dismisses the young toughs who accompanied us. Four or five of them lounge just outside, while the rest drift away into the evening gloom.

Inside, a slip I've never seen before stands on a crate behind the bar wiping mugs with a stained rag. A couple of my former colleagues huddle over their cups at the bar. Both were adults when I first fell in with the gang, and now the Goatherds call them the old men.

"Crasus, Darruck," I say.

They nod at Mac but say nothing to me before turning back to their drinks.

"Come on," says Maccabus. We walk past the bar, and Mac pounds on the door. The guard cracks it for a peek at us before letting us pass. We descend a short flight of stone stairs and enter the lair of Zandros the Fair.

On the far side is a tilting brick fireplace added after the Goatherds moved in. A boy of perhaps ten years turns a spit on which sizzles a carcass of indeterminate origin. To the left is a wide ramp leading up to wide doors with smaller portals cut out of each one, handy escape routes in the event of a raid. On the right are the old stables, each compartment covered with a dirty length of sailcloth to form a more-or-less private sleeping chamber. In the middle is the feast hall, a long horseshoe shape of low mismatched tables around the base on which a great turn wheel once rested. All around sit the youngest Goatherds, greedily devouring their master's feast and washing it down with watered wine. The only one I recognize is Gruck, seated at the nearest table to my left. I nod at him, but he looks away.

Zandros sits before the fireplace on a mound of furs thrown over an oversized throne liberated from some playhouse storeroom. His last black locks have thrown up the white flag since I saw him a couple of years ago, and his hair has thinned so much that the horn-like tumors on his brow are more prominent than ever. His snowy beard makes a sharp point of his chin, and his buckteeth and flat pink nose complete the illusion of an ancient satyr rather than the reality of a scrofulous old Sczarni who should have known better than to cheat a Varisian witch.

Whatever curse she spat at him, it hasn't touched his daughter, Anca, who sits at his feet. The family resemblance ends at her buckteeth, which lend her the oddly winsome appearance of a bunny. She wears more jewelry these days, most of it cheap gewgaws that attracted her attention in the market, but a couple of items look like the genuine article, probably gifts from suitors risking her father's wrath. One trinket in particular looks familiar.

I follow Mac into the middle of the tables, the traditional spot for messengers and the accused.

Zandros glowers at Maccabus. "What are you doing here?"

Mac shrugs. "Finished early. Ran into the boys on the way back."

Zandros thrusts out his meaty paw. His fingers have grown together into two thick rough digits with a stump of a thumb. "The money," he says. "Or the forfeit."

Mac approaches the throne and hands Zandros a little sack of coins. Zandros hefts the pouch and says, "This isn't all." He pours out the coins and begins to count.

Mac draws a dark handkerchief from his coat and lays it open on the table. Inside is a bloody, severed ear. Usually Zandros demands both on the final warning, but I see Mac has made an adjustment for partial payment.

"This is less than half what he owes," growls Zandros. He's a stickler about correct amounts, at least when they're payable to him.

Mac digs around in his coat pocket and drops a thumb-sized gobbet of flesh atop the handkerchief. Earlobe.

One of the new recruits barks a hyena's laugh. One glance from Zandros, and the kid shuts up. Then the Old Goat chuckles, and all the boys join in, some of them sounding quite natural. He's still training this lot of sycophants. I steal a glance at Gruck. His wince tells me he hasn't yet learned to delight in cruelty. He picks at his meat.

"Good work," Zandros says to Maccabus. He waves the veteran thug away with his deformed hand. "Take the rest of the night off."

Mac hesitates and looks at me. Before he can say anything, the bar door bangs open and Ursio stomps down the steps trailed by a couple of bruisers. Someone has splinted his broken arm and bound it tightly to his chest. The dwarf looks ready to shout in triumph when he sees me standing in the ring, but he knows better than to interrupt Zandros when he's holding court. He shoulders a bald-headed boy aside and helps himself to the kid's wine. Mac murmurs a word that might be "luck" as he walks past me and up the stairs.

"Now then," says Zandros, smiling, "to the matter of our long-absent friend, Radovan Copper-Tongue."

You'd think Zandros was a Taldan for his love of stupid nicknames. When I was starting out with the Goatherds, I liked to try a few words before cracking heads to bring back overdue accounts. Whether it was my oratory or my fiendish good looks that did the trick, some of the old men started calling me their golden-tongued devil. Zandros corrected them, saying I hadn't yet earned my way to the big accounts.

I consider four or five snappy rejoinders but decide to keep them to myself. Zandros's smile fades as he realizes I won't help him put on a show for the young Goatherds.

"You should come when I call, boy," he says.

"I'm here now, Zandros. What do you want?"

"Perhaps I wished only to see how well you fare these days, beyond my protection," he says.

"At the point of a crossbow?"

"Ah," says Zandros. His gaze flicks toward Ursio, who raises his goblet to cover a guilty expression. His version of our encounter must differ in a few respects from mine. "You boys must learn to get along. Egorian is not yet so great that you will not cross paths from time to time."

"Just tell me what you want, and I'll get back to work."

"What sort of work?" says Zandros. He cocks his head like a dog who hears a distant noise. "Perhaps something with which my boys could help?"

The prospect of tasking the Goatherds with ferreting out the story behind Einmarch Henderthane's dalliance at the Tall Tail has a certain appeal, but the boss would never stand for it. More importantly, we'd be as likely to end up with a dead doxy as with useful information.

"Thanks all the same."

Zandros frowns, disappointed but not entirely surprised. "Your current employment puts you in a unique position to be of help to your former comrades."

I had a feeling this might be it. Once I started working for Count Jeggare, Zandros began sniffing around my feet. In the years since, I've learned to deflect the inquiries of my Cheapside contacts, or to feed misleading trifles to the barmaids who seem too friendly too fast. The boss prides himself on discretion in the cases of his peers, whose secrets would prove more than a little profitable to an avaricious soul like Zandros.

I say, "Can you keep a secret?"

"Yes," he hisses, leaning toward me.

"Me, too," I say. He catches my meaning and flinches as if stung by a wasp. I worked for Zandros long enough that I could do him some harm with a few words in the right ears. He has to value my ability to keep my mouth shut, even if it's not for him.

"Surely not every trifle you glean is precious to your new master, nor does everything you hear spill into your ear alone. I know you are investigating the Henderthane estate, for example. Old confidants should help each other."

"I am not your confidant," I say. "I earned my way out, fair as day and night."

"Is that so?" says Zandros. His eyes narrow as he peers around the feast hall, looking at each of his young recruits in order. "Does anyone here remember it so?"

Only Ursio and Anca have been around since my days with the Goatherds. Ursio hates me, and she wouldn't dare cross her father. Both of them know he's Zandros the Fair only so long as it suits his purpose.

"What's a broken arm between friends?"

"I remember," calls a voice from the back of the room. I turn to see Crasus, one of the men who'd been drinking upstairs.

"So do I," says his companion, Darruck. I decide to buy them each a long line of ales later, somewhere else. Both men look straight at Zandros with the blank expressions of veterans who know what they have to lose but don't give a damn.

Zandros stares at them a long moment before saying, "So be it." He smiles, but his hand trembles as he lifts his goblet, and he splashes wine on his beard. Anca raises a handkerchief to his chin, but he slaps her hand away.

"I'll be on my way, then," I say.

"Not so fast," says Zandros. "There is still the matter of Ursio's injury."

"Occupational hazard," I say, but I know where he's going with it.

"You have limited his earning capacity," says Zandros. "You have taken money out of my pocket."

"That's Ursio's problem," I say. Whenever one of us fell sick or got hurt, Zandros insisted we double his cut until we had made up "his" losses.

"Any outsider who harms a Goatherd must face my justice," says Zandros. "And, as you remind us, you are an outsider now."

"An arm for an arm!" shouts Ursio.

Zandros says, "That is just." He nods to the thugs who came in with Ursio, and they step toward me.

"Wait," I say.

Zandros lifts an eyebrow and settles back on his throne. "Well?"

"Your man Rennie is a wererat."

Zandros glances over his shoulder toward the meat roasting on the spit behind him. He laughs, "Old news."

Ursio and a few of the tougher-looking boys join in his laughter, but Gruck bolts from his table and rushes out one of the escape doors. Before it can swing shut behind him, I hear the sounds of his retching in the alley.

"That's the best you have?" says Zandros.

The bruisers grab my arms and force me down to my knees. Ursio leaves his place to make a show of choosing from a stack of spiked clubs in the corner.

If it's a choice between a broken arm and breaking the boss's confidence, then this is going to hurt. I wrack my brain for any scrap I can throw Zandros without compromising my livelihood when I notice Anca staring at me, her lips trembling. I can't decide whether she's eager or fearful to see me hurt.

"That golden comb in Anca's hair," I say. "I know who gave it to her."

Anca shoots me a desperate look. I don't like putting her on the hook, but weighed against the prospect of a broken arm, she comes up light.

"Who?" Zandros is so incensed that he doesn't notice Ursio cried it out at the same time, and I know I have something. The dwarf has long pined for Anca. Ursio glares at me.

"What is it worth to you?" I say. Zandros likes to haggle, so I add, "More than a hellspawn's arm, I reckon."

"Bah!" spits Zandros. He makes a dismissive wave with his disfigured hand, but his head turns in a way that shows he is avoiding looking at Anca. At this moment, there's nothing he wants to know more than the identity of her secret lover.

"Your daughter's virtue?" I say. One of Zandros's favorite Varisian songs comes to mind. "‘A treasure more than gold,' isn't that how it goes?"

He leaps up. "Blast your eyes, who is it?"

"This'll tip the scales. The way I reckon it, you'll owe me one beyond Ursio's cracked wing."

"Yes, yes," says Zandros. "Just tell me, damn you."

I turn to show Ursio all my long, sharp teeth. I can almost see steam coming off his reddened skin. He's tensed to deny any accusation I might make about him, and the prospect is tempting, but the truth is safer.

"That comb was among the items stolen from the Porter Street pawn shop last month," I say. When the news broke, I nosed around a little in case the cheap shop owner came to his senses and offered a reward. It was no trick to learn who was fencing the goods. "Scipio, that big stevedore on the Bunyip Dock."

Zandros turns on Anca, whose cringe is all the proof he needs that I've told the truth. He thrusts a finger toward one of the stable bedchambers, and she scurries away. Behind me, I hear Ursio muttering oaths of revenge.

Seething, Zandros turns back to me. I say, "I can see you're busy here, so I'll be on my way."

"One last thing," he says. "When next you visit the Henderthanes, let them know I look forward to the timely settling of Einmarch's estate, and repayment of all outstanding debts."

"What debts?"

Zandros looks smug. "Such details I share only with trusted friends, but that much should balance the scales between us. Don't you agree?"

After a quick visit to my flat and a change of clothes, I head over to Trick Alley and spend the rest of the night angling for a word with the working girls at the Tall Tail. They're too busy for me to entice any of the hellspawn courtesans off site for a private conference, but at last I wangle a brief word with Velvet, Einmarch's regular indulgence. It takes a little charm and a lot of the boss's coin, but eventually she spills enough that I would bet she isn't so reckless as to extort a house as powerful as Henderthane. A few coins to the Madame of the house is enough to learn that Velvet suffered a brief spate of the prickles and could well have passed it to Einmarch, but that's nothing a man of his wealth couldn't solve with a discreet visit to the Temple of Asmodeus.

By the time I'm finished with Velvet, I'm ready to hit the sack and hope for visions of Pavanna Henderthane as I first saw her in the Plaza of Flowers, her face clean and bright with purpose, not hidden behind some demure fan. But when the dreams do come, they bring images of goat-faced men with pitchforks hunting terrified rabbits through dim avenues. I run confused among them, never sure whether I'm among the hunters or the prey.

The dawn wakes me, and I do my ablutions and say my silent daily thanks to Desna for the luck she's spread in my path, praying for help to tread on the good and avoid the bad. Then I head over to Greensteeples, where Malla feeds me breakfast and gives me her reading of the household weather. The boss was up late poring over his Pathfinder reports, so the servants are cheerful. While compiling the information from field agents to pass along to his superiors in the Society, he neglects to drink and smoke himself into a mournful stupor. The downside is that sometimes those field reports hold his interest more than paying cases, the ones I care about.

When the butler announces the boss is out of bed, I visit the library and find him supervising the packing of various Mwangi artifacts. He has them sent down to the carriage and tells me we're off to the Scions Academy. I don't mention the Jeggare livery, which I "forgot" back in my flat, and he doesn't seem to notice its absence. Jeggare beckons me into the carriage to discuss what I learned at the Tall Tail. I hold off telling him about my encounter at the Goat Pen. Zandros's hint about a Henderthane debt is intriguing, but something tells me to talk with Pavanna before informing the boss. I weigh the benefit of his insight against my desire to deliver the whole story after interviewing Pavanna privately. Before I make up my mind, we reach the Academy.

The building looks like any of a dozen other red-veined marble edifices housing guilds, government ministries, and social clubs, all thorny spires and gargoyles with tall narrow windows in stained glass. When the driver stops the carriage, I hop out to fetch the crate of artifacts. The door opens as the boss approaches, and I recognize the woman as Korva from House Henderthane. The nurse's bonnet I noticed before is once more pinned in her hair, but now she has an embroidered half-cloak draped over her shoulders. The stark red-and-black designs resemble those on the vestments of the clergy of Asmodeus.

The boss introduces himself with his usual old-fashioned grace, and Korva responds with icy civility, introducing herself as "Matron of the Academy." When she looks at me, I stare straight ahead with the indifference of a proper servant. My skin itches where I feel her gaze upon me, and I suffer a perverse pang of regret at leaving the livery at my flat.

Just as Korva frames a protest to Jeggare's unannounced visit, the boss breezes past her and orders me to bring in his specimens. She follows him as he walks into a long hall of oak-paneled walls and checkered tile floor. To either side are windows that remind me of the servants' area at House Henderthane, only these are spacious portals designed to display rather than just reveal the occupants of the other side. I see they are classrooms full of boys, perhaps fourteen or fifteen years old. All are garbed in fine uniforms of black, a few with red insignia of rank at the collar. Their instructors dress like priests of Asmodeus, only their clothing, like Korva's, seems more like military uniforms than clerical raiment.

As I approach the first windowless door, which stands slightly open, Korva turns on her heel and points at me. "You stay right there," she commands. I obey, and she hurries off after the boss, who hasn't broken his stride.

That's as good as an invitation, so I set down the crate of artifacts and ease open the door, beginning a slow count to twenty in my head. Inside is an immaculate office lined with cabinets. I note the keyhole on each one and test the nearest with a gentle tug. Locked tight. The drawers on the desk are similarly secured, but a ledger lies open on the blotter. As I walk over to the desk, I feel a difference in the floor beneath the rug. I lift it with a toe and see the corner of a trap door. I push the rug back into place and look at the ledger. The last page is recently dusted with sand. I know better than to disturb it, but beside a column of dates I make out the names of a half dozen noble families, including the Henderthanes, as my silent count reaches twenty seconds. Just before I go, I surrender to a whim and feel beneath the desk. There I feel a ring of three keys, which I slip into my sleeve pocket. When I step back out into the hall, I see Korva has managed to halt the boss and is speaking to him in urgent but hushed tones. When she glances back to look at me, it's clear she didn't notice my detour.

It's a little too far to read their lips, but from their body language I can see that the boss, despite his century of practice, is losing the charm offensive. Korva takes his arm in a maneuver just shy of the bum's rush and tries to lead him back to the entrance, but Jeggare waves to someone in one of the nearer classrooms. Korva protests, but then Morvus Henderthane rushes out of the room and says, "Count Jeggare! You came so soon!"

"Master Henderthane," says Korva. "That is, Lord Henderthane, please, I was just explaining to Count Jeggare that classes are not to be disturbed."

Boys begin to pour out of the classroom, and Korva casts a baleful gaze at the instructor when he emerges. He shrugs and says, "It was only a few more minutes before luncheon." When he sees that Korva's anger is not mollified, he slinks away.

"Fetch the Father at once," she calls after him. The instructor hurries down the hall and steps out into an interior courtyard.

"I apologize for my intrusion," says Jeggare. "In my enthusiasm to share my latest acquisitions with a fellow student of Mwangi culture, I arrived unannounced."

"Our students are the most promising young men of all Cheliax," says Matron Korva. "Their education is paramount to the future of our nation, as I am sure you understand. Interruptions of their studies are..." She searches for a polite expression and comes up with, "undesirable."

"Of course," says Jeggare. "I wish only to help further that education. When Lord Henderthane informed me that the Academy does not enjoy a collection of cultural artifacts, I felt it my duty to show the lads a sample of my own meager holdings."

Boys stream out of the other classrooms and head past us toward the entrance. As they fling the doors open, I see other carriages have arrived outside the Academy, and a queue of servants has formed across the street to receive their charges. Among them I spy child-faced Rusilla, the maid who was so alarmed by our visit to House Henderthane.

Korva looks past Jeggare, and I follow her gaze to see "Uncle" Orxines emerge from the courtyard. Today he wears garb similar to that of the instructors, only far more elaborate and with a baton of office dangling from a golden belt adorned with black and red stones. When he sees Jeggare turn his way, he dons an indulgent smile.

"Ah," says Jeggare. "Father Orxines."

If he minds the revelation of his double identity, Orxines does not show it. "Let us retire to my chambers," he says. He gestures toward the door opposite Korva's office, and we follow.

"Your boy can wait outside," Korva says to the boss. I've always rankled at that term, especially when it comes from someone of a better class than Zandros, but when the boss nods at me, I nod back like a good servant and follow the stream of young boys out to the red carriage.

"What in the nine Hells are you doing here?" The voice of Ivo Elliendo makes Korva's chilly tones seem warm. I prepare the big smile for him but then remember where we are. It's all very good to brush him off in an alley, but among his class the stakes are higher. I keep my expression neutral as I face him.

The paralictor stands with his hand gently resting on the shoulder of a blond lad. It occurs to me then that all of the boys from the various classrooms are of the same cohort, not various ages as I'd assumed from the several classrooms.

"Answer me, boy," says Elliendo. Before I can answer, a shadow of realization creases his brow, and he marches into the Academy muttering, "Jeggare."

I follow him, but he bursts through the door to Orxines's chamber and has his hands on the boss's jacket before I can reach him. He hauls Jeggare out of his seat and throws him across Orxines's desk, sending a lamp and inkwell crashing to the floor. Korva's hand flies up to her mouth, and Orxines chokes at the sight of the paralictor manhandling a count of Cheliax.

"You have no business here!" Elliendo shouts into Jeggare's face. I move forward to pull him off, but the boss shakes his head.

Elliendo emphasizes his demand by slamming him back down on the desk. Orxines and Korva step away, afraid to interfere. I look to the boss for permission, but the blow has dazed him. He sees nothing but stars.

"Do you understand me, Jeggare?" Elliendo smashes him against the desk again, and the boss doesn't put up a fight. "Stay away from my family."

I hate to see the boss knocked around. It makes me look like a bad bodyguard, but unless he gives me the nod, I can't make a move. On the other hand, he didn't tell me to keep quiet.

"Speaking of family," I say, "how's the wife?"

Elliendo's head turns so fast I imagine I can hear the crack of a whip.

"Your son takes after her," I add. "Handsome lad."

"The old goat hasn't lost his looks—nor his edge."

The whitening of Elliendo's face emphasizes the little semicircular scar beneath his eye. "You dare," he says, turning to me, but he releases the boss. I like his theatrical delivery. The man should be on stage.

Behind him, Jeggare rises from the desk and shakes his head emphatically at me.

"Paralictor," says Father Orxines, "I beg you to withdraw."

From the hallway, several boys stare in wonder at their elders' fracas. Among them is Elliendo's son, his blue eyes round in astonishment. Korva moves to close the door, but Orxines intercedes and holds it open. "Perhaps another location is better suited to your discussion."

Elliendo tugs his jacket down tight and turns toward the boys in the hall, who scurry out the front door. Without a glance at any of us, he stalks out of the office to collect his son.

Jeggare clears his throat and says, "I beg your pardons." He looks a little shaky, but he gives me the nod to leave, so I step into the hall. He walks slowly out the entrance, and I follow him to the carriage and help him inside. With everyone watching, I take my spot on the footman's step instead of joining him inside.

As the driver pulls away, I spot Morvus Henderthane standing on the corner beside Rusilla, whose gaping mouth foretells that this incident will be the talk of House Henderthane when she returns. Remembering something the boss asked me yesterday, I take a good look at Morvus and think back to the rest of his family. The boy has a striking resemblance to his mother, Drulia, but not only does he look nothing like his half-sister, he also bears no resemblance whatever to the portrait of the late Einmarch Henderthane.

Come to think of it, the boy I saw with Ivo Elliendo did not much resemble his father, either.

Chapter Four: The Palace of Jubilations

Atop its colossal fountain, the statue of Mad Prince Haliad peers down at us like a boy inspecting insects as the boss orders the driver once around the Sargavan Plaza.

This detour from the short route between the Scions Academy and House Henderthane is my cue to scan for pursuit. I always tell the boss it would be easier to shake off tails if he traded the red carriage for one of the black coaches so ubiquitous south of Five Favors, but he's sentimental about his father's legacy. When I'm satisfied none of Paralictor Ivo Elliendo's informants are in our shadow, I rap the all-clear from my perch on the footman's step. Jeggare orders the carriage to a halt and cracks open the panel to beckon me inside. Once I'm in, the slip driver slaps the reins and turns the coach north, toward the Triumph district and House Henderthane.

"You noticed something odd about the students at the Scions Academy?" says Jeggare.

"They're a bunch of bastards," I say, remembering the strange uniformity in the students' appearance, as well as the complete lack of similarity between the two boys we knew and their fathers. A faint smile creases the boss's long face, but it's serious business. If it could be proven that these sons of Egorian's most powerful families were illegitimate, an entire generation of Chelish elite would falter.

"Quite possible," he says, "but before making such an accusation, one would want a great deal more evidence than we have seen." Jeggare must have been on to the question of Morvus Henderthane's parentage since he saw the boy standing beside his late father's portrait, but I was too busy staring at Morvus's sister to notice. "What else did you notice?"

"They are all about the same age," I say.

"Almost certainly they form a cohort," he says, "born within the same year, or near to it."

"What does that mean?" I ask.

Rather than answer, he steeples his fingers and rests his thumbs against his chin, forefingers on the tip of his nose.

"There's something else you should know." I tell him that Zandros claims one of the Henderthanes is indebted to him.

"Ah," says the boss. "Young Lord Henderthane is seldom if ever without a chaperone."

I know what he's thinking, because I've thought it too. It's more likely Pavanna who Zandros has hooked. "Maybe he means Drulia."

"There is more value in a loan proffered to a favored child of a wealthy lord, less so in one granted to his abandoned wife," he says. He looks out the carriage window, and I see we've reached the gates of House Henderthane.

At the door, the butler informs us that Miss Henderthane is not at home and that he doesn't know when she'll return. We drive back through the gate and around the corner, where I jump out and climb the locked gate to the servants' entrance. I lurk there for almost half an hour before the giggler I met in the kitchen yesterday comes out to dump the rubbish. It takes the little smile to lure her over, the hint of a nocturnal return to fluster her, and two of the boss's shiny gold coins to secure the information we want. A peck on her slender neck, and a minute later I'm back in the red carriage.

"She left over an hour ago to visit her mother," I say. Jeggare orders the driver back toward Dice End.

As we approach the Palace of Jubilations, a woman runs out the saloon doors hugging a dressing robe shut around her body. Even through her mask of kohl-stained tears, I recognize her as one of the performers we saw yesterday.

Inside, the patrons gabble with the barmaids, the cook, the bartender, and a fellow I take to be a stagehand. Jeggare heads for the back rooms, and I intercept the bouncer who tries to intercept him.

"It's all right," I say. "Pandarus called for us."

A trio of worm-like scars flush pink under the big man's short hair, and I can tell he's not buying it.

"If I were you," I say, "I'd make sure none of these rum sponges leaves before your songbird brings back the guard."

The bouncer's determination falters, and he moves away to whisper a warning to a couple of his buddies. They scarper off, but not before I sketch their faces into memory. The bouncer plants himself at the front door to prevent the rest from leaving, and I follow the boss to the dressing room.

Pandarus, the proprietor of the Palace of Jubilations, stands in the middle of the little room pulling at his fingers. He lifts his feet like a little boy who has to piss but doesn't have permission. Beyond him, Jeggare draws a sobbing woman away from the prone body of Drulia Henderthane and presses her into the arms of another singer.

"Would you be so kind?" Jeggare nods toward the outer rooms. The singer leads the crying woman out of the dressing room, and I shut the door behind her.

Drulia's eyes bulge open, and scorch marks darken her lips and nostrils. The dark ligature of a strangling cord rings her neck. Jeggare closes her eyes with a soft stroke of his hand. He shuts his eyes for a moment and then stands to face the other occupants of the room.

"Who else was backstage?" he asks Pandarus.

Pandarus stammers out a few names. I count them and compare the result with the number of non-customers I saw out beside the stage. It adds up, except for the woman we saw fleeing the Palace—one Sorcia, who found the body five or six minutes earlier—and Pavanna Henderthane.

Jeggare continues the questions while I step out to have a look at the rear entrance. The rubbish-strewn alley behind the Palace shows no signs of recent passage, so I return to the front room when I hear a commotion at the entrance.

A young guardsman stands sentinel at the door while his older partner orders the staff and patrons to sit where he can see them. The veteran scowls at me, but I jerk a thumb toward the dressing room and say, "Back here."

He doesn't protest when I accompany him to the dressing room. There he sees the boss and bows, "Count Jeggare."

The boss returns the greeting with the military nod that always sets the right tone with the city guards. "We arrived seven minutes ago," he says. "The deceased is Drulia, former wife of the late Einmarch Henderthane."

The guard whistles low in appreciation of the name. He sends Pandarus out with the others and listens as the boss relates a brief but thorough summary of what we've learned so far.

"Look here," the boss beckons to the guard. Together they kneel beside the corpse, and Jeggare indicates the marks on her lips and nose. He takes a candle from the dressing table and directs the guard to hold it up while he pries open Drulia's jaw. A lump of what looks like red-black stone tumbles out of her mouth, seething with a vermillion haze. The guard reaches for it, but Jeggare stops his hand.

"Don't touch it," he says. "That appears to be a hell coal."

The guard recoils from the stone. "A what?"

The boss peers into Drulia's mouth, and I briefly glimpse the raw, meaty pit that has been seared out of her skull before he lays her head back. "A tool used by certain devils, or their servants, to destroy the eternal spirits of mortal beings."

The thought that anyone would want Drulia Henderthane not just dead but utterly destroyed weighs down my belly like a lump of cold lead. Sure, she had married into a great house, but she had left all that behind without a fuss. She was nobody special anymore, nobody that anyone would need to obliterate.

The same thought must have occurred to the guard, whose face seems to age as I watch.

"My lord," says the guard, "would you be so gracious as to remain here and continue your examination while I send my junior to summon our captain?"

"In truth," says Jeggare, "I had hoped to speak with—" A new disturbance erupts out front. I take a few steps down the hall, but when I see the hulking silhouette of a Hellknight.

"Bring them to me," snaps the voice of Ivo Elliendo from the salon.

What the hell is he doing here? I wonder. One glance at the boss tells me he is thinking the same.

The Paralictor has two of his Hellknights and four other agents with him. They have already divided the patrons and employees of the Palace into groups at the four corners of the large outer salon. Elliendo's lips whiten when he sees us emerge from the backstage door.

"Keep those two separate from the others," he orders a man wearing blood-colored robes, a studded shoulder guard, and a light helm adorned with spiraling goat horns. He sneers at me as if we're acquainted, but I don't recognize him. I notice a wand secured in a leather holster on his thigh, as well as a half-dozen small leather pouches arrayed on either side of his belt. He's one of Elliendo's signifiers, a spellcaster specializing in interrogations. He points at me, then toward the kitchen. He waves his hand in a somewhat more polite gesture to invite Jeggare along. With a snap of his fingers he summons one of the Hellknights to follow.

As a nod to the boss's title, the signifier finds a tall stool and swipes it with his sleeve before departing with a bow barely this side of insolence. Jeggare takes the seat, leaving me to lean against a dirty counter on which the cook has left a neat row of fish fillets beside a pan of brown flour. Grease hisses and pops on a skillet on the nearby stove, and the air smells like scorched fat. I move the hot skillet off the stove—it takes more than a stove fire to burn me—and try not to think about the burned-out interior of Drulia's skull.

"Gruck's a good kid. It's a shame he's mixed up in this."

We wait in silence for the better part of an hour while Elliendo questions the others. When the guard captain arrives, the Paralictor makes it clear that he has assumed authority over the scene. The captain, whose voice sounds more wise than meek, does not remind Elliendo that murder investigations are the purview of the Egorian city guard, not the Order of the Scourge.

"There's a lesson in that for you," the boss says, reading my expression, "although I am not unappreciative of your earlier efforts to spare me a thrashing, misguided though they were."

That's close enough to thanks to suit me, and any time the boss voices his appreciation, my next pay purse is a little heavier. Much as I might have liked to bloody my spurs on Elliendo's skull when I saw him tossing the boss around at the Scions Academy, it would have been more or less an act of suicide. His attack on Jeggare was socially dangerous, but Elliendo wouldn't have ended up hanging on the Judgment Day scaffold for it, as I would if he charged me with assaulting him.

"Be that as it may," says Jeggare, "never again speak of the Paralictor's wife."

Professional rivalry alone doesn't account for the mutual disdain I've always seen between the boss and Elliendo, not to mention the savagery of the Paralictor's reaction to seeing Jeggare in the headmaster's office. "What is it between you two, anyway?"

Jeggare glances at the Hellknight standing guard at the kitchen door. If he ever answers me, it won't be while one of Elliendo's men is hanging around.

We spend hours in the cramped kitchen before Elliendo comes for us. He gets one whiff of the greasy fish stink and orders the Hellknight to seat us at one of the little tables near the stage, where it smells more of hot lime dust, stale beer, and cheap Taldan cigars.

The presence of Elliendo and his Hellknights reduces the city guards and their captain to the role of lackeys. I'd heard them searching the upper rooms earlier, but now two stand beside a stretcher laid across a couple of the other tables. Drulia's body lies there covered in a patchy remnant of purple velvet curtain. The young guard I saw earlier stands beside the front door, while his elder partner and the captain linger by the backstage door, watching silently as two of Elliendo's Hellknights take places behind us while the Paralictor faces us across the little table. Beside him sits his signifier, sketching sigils on the table in a gleaming blue powder and taking notes on a crisp parchment scroll. Two more of his armored behemoths stand behind the Paralictor, forming a perfect cage.

"Where did you go after leaving the Scions Academy?" asks Elliendo.

"To House Henderthane," says Jeggare.

Elliendo pauses for an elaboration. When Jeggare offers none, he continues with the usual inquiries: Whom did you see? What did you discuss? Where did you go then? The boss summarizes our actions since we left the Scions Academy with truthful answers just succinct enough to irritate the Paralictor. Eventually Elliendo reaches the only question he really wanted to ask.

"So you admit that you expected to find Pavanna Henderthane here?"

"I do not admit it," says the boss. "I state it."

Elliendo's eyes glitter. "Excellent," he says. "Order a search for the Henderthane girl, captain."

"You can't think she killed her mother," I say.

Elliendo ignores me and speaks to the guardsmen. "She is our prime suspect in the murders of both Einmarch and Drulia Henderthane. I want her in custody before morning."

"That's ridiculous," I say. "Pavanna had nothing to gain by her father's death, or by her mother's."

The boss shoots me a warning glance, but I've already stepped in it. The Paralictor gives me the condescending smile of a tutor instructing a particularly dim student. "She could not know she had been disinherited until after her father was dead," he says. "At that point, her only chance of any inheritance came from the death of her mother."

"But that's—" Now that someone has said it aloud, I realize it's perfectly possible, but I don't want believe it.

"Assist my men," Elliendo says to the city guards. "Report directly to my adjutant."

The captain salutes and bows his head. He must know that Elliendo is overstepping his legal authority, but he also knows the Paralictor's power extends far beyond his legal authority.

"And you, Count Jeggare, are to cease your investigations immediately. I don't want to see you or your henchman until this matter is concluded to my satisfaction."

The boss does not reply. It is one thing to awe a guard captain, quite another to intimidate a count of Cheliax.

"Am I understood, Jeggare?"

With a barely audible sigh, the boss replies, "You are, Paralictor."

As we drive away from the Palace of Jubilations, Elliendo's signifier whistles up a pair of agents and sets them to follow us. I see no signs that they also are mages, and they don't even make an effort at subterfuge. Garden-variety goons.

"What the hell is he doing?" I ask the boss.

Jeggare waves me off of the rear seat of the coach and lifts it up to rummage in the compartment below. "He desires a speedy end to the Henderthane investigation."

"What's it to him?"

Jeggare removes a long footman's raincoat and lets the coach seat drop shut. "In itself, perhaps nothing. But it is the reason we visited the Scions Academy, which his son attends."

"I get that," I say. "But why go after Pavanna?"

Jeggare shrugs on the coat. It's too broad for his narrow shoulders, so he cinches the belt tight. "Because it is a logical approach. Unlike us, he is not interested in settling the matter discreetly, only quickly," he says. Then he looks me in the eye. "And also because he knows it will hurt you."

I snort, but it's an unconvincing dismissal.

"Do not underestimate the Paralictor, Radovan. He is smarter than you credit him, and far more cruel. He remembers every slight."

I realize what Jeggare is really telling me. It's my fault Elliendo is going after Pavanna.

"I shall return to House Henderthane," he says, rapping a code to the driver on the front panel. "You shall lead Elliendo's men on a leisurely drive down to Riverside and back."

"Listen, boss, I can help fix this."

"Stay in the carriage," he says, turning to close the curtains on the back window. "Keep them occupied for at least an hour, two if you can manage it." He puts a hand on the carriage door and glances out the window. The driver makes a sharp right turn.

"Boss, you need me to watch your back."

"Fetch me at Henderthane in two hours," he says. "No less." He leaps out of the carriage and darts into the open doors of a cheap wine shop.

I shut the door and peer out through the back curtains. Elliendo's men turn the corner and follow without a glance at the boss's escape route.

I can't waste a couple of hours playing tag with Elliendo's thugs. The boss wants me to stay away from House Henderthane, that's fine. That's the last place Pavanna would have gone if she knew her mother had been killed. I open the driver's panel and say, "Eel Street."

The slip shoots me a look of exasperation, but he slaps the reins and heads toward the waterfront.

We're a couple of streets away from the Goat Pen, and I'm still trying to figure out how to finesse Zandros into helping me locate Pavanna, when a clot of dirt hits the side of the carriage.

"Hey!" shouts the driver. I peek out the window to see him shooting the tines at someone in a nearby alley. Our assailant lingers long enough for me to catch a glimpse of him before he beckons to me and retreats down the alley. It's Gruck.

Through the front panel I tell the driver to take the next left and let me off, then to pick me up after that trip down to Riverside. I hop out and shout to the empty carriage, "Back in an hour. You got it, boss." As the driver pulls away, I step into a sleazy little gambling den and pretend not to notice Elliendo's men coming around the corner, close enough that I'm certain they heard me. One will follow the carriage, the other me.

The occupants of the shack barely glance up from their cards as I pay the dealer the toll and head through the back door. When my tail follows me, he'll have a long negotiation to get into the "upstairs game," by which time I'll be gone.

Gruck waits for me in the alley. "Miss Pavanna," he says, gesturing for me to follow him. The thought of another Goatherd trap crosses my mind, but it's worth the risk. Besides, I've got a good feeling about the kid.

I follow him through the back alleys to an old tenement variously employed by squatters and fugitives from the city guard. We take the rear stairway up to the second floor, pause for a look around, and climb in through a garret window. Inside are four dirty mattresses, a few pieces of salvaged furniture, and a door barred from the inside, leaving the window the only entrance and exit. Pavanna Henderthane rises from her seat on one of the lumpy mattresses. Her eyes are red, but she's dressed like she was when I first met her, so I've never seen anything lovelier.

"I didn't kill my mother," she says.

Gruck's wide eyes tell me this part is new to him, and if I'm right about him, the last thing I want to do is get him more involved.

"Can you get us some food?" I hand him a few coins, plenty enough for a meal, but not so much as to seem like I'm brushing him off.

He looks reluctant to leave, but Pavanna flashes him a smile, and he gives her back a confident nod. He slips over the window sill, and I lean out to take his arm.

"Find a pie shop in Dice End," I whisper, "then come back around Long Market. Take your time."

He hesitates.

"In case someone spots you," I add. "You've been around enough now to be recognized."

His nods with a confidence I know he doesn't yet feel, then slides out the window and clambers down the stairs.

When we're alone, I turn back to Pavanna. "I believe you," I say, and it's mostly true. "Unfortunately, not everyone shares my high opinion."

"Count Jeggare doesn't believe I killed her, does he?"

"No," I say. "I don't think so. But Paralictor Elliendo has ordered you arrested for questioning."

"The Order of the Scourge!" She pales, bringing her freckles into sharp contrast. She knows as well as anyone what methods the Hellknights employ in their interrogations. "Why are they involved?"

"I don't know," I say, again only partly lying. "But I think it's time you came clean with me."

"About what?" she says. I can see by the flicker of her glance that she's stalling, deciding how much I already know.

Keeping the rest of their secrets safe is the reason most Egorian nobles call on Count Jeggare to deal with one that's gotten out. Still, in this case I don't like it, especially since I'm the one who brought this case to the boss, and it's turning out to be more than I expected.

"For starters," I say, "you can tell me how you met Zandros."

"You can probably guess," she says, trying but not quite succeeding in hiding the relief in her voice.

"Spare me the effort."

"Dice, cards, the sticks," she says. "I was always careful not to lose more than I brought with me."

"Yeah," I sigh at the familiar story. "Until that one night."

"More like a bad run of ten or twelve nights."

"How long ago?"

"Five, maybe six months," she says.

"And you've kept up with the interest all that time?" Zandros never lets a month go by without collecting at least the interest, and I shudder to think of how the scabrous old Sczarni collected from Pavanna.

"Yes," she says, but then she sees the assumption in my face. "Not like that. Dark Prince forbid! Have you seen Zandros? I'd sooner sell myself in a Qadiri market."

"So how did you pay off your debt?"

"Calligraphy."

I hit the side of my head with the heel of my palm as if to knock water out of my ear. "Sorry. I thought you said ‘calligraphy.'"

"It is a stupid thing, I know, what a second daughter receives instead of a proper education. But I have a certain knack for it, as you saw the day we met."

I remember the scroll she used to conjure the sound of a hunting cat, scaring off the wererat who was trying to gut me. "That's a little more than calligraphy."

"Well," she says with phony modesty, "I have a little more than a knack."

"Magic," I say.

"Only enough to get me into trouble," she says with the rhythm of a favorite aphorism. But hearing herself say it, she turns somber. "And I thought enough to get me out, too."

The cold lead ball reappears in my stomach. "What did Zandros have you do?"

"He had me rewrite contracts and restore the magical seals."

"Oh, hell."

"I know."

"Do you?" I smack the top of a faded cabinet, causing an explosion of dust. "Haven't you seen what they do to forgers on Judgment Day?"

"I knew it was dangerous, but what else could I do? Everything I've done since then was to try to fix my own mistake."

"It's not that easy," I say. "Did you think Zandros would forget what you had done for him? Even if you ever managed to pay your debt, the secret of what you've done is just another coin he can spend later."

"That's why I came to you." She puts a warm hand on my arm, but I pull away. "I need your help."

"What you need is a long boat ride to Saragava," I say. For a second I wonder whether the Chelish authorities would send an agent to such a distant rebel province to punish a forger. If there is one thing the worshipers of Asmodeus hate, it is a flouter of contracts. Without realizing it, I've been backing toward the door.

"Don't leave me," she says. Before I know what she's doing, she's in my arms. Without her makeup, she smells sweet as spring pollen mingled with the faint tang of fear, her body's musk overpowering even that Andoren perfume the boss smelled on me after our first meeting. Her naked lips brush the line of my jaw. My arms, slightly against my will, encircle her waist.

"Listen," I say, but then she is kissing me. Before my brain can protest, I'm kissing her back, and then her fingers find the buttons on my shirt. She pulls my hands toward the laces of her own, and I don't need any further encouragement.

I know it's dangerous, but what else can I do?

"Even in her current condition, I can't take my eyes off her."

A creak from the stairway outside the window tells me Gruck has returned. We've just finished putting our clothes back in order, and I speak as if that's all we've been doing in his absence. "What's important now is that you stay out of sight while I find out what's going on back at your home."

"You mean you and Count Jeggare, yes?" she says. "He will continue to investigate, won't he?"

"The Paralictor has warned him off," I say. "But yeah, that won't stop him."

Gruck comes in through the window and sets down a couple of covered pails in front of Pavanna. She opens one and takes out a steaming hot stuffed bun while Gruck finds a couple of tin cups and wipes them with his shirt tail. From the second pail he fills the cups with dark red ale and offers one to Pavanna and the other to me. I wave it back to him. "You first," I say. "You brought supper."

We sit a while and eat without talking, sharing the two cups among us three like a peasant family.

"You need to be anywhere tonight?" I ask Gruck.

He shrugs and says, "Nowhere I'll be missed."

"Can you look after her then?"

He nods, chest expanding at the implied compliment.

"After I leave, I want you to find another place," I tell Gruck. "Somewhere the Goatherds don't use. You understand?"

"Yeah." He frowns a bit, trying to think of such a place.

"Don't tell me where," I say. I hand him the boss's expense purse. "Once you're settled, send a message to Greensteeples in Sorrowside. Don't go yourself. Send someone else, and have him tell the butler his order is ready at that place. Got it?"

"Got it," says Gruck.

"What about you?" says Pavanna.

I take a last swig of ale. "I'm going back to find Jeggare and help him fix this problem of yours."

"Promise?" she asks.

I throw one leg over the windowsill and pause before dropping down onto the stairs. "You can bet on it."

Chapter Five: Blackrose Gardens

We cross Thrune Square and pass beneath the enormous bronze statue of Queen Abrogail I ascending to her throne on a stairway of prostrate men and devils.

It's not the sort of shortcut I like, since it puts Count Jeggare's conspicuous red carriage right in the thick of society gossips in Egorian, but the driver is anxious that we fetch the boss on time, and I kept the halfling waiting during my rendezvous with Pavanna. He takes out his frustration on the horses, slapping the reigns with a powerful crack that makes me reevaluate his strength. I decide to buy him a pint later, both to soothe his feelings and because he managed to shake off the Paralictor's goons before picking me up in Bridgeside.

The slip angles north for a few streets before slowing for the turn toward House Henderthane, but instead of taking it he drives past. Before I can ask what he's doing, he opens the panel and jerks his head to right. I peer through the window to glimpse a pair of Hellknights standing at the gate to House Henderthane.

Elliendo must be shutting off every lead he knows we've been chasing in the Henderthane case. I hope the boss had time to slip out before the Order of the Scourge arrived.

"Where to?" asks the driver.

The boss didn't name a backup location, but nearby there's one we've used before. "Blackrose Gardens," I say. The driver cracks the reins again.

Sometimes the boss gets nostalgic about the days before the Thrunes signed the Infernal Compact. That was before my time, of course. It was before my grandparents' time, and Jeggare himself was still a young scion of Cheliax, notorious as the bastard child of Countess Pontia Jeggare. After a few of his fancy cordials, he sometimes muses about the days when the surrounding fields were full of roses, both the red, which had always grown in the region, and the white, which the god Aroden created upon his arrival in Egorian. When Aroden died, however, all the white roses of Egorian turned black, and builders ever since have favored red-veined black marble in new constructions. The architects call this color scheme part of their "Egorian School," but everyone knows they stole it from the flowers of Blackrose Gardens.

The driver detours around the streets surrounding House Henderthane before passing through the rose-twined gates of the oldest public garden in the city. Inside is a labyrinth of topiaries, fountains, pavilions, and beds of flowers imported from all over Golarion. Everywhere among the thousand features of the garden are the black and red roses, married in twines to form high walls and arches.

Here's where I came to escape when I was a kid no older than Gruck, the Goatherds' latest recruit. A few hours wandering the shaded lanes of Blackrose could cool me off after a scuffle with one of the other gutter rats or one of the endless indignities Zandros used to toughen us up. It was here that I first caught sight of the boss as he followed a winding bluestone path among the statues of Chelish nobles whose names have long since been erased by the rain. Later, that promenade became a regular rendezvous when we split up to follow separate leads on a case.

The slip drives slowly past the southernmost statues, a pair of stout lords holding rods and scales for justice and commerce. Beyond them, a muffled figure emerges from behind the armless statue of a centaur. Jeggare hurries to the carriage, where he shrugs off the oversized footman's coat and throws it inside as I open the door. Rather than entering, he nods toward a triangular reflecting pool among the statues, and I follow him there.

He doesn't speak at first, instead pacing the gravel perimeter of the pool. A cool breeze ripples the lead-gray water, rocking the lily pads. I shadow him for a complete circuit and two more sides before I can't stand it anymore.

"I caught up with Pavanna Henderthane."

"Yes," he says in that tone that tells me he already figured that out. I pinch up a fold of my shirt and sniff. It still smells of that Andoren perfume the boss noticed after I first met her. "What did you learn from your encounter?"

I tell him the story about her gambling. When I get to the part where Zandros the Fair bought up her debts and forced her to alter legal contracts with her magical calligraphy, Jeggare turns to face me. He can tell by my expression that I know how serious her crime is. In Egorian, killers go to the salt mines. Forgers go to Hell.

"What did you find at the house?" I say, hoping to nudge him back to the original question: Who killed Pavanna's father?

"Much more than I expected for a short visit," he says. "When I arrived, the butler was receiving news from Rusilla, the nurse we saw escorting him from the Scion's Academy. When I enquired about her association with House Henderthane, I learned that she was originally employed as Morvus Henderthane's wetnurse."

That was unusual, as most wet nurses remained only until a child was weaned. "So why did she stay on?"

"My very question. When I asked, she became agitated at the sight of someone behind me. I turned to look, but the door had just closed. Before I could investigate, Morvus appeared, and propriety demanded I greet him. After Rusilla withdrew, I remarked upon her obvious distress, and Morvus seemed sincerely mystified as to its cause. His concern was such that he summoned the butler to send a maid to inquire after her health."

"You keep all the exciting jobs for yourself."

He doesn't smile at my jibe. "Within minutes, a chambermaid's scream summoned us all to an upstairs guest chamber. We found her body just inside, partially blocking the door. Can you guess how she died?"

I nodded, realizing he had lost his sense of humor for good reason. "Hell coal."

"Just so," says. "Young Morvus kept his wits about him. He ordered an immediate search of the house, with guards at every door. No sooner were the gates sealed, however, than Paralictor Elliendo arrived to demand entrance."

"I take it that's when you slipped away."

"Naturally I begged permission of my host to depart by way of the servants' entrance."

"He didn't mind?"

"No," says Jeggare. "In fact, he seemed thrilled to be party to an intrigue. I pray he will not regret the courtesy. In any event, I hoped your keen eyes would mark the presence of the Paralictor's men and seek me here. Well done."

I can't stop thinking of the danger Pavanna has put herself in by hiring us to look into her father's murder. No matter whether or not we solve that mystery, she's still on the hook for forgery, and Zandros holds the line.

"What do we do now?" I ask.

"We drop the inquiry," says Jeggare. "That is assuming you have already told Miss Henderthane that she must flee the city. Her welfare is your chief concern, is it not?"

"Well, yeah," I say, surprised that the boss would give up so easily. Either he's gotten bored or there's something he's not telling me. "I just can't imagine your letting it drop just like that, especially with Elliendo treading on your heels. Don't you want to put a thumb in his eye?"

Jeggare sighs. "Do not imagine some romantic rivalry between me and the Paralictor. I've told you, he is more dangerous than you credit him."

"But maybe he's behind Henderthane's death. You could expose him."

Jeggare sighs, impatient with me. "If Henderthane had offended Elliendo, it would have been far easier for the Paralictor to root out some legitimate offense for which he could punish the man. Henderthane would have died on the scaffold or been sent to rot in prison. Elliendo employs law as his weapon. He is a cruel but entirely just man."

Before I can object, the boss raises a hand for silence. He's looking past my shoulder. I turn to see a pair of heavily armored men holding the bridles of the horses attached to the red carriage. The driver stands beside them, mournfully gazing at the cap clutched in his hands.

From between statues on either side of the winding path emerge more men, their hands on the hilts of their swords. There are more than enough to prevent an escape. When I meet the gaze of one, he gestures north.

There at the opposite end of the promenade stands the Royal Carriage, its golden panels turning orange in the sunset. At either side of its broad central doors stands a footman in the livery of House Thrune.

The footmen open the carriage doors. The sweep of their hands makes the invitation obvious.

I don't expect the Queen herself, but my throat pinches closed when I see the woman who awaits us in the carriage. Most of her is red velvet on deep golden silk, all of it beetled with gold on black lacquer. If the boss quizzes me later on the details, I'll be at a loss, because all I can see once my stare rises above the edge of her veil are those eyes, black abysses shaded by lashes thick as horse hairs. Her eyelids are faintly purple as if bruised by the sights they have witnessed.

"If you ever think Thrune has promised you something, you're mistaken."

Inside the carriage, the boss makes one of those awkward sitting bows look elegant. He says, "Your grace."

"I have no title," says a husky voice from behind the veil. "I am but an emissary. And you shall have no need to refer to me by any name, as you will never speak of this meeting."

Jeggare nods his understanding. When those eyes turn to me, I nod also.

"Tell me everything you have learned about the Henderthane matter."

The boss never shares the details of one of his investigations, but this time he doesn't even hesitate before reciting a concise summary of the case so far. I'm grateful that he omits certain details, like Pavanna's obligation to Zandros.

"Where will your investigation turn next?" says the veiled woman.

"In truth," says Jeggare, "I had just decided to drop the investigation altogether."

"Oh, do not allow my interest to deter you."

"My decision was made before I became aware of your interest," says Jeggare.

"Perhaps you are concerned about the Paralictor?"

Jeggare inclines his head, acknowledging the point.

"It is certain that in all inquiries concerning the Henderthane murder, wherever they shall lead, the throne shall hold you blameless."

"‘You' meaning both of us?" I say.

The boss shoots me a warning glance, but the emissary's eyes smile, and she inclines her head slightly.

"You said wherever the inquiries shall lead," says Jeggare. "Would that include trespassing on ground dedicated to the Prince of Law?"

"You refer to the Scions Academy?"

Jeggare nods. While the place is a school, it is also officially a temple to Asmodeus, and offenses against its teachers are punished as harshly as those against priests.

"If you were to find some evidence of criminal activity within the Academy, I imagine it unlikely you should be liable for trespass."

"Unlikely?" I say.

"Highly unlikely," says the emissary. "And yet also I imagine it likely that one who revealed wrongdoing within those halls would enjoy a certain amount of favor from the throne."

"I don't suppose we could have that in writing."

Ignoring me and sensing the interview is concluded, Jeggare makes another of those sitting bows. I bob my head and open the door for him. Outside, the footmen close it behind us before leaping up to their posts on the back of the carriage. The rider slaps the reins, and a team of thirteen horses pulls away. The royal guards form ranks and follow at a trot.

Once they are out of sight, I say, "I've come around to your way of thinking on this. I'll find Pavanna and tell her to leave town tonight. We can go, too. You've always wanted to go back and visit all the Pathfinder high mucky-mucks in Absalom, haven't you?"

"Oh, it's far too late to run," says the boss. "Besides, this inquiry finally became truly interesting."

"No, boss, it's suicide."

"Possibly," he says. A faint smile of determination forms on his long face. "But unlikely."

I sigh, knowing I can't change his mind. So I can tell him I told him so later, I say, "Aren't those the words this emissary used?"

The big front doors of the Scions Academy stand at an intersection graced with four bright lamps. Little street traffic circulates at this hour, but I spot a few late-night strollers in every direction, and at least one is bound to see me if I fiddle with the locks in such a conspicuous spot. The servants' entrance from the back looks promising until I notice a pair of dottari strolling up the alley. I touch my chin in greeting as I pass them, and they return the courtesy with a snarl reserved for half-breeds and villains. Being both, I can't complain.

I waste a good ten minutes taking the long way around for an approach at the third possible entrance. A small courtyard abuts Verduran Avenue, but its high iron fence bristles with razor thorns, and the lock has one of those dwarven trap-covers that snapped my best picks a few months back. This time I have something better than a pick. From a sleeve pocket I remove the keys I took from Korva's office and select the one that looks the right size. It snaps the cover aside and fits snugly into the keyhole. I turn it as gently as I can, but it still makes a terrific clack. The silver lining is that the boss needs no further signal to hurry across the street and join me inside the fence.

We creep along the hedges and into the deeper shadows. There are two doors in the courtyard, and I try the one without a bright lamp beside it first. None of Korva's keys fit, so I move back toward the lighted door, listening for any sound of the dottari. I hear nothing but the distant clop of hooves from the direction of Thrune Square.

The second key fits, so we slip inside, close the door, and stand there a few seconds to let our eyes adjust to the gloom. One thing the boss and I have in common is keen vision, thanks to our mixed heritage. In a few seconds, we can see well enough to leave the antechamber and enter a cloakroom full of boy-sized capes and hats hanging above rain boots stacked atop neat ranks of footlockers. We walk out into a corridor and follow it to an apparently central intersection.

To our left is the windowed hall we saw upon our first visit, with classrooms on each side and the administrators' offices at the end. I see moonlight glimmering on windows to the right and figure there are more classrooms. The corridor ahead leads west to the center of the Academy. We follow it and find a pair of opposing doors, one of them decorated with carvings of the famous scene known as "The Triumph of Hell over Chaos," the battle in which Asmodeus threw a legion of demons back into the Abyss from a vantage atop the cage of Rovagug.

Beyond the unlocked door we find pews for about a hundred occupants arrayed before a bronze of Asmodeus raising a triumphant hand, from which hangs an open scroll. It is the most common depiction of the Prince of Darkness in Cheliax, the scroll representing the Infernal Compact that binds the nation to his worship and the legions of Hell to the command of the monarch of Cheliax. As we're giving the place the once-over, I notice the boss sniffing the way he does to savor a fine brandy.

What? I sign to him.

He inhales deeply and gestures for me to do the same.

I take a deep breath but smell only the lingering ghost of incense lurking beneath the fresh scent of the fir pews.

The place shouldn't smell this fresh if it sees daily use. It's only for show.

The boss points me toward the door, letting me lead the way. Once out of the brazier light from the chapel, we let our eyes adjust again. None of Korva's keys fit the opposite door, so I go to work. Drawing the picks from a sleeve pocket, I spend a few minutes probing the lock before we hear the click. Inside we find a gymnasium with a two-story ceiling topped with skylights. We make a circuit of the chamber, peeking into a few dressing and storage rooms. The boss gestures back to the hallway.

I use Korva's key to open the door to her office and step inside. The boss follows, closing the door behind and gesturing to the windows. Once I've closed the curtains, he ignites a palm lamp and shines the light across the shelves and desk. I flip back the rug to show him the trap door I discovered earlier. He nods while collecting ledgers to lay open upon Korva's desk. While he skims their contents, I try Korva's keys in the lock on the trap door. The third one does the trick.

"Try the Headmaster's office," whispers the boss. I leave him to his browsing and slip out into the hall. As I could have guessed, Korva's keys are no use on Orxines' door, and after a good fifteen minutes of futile probing with my lock picks, I return to Korva's office.

Jeggare has been making stacks of ledgers, one tall and another consisting of only two books. I wait while he finishes his division, skimming the last few volumes before adding them to the tall stack. He takes the short stack and leaves the rest.

"Do we have what we need?"

Jeggare frowns. "No, only more tantalizing clues. As we suspected, the Academy students were all born within about a month of each other."

"Which means what?"

He strokes the bridge of his nose for a moment before speaking. "Some sort of magical connection," he says. He looks as though he's about to say something else, but then he opens one of the ledgers and points to an annotated list divided by headings of "Commerce," "Law," "Military," "Clergy," "Arcane," and a dozen other categories. "It appears the Headmistress has particular expectations of her students. Virtually every facet of Chelish power is represented by the boys' families and their expected future endeavors."

"That's not exactly a surprise," I say.

"No," says Jeggare. "Yet it does seem odd to have it all scheduled here in the headmistress' office. It is as though Korva somehow expects to orchestrate something. The boys' futures, perhaps."

"Isn't that what the Academy is for?"

"Certainly not," says Jeggare. "The noble houses entrust the Academy with their sons' educations, not their destinies."

"But with Einmarch Henderthane's death, suddenly Father—that is, Headmaster—Orxines becomes ‘Uncle' Orxines, the most influential man in the young man's life."

Jeggare tilts his head as he looks at me. "That is an interesting point, but to eliminate so many parents is unfeasible. Even a small number of untimely deaths would draw too much attention."

"To what, exactly?"

"That I still cannot deduce," he says.

A clamor of hooves and carriage wheels makes us both freeze in place. Drunken laughter breaks over the cobblestones as the driver cracks the whip and turns north, toward the Triumph District.

I part the curtains with a finger and peer outside. The street looks empty. "We shouldn't linger," I say.

Jeggare nods. "We can take these with us. Let us see what lies beneath the classrooms.

"I can't get into the headmaster's office," I say. "It doesn't seem like a hard lock, but nothing gives."

"I would be surprised if it were not magically warded," says Jeggare. "But perhaps not so from beneath." He nods at the trap door.

I think about the sorts of things I've found in Egorian basements and take a deep breath. Beneath the trap door is a steep, narrow stairway. The boss hands me his palm lamp, and I lead the way.

The stairs spiral fifteen feet down to a curving hallway that joins another from the direction of the Headmaster's office. Together they intersect a larger hallway running north, this one lined in mosaic tiles forming images similar to those of the Triumph of Hell, but with a crucial difference: Rather than the hordes of the Abyss, mortal armies are the foes trampled beneath the hooves of Asmodeus. Hurling mortal monarchs into cages resembling the prison of Rovagug are human generals resplendent in gold and black armor, all bearing not the Chelish arms but simply the symbol of Asmodeus.

Jeggare gives me a look that tells me he's thinking the same thing I am about the downstairs decorator. Whoever it is doesn't place much stock in the Infernal Compact that allies Hell's Legions with the Empire of Cheliax.

From the passage leading to the space beneath Orxines' office comes a rotting odor. The boss pulls a scented handkerchief from his sleeve and holds it over his nose and mouth, waving me forward with the palm lamp.

This door is different from the others, heavier and with a big lock built into the iron frame. It's the sort of thing you'd expect to see on a warehouse. Fortunately, I've had lots of practice picking warehouse doors, and within a minute I open it. The boss shines his lamp inside, and the charnel stench snaps my guts like a whip.

On the floor of the pentagonal room is a summoning circle formed of a deep red waxy substance, mounded here and there at the stump of an old candle. Within the circle lies a profusion of lines, pentagram on hexagon beneath trapezoids and shapes I don't have words for. I feel sick just looking at it, but that beats looking at the flaccid hunks of human flesh that hang from iron thorns along the walls and the domed ceiling, all strung together with viscera and a twine of human hair. In the center, hanging from the ceiling on a thick stalk, is a wet leathery sac that slowly pulses.

Jeggare turns away from the gruesome chamber, kerchief tight against his mouth. I look just long enough to be sure there are no other exits from the room, then shut the door quietly, hoping we haven't awakened whatever is inside.

"What did they summon?" I whisper, backing slowly away from the summoning chamber.

"I cannot be certain without consulting my library," says Jeggare, following, "but I would guess it is a great begetter."

"What, an incubus?" It's hard to imagine that a demonic cult could hide within an Asmodean order.

"Not exactly," says Jeggare. "Both demonic and diabolic fiends have seducers among their ranks. Succubi are the most popularly known, and the demonic incubus is the male counterpart, but of course it does not require one of the seducers to produce half-fiendish offspring. The most infamous of such half-breeds were first documented in—"

"I know we're in a school, boss, but is this really the time?"

"Of course," he says. "The resulting offspring would be the first generation of what we know as, well..." He gestures an apology toward me.

"Hellspawn," I say for him.

He nods.

"But all of the boys look perfectly human."

Jeggare keeps nodding. "Not all hellspawn have discernibly infernal features."

"But that's rare, isn't it?"

"Correct. To cause an entire cohort to appear human would require a great coincidence, or some other commanding force."

"Like a specialized hellspawn-making devil?"

He nods again.

"Boss, I think it's time to get out of here."

"Yes," he says. "But let us first take a look beyond that hallway. If my estimate is correct, it should lead to a chamber directly below the unused chapel we saw upstairs."

"Considering what we just saw—"

"Just a quick look," he says, gesturing once more with the palm lamp as he tucks the handkerchief back into his sleeve.

Past the hall of infernal triumph is a pillared chamber similar to the upstairs chapel, only twice the size and with a pair of wide doors on the left wall. Rather than pews, rows of pebbled kneeling stones are arrayed before another statue of Asmodeus, this one gilt and fitted with rubies at the eyes. In its muscular arms it holds out what looks at first to be another copy of the Infernal Compact, this one covered with a thick layer of parchment signed many times at the bottom in dark brown ink. Among the signatures we spot several familiar names, the sort you'd expect to see on engraved social invitations: Wintrish, Krupt, Henderthane, Elliendo... even one Gellius Jeggare. The boss senses my curiosity and whispers, "Second cousin."

"Can we go now?"

"Shrines to Asmodeus are everywhere in Cheliax—so why does this one make me so nervous?"

Jeggare nods. "Just let me take this," he says. As he carefully peels the parchment away from its panel, I check out the other exit. The doors lead up to a wide stairway that I follow to a trap door beneath the gymnasium bleachers. Just before I return to the hidden chapel, I notice a fine mist rolling in beneath the gymnasium door. I'm no wizard, but I have a good idea what that means.

I hurry down the steps and say, "We've got company."

The boss tucks the parchment beneath his doublet, but before we can escape, a nude and glistening man emerges from the hallway.

It takes a second to recognize him as Headmaster Orxines. I don't care who you are, when a naked person surprises you, the face isn't the first thing you see. I'm briefly envious of more than his neat yellow beard.

Orxines catches the look on my face, and for the first time in our acquaintance, he smiles. "Much simpler this way, no?"

It occurs to me that he's wet, and I realize it was Orxines who was sleeping in that horrible pod.

"No more intrigue," he says. "Down to business."

"So you're ready to give yourself up?" I try. Sometimes I just can't help myself.

Orxines smiles, scratching at a spot just below his left nipple. He presses hard enough to break the skin, and a trickle of blood runs down his side.

"I think the Headmaster means he appreciates the opportunity to express his plan to an appreciative audience."

"My dear Count," Orxines laughs, "has that ploy ever worked?" His bloody fingers dig into his skin, and he tears a long arc down his ribs and across his lower belly. Beneath the flesh, where a man should keep his guts, a mass of dark limbs unfolds. "No," Orxines says. "I meant it is a great relief to take off this damned costume."

Chapter Six: The Scions Academy

I stare at the devil Orxines in his secret chapel, and I feel the prickling smile of Asmodeus on my back.

The face of the thing we first met as the headmaster of the Scions Academy is still fair with the kind of sharp little beard made famous by high priests and scoundrels, but now that he's torn the flesh from his naked torso, we see what lies beneath. Ropy tendrils spill out of a ragged maw in his belly. He shrugs off more of the mortal cloak, and what seemed arms and legs twist in inhuman angles. His legs stretch wide to expose a pair of thick appendages like bloated fishers' hooks. His chest peels open, and bloody ribs snap back to transform into chitinous legs. His arms shuffle off their flaccid sleeves and stretch into twin tails of soft anemone tendrils. Only the head remains human, but it rises up on its bloody spinal column like the stinger of some enormous scorpion.

The boss and I rush toward the stairs leading up to the gymnasium, but there is the ghostly figure of Korva, Matron of the Academy. I remember the mist I saw seeping into the room above, and I know how she got here.

"Stand aside, hellspawn," says the devil to me, without irony. "Your life may yet be spared."

I can't come up with a witty retort. "Oh, yeah?" I say. "Why's that?"

Orxines' ungainly body teeters sideways, but I don't trust the feint. I also haven't forgotten about Korva, who is still chanting in a low voice nearby.

"Because he expects Egorian will soon be ruled by devils," says the boss. He steps behind me, and I know my cue. I pretend to step away from him, a little farther from Orxines, a little closer to Korva.

Orxines takes the bait. "My sons can make use of hell-blooded servants openly once they come into their legacies." He skitters again to the side.

"But then you panicked and murdered Einmarch Henderthane," says the boss.

"The old fool would have divided his holdings!" says Orxines, once more circling me for a shot at Jeggare. "There was no choice but to restore his will to name Morvus sole heir, and then to ensure he could never change it again."

"And yet by doing so, you drew attention to a plot that had remained secret for years," says Jeggare. He clucks his disapproval.

"Do not tempt my ire, half-elf," snarls Orxines. "The only law is the law of Hell, and Lord Asmodeus has taught us all its subtleties. Now mine is the pen that draws the contract." He takes a few steps toward the boss, still testing my loyalty. Jeggare retreats behind me, but this time he steps past and throws himself to the floor. I twist and dive backward, roll on my shoulder, and jump up to punch Korva in the throat just before she can complete her spell. She chokes and collapses to the floor.

Instead of coming after me, as I'd calculated, Orxines follows Jeggare, who rolls away as the devil's massive forelimbs smash the floor. Flecks of shattered granite rise like sea spray as Orxines demolishes stone kneelers just inches behind the boss.

I leap at Orxines. He's moving fast, and I barely get my arms around his tail-like neck. I want to smash his head against the floor with my full weight, but his neck is as strong as a carriage spring. The tendrils that were his human arms whip up to grip me. They burn like acid, and I smell the fabric of my favorite jacket melt away.

"I could... do this all day," I try to sound brave, but my voice is the yelp of a wounded dog. Still, it's the words that matter, and the boss knows the code. He scrambles up and runs toward Korva, who is only just back on her feet. He bowls her over like a dockside bouncer, an image that would amuse me a lot more if Orxines' tails weren't searing into my flesh. When I see Jeggare disappear up the stairs, I concentrate on my predicament.

Orxines' tails hold me tight, and I can't dig a foot into his back for leverage. Still, I have his neck. It's too strong to bend, but I shift my grip and pull hand-over-hand, climbing up to that smug human face. Just before I can dig my thumbs into his widening eyes, I feel a powerful grip on my legs. His tentacles—I need to think of them as tentacles—entwine my legs and pull hard in either direction. My grip slides, but if I let go, he's going to snap me like a wishbone. I hate it, but I make one desperate pull and do the thing I hate most.

I bite him.

After the first time I bit someone in a street fight, I explained by way of apology that it hurt me as much as it hurt him. Of course, that didn't address the matter of his missing fingers. The infection spread throughout his hand a few days later and he had to pay a Cheapside barber to amputate it. I would have offered to pay half, but my jaw was still black and tender from popping out of joint. Besides, he'd started it.

My teeth sink into the devil's flesh, and my head snaps back as if I'd bitten a bolt of lightning. Orxines' blood steams in my mouth, the pain so sharp that I barely feel the impact as my body hits and leaves my outline in the plaster. The heat feels like acid surging through all my veins until it reaches my heart, which explodes in a pain so big and white that it flies briefly over the peak of ecstasy before falling back into an abyss of torment.

Orxines spins, his forelimbs unable to clutch his bleeding neck. He whirls in frustration, yellow ichor flying from his wound to spatter on the surrounding pillars. Beyond him, Korva opens her palms toward me, revealing a swelling orange blossom of flame. The roar of a furnace washes over me.

Despite the ringing in my head, the fire feels like the sun on my skin after a river swim. Even the pain in my jaw subsides, and I push myself up to my feet again. I almost trip, feeling something unexpected on my knees. Sharp bone spikes jut out of my kneecaps. Sharp bones arc out of knuckles, and I feel more at my heels. My elbow spurs have grown long as knives, forcing me to hold my arms out to keep their points away from my ribs. The devil's blood or the fire—something is changing me.

"Catch Jeggare!" Orxines screams at Korva. His voice fragments; he sounds like triplet brothers talking over each other. "I'll deal with this one."

Something more wicked than me uncoils in my belly and sends up a chuckle. "Let's get to it," I say, beckoning him toward me. I'm ready for a fight, and I feel the big grin opening up on my face. Now I'll have his throat in my teeth. Let's see what it does to me a second time.

Before I see him move, my back hits the floor, and this time it's my brain that feels like it's exploded. Fireworks pop behind my closed eyelids. When I open them, I'm staring up at that writhing mass of tendrils between Orxines' hooked claws. One rises up and smashes me, battering down my raised arms as if there were no strength in them. He hits me again, and this time I can't even make a show of defending myself. I feel a couple of ribs go.

I kick up at the devil's belly, but those soft-looking tails catch my legs and turn to iron. Orxines lifts me off the floor and holds me there, turning for one last look at my face.

"You were born to serve, hellspawn," he says, raising his massive forelimbs for a killing blow. "And those who do not serve my new order must die."

"There will be no new order, hellspawn," commands a voice from behind me. It's excruciating to twist my neck, but I turn just far enough to see the inverted figures of Hellknights at the base of the stairs. I recognize the slim figure of Ivo Elliendo among them, flanked on either side by a red-garbed signifer. Behind them all stands the boss, panting as he leans against the wall.

"Elliendo!" says Orxines. "Your son will sit at my council. The compact will be rewritten, and you will be among the first servants of—"

"Kill that thing," says Elliendo. His signifers raise their arms and intone arcane words. I wriggle to slip free, but Orxines holds me fast.

Wait, I try to shout, but it comes out a spray of bloody spit.

"Don't!" cries Orxines, lifting me up like a shield.

"Kill them both," says Elliendo.

From the hands of the signifers, the light of a hundred thunderstorms falls upon us. For an instant, it feels like every bone in my body has shattered, and then it feels like nothing at all.

I wake up about a thousand years later, my head filled with a buzzing red haze. Someone has cut away my ruined shirt and jacket, leaving me only the stinking remnants of my boots and leather breeches. When I sit up, I feel the weight of cold iron on my wrists and ankles. The chains scrape across a hard wooden table to which I'm bound. I'm in a small, unlighted room, but my hellborn eyes perceive the outlines of a vertical rack on the far wall. Beside it hang implements like those I've seen on the Judgment Day scaffold.

"I think I liked him better the other way."

My hands and arms still prickle, but the skin looks completely healed, and any broken bones have set back into place. That affliction of spiky growths has faded, but I can feel my elbow spurs scrape the table. That the Hellknights went to the trouble of healing me must mean they want to start from scratch, and the thought makes my guts turn to ice. I hold my breath to keep the panic in and try to think. Most of my gear was in my missing sleeves, but if I can just reach the cuff of my left boot—

Before I can turn the thought into action, I hear hob-nailed boots on stone stairs outside the room. My pulse throbs at my temples. The terror comes out all at once, and I shake the chains as I bend my knees and stretch my hands toward the cuffs of my boots. I can almost reach them when the door opens. The light briefly blinds me.

Silhouetted in the torchlight of a rough stone hallway are two torturers, their scarlet leather hoods tooled to resemble infernal faces. One looks down at me and scratches his neck, like a butcher considering where to cut first. The other pushes past and reaches for the manacles at my feet. Behind them I see a priest of Asmodeus standing in the hallway, his black-and-red vestments immaculate despite the sooty dungeon walls.

The torturer unlocks my manacles, but before I can fix the courage to kick him and make a break for it, he pulls me to my feet. He and his buddy grip my arms. Without a word, the priest leads the way up a narrow spiral stairway, and we follow. We pass two more floors of cells before emerging at a guard station, where a turnkey opens a gate to let us pass. We pass a clerk who stares hard at me as the priest signs his ledger and accepts a receipt. The torturers pass me to a pair of Hellknights, both of whom loom a full head above me.

The knights drag me to a door and pull me out onto steps, where the cold morning air slaps my face as I blink in the silver morning light. One of the Hellknights punches me hard in the gut, dropping me to my knees.

"That's to remember you were here," says the hollow voice inside the helm. His companion pulls me up by the hair, but the priest steps in.

"Enough," he says in a cultured tone that is as much a mask as the Hellknights' visors. "Return to your master," he says before gliding away. I hear the knights clank their way back inside their headquarters.

The red carriage waits near the base of the stairs, the slip driver standing nervously beside the cab door. I crawl most of the way down the stairs before the door slams behind me and the halfling scurries over to support me the rest of the way.

A month later, I'm standing on the Bunyip Dock as the crew of the Saffron Nymph prepares to cast off. Gruck looks at me from the ship's deck, a question in his eyes. Beside him, the captain—a gray-bearded Vudran whose patience, while heroic, is not unlimited—waits for me to make up my mind. I'm holding two fat purses in my hands, feeling their weight. They feel about the same, so I weigh them against the past few weeks.

By the time I got to Greensteeples, the boss was waiting for me in the library. I'd been almost two days in jail, and he'd spent most of that time under interrogation by Elliendo's men. As a count of Cheliax, however, he'd enjoyed the relative comfort of his own home.

"Why didn't they torture you?" I asked. "Or cast a compulsion?"

He lifted a glass of amber-colored wine, his hand trembling. He looked away as he took a sip. Without looking at me, he said, "They would have done more, but they were awaiting approval from the throne."

Another privilege of the noble class. "So the emissary is making good on her promise of a favor."

"So it would seem," he said, returning the glass to a small table beside his chair. He missed, and the crystal shattered on the floor. One of his halfling servants moved in without a sound and knelt to gather the fragments.

"What else?" I said. "What aren't you telling me?"

He said nothing for the time it took the servant to finish clearing away the spill. When she left the room and closed the library door behind her, Jeggare put his face in his hands, still turned away from me.

"What is it, boss?"

He sighed and lifted his head from his hands. "I am sorry, Radovan. I know you cared for her, but it was necessary that I tell the inquisitors everything."

"You told them about Pavanna's debt to Zandros?"

"It was... unavoidable," he said. "If I had obstructed their investigation in any way—"

"But you didn't tell them about the royal emissary, did you?"

"No, of course not. One does not disobey a message from the throne."

I thought about it for a moment. "It's all right, boss. You don't know where she is. She'll hear that the Hellknights are looking for her and find a way out of the city."

Jeggare still would not turn to face me.

"What is it, boss?"

"They already have her, Radovan."

He might as well have slapped me. "How?" I said. When he didn't answer, I shouted, "You led them to her!"

"I did not," he said. Even through the thickness of drink, his voice oozed resentment. "How despicable do you think me?"

"Then how?"

He hesitated again, still refusing to look me in the eye. "They followed you from the Palace of Jubilations."

"Impossible," I said. "I shook them off."

"Radovan," he said with the impatience of a parent lecturing a stupid child. "There was a signifer with them."

I opened my mouth, but I had nothing to say. What an idiot I had been! The Hellknights' pet wizards could find a stolen coin anywhere in the city, if they cared to expend the precious magical energy. I had always been beneath their notice, or at least I thought I was. Jeggare had warned me more than once not to provoke the Paralictor. I stared at him, daring him to say he had told me so, but he gazed toward the windows, and I saw rain clouds reflected in his eyes.

"The emissary promised us a favor," I said. "Use it to get her out!"

At last Jeggare turned to me. "Our favors are spent," he said. "You and I are free of the Hellknights, and there will be no further inquiry as to our involvement."

All the pain of my past few days washed over me then, and I felt as drunk as Jeggare looked. I stood and walked unsteadily out the door. Jeggare said nothing as I left. I figured if he needed me, he'd call for me.

Outside I walked away from Greensteeples without looking back. I had no destination in mind, but somehow, after threading the blank-faced crowds of Bilgetown and Dice End, I ended up at my flat and collapsed on my mattress.

I didn't want to know, but there was no avoiding the word on the street once I emerged from my room. The Scions Academy had closed, and after a tragic fire on a pleasure barge took the lives of nearly two score young scions of the nobility, the other families of boys from the Scions Academy quietly announced that their sons had departed on tours to distant lands, gone away to wait on the pleasure of country relatives, or had contracted sudden incurable illnesses. I didn't need Jeggare's high-society contacts to know those children were quietly murdered by the fathers who learned that their sons were the bastards of an ambitious devil planning to supplant the nobility of Cheliax with his own offspring.

I wanted more information, but I didn't want to ask the boss for it. He'd call if he needed anything.

Against all hope, I combed the Cheapside districts for word of Pavanna. Maybe Jeggare was wrong, I told myself. Or more likely the Hellknights had lied to him. That would be just like Elliendo, to make us writhe with a lie. I tried the gambling dens, the flophouses, the taprooms, the cathouses, every filthy little safe room I had ever known. Nowhere could I find someone who had seen Pavanna arrested. Eventually I had to admit to myself that Elliendo was capable of any cruelty, but a lie was beneath his dignity.

"Mercy is rarely an asset for executioners."

Still no word from Jeggare.

I tried to put it out of my mind, but it wouldn't go away. I checked on my caches throughout Dice End, put my saved money in three big purses and carried them with me. On the docks I watched the merchant vessels come and go. Just one of my purses would get me passage to a distant city and keep me there for months, but I'd never been outside Egorian. Were the people of Korvosa and Riddleport more human than those in Egorian? Or were we all damned no matter where we lived?

As the sleepy days passed, the sky pulled the sheets over its head, and the sun turned into a tiny silver coin. I stayed restless, but I stayed out of trouble. Every once in a while I'd spot one of the Goatherds on the street, but they turned away instead of shooting me the Tines. Whatever they heard about the Henderthane business, they didn't want any of it to rub off on them.

Going to the Palace and demanding to talk to the emissary was a crazy idea, but it kept me up at night, and there was no one to talk me out of it. Once I went
to stand outside the Palace, and the guards—brutes bigger than Hellknights—came for me before I was within a hundred feet of the gates. I did not wait to explain myself.

The thought of approaching Elliendo to beg for Pavanna's life was even more forbidding, but then I realized what had to happen, when my one chance would come. Just knowing that gave me the courage to stay in Egorian a little longer. I spent the days walking the city, eating when I was hungry, going back to sleep when I was tired. The count sent no word to me. Nothing could change until Judgment Day.

There was still frost on the streets by the time the spectators gathered. All the pretty dresses of the previous month had turned to cloaks and coats the color of loam and manure. Their diminished nobles left barren patches in the stands, giving it the aspect of a harvested cornfield. There was no such dearth among the groundlings, who never mind a cold day at the scaffold if it means a few hours away from their labor.

The Sarini Fool appeared in harvest theme, with bone-white gloves and a long scythe. He joked about the bountiful harvest, for there were many hooded victims that day. I pushed to the edge of the scaffold and searched for a familiar figure. Then I spied those curves I had caressed for only an hour in what seemed like a distant memory.

"Pavanna!" I called. The hooded head moved, and I knew I had found her. She called my name, but I didn't know what else to say. I had come with no plan except to find her. And then what? Save her? There was no way. Or was there?

I searched the crowd for Elliendo. He was not mingling among the stands as was his custom, basking in the appreciation of the law-abiding citizens he protected from villains like me. I pushed through the groundlings and didn't hesitate to use my elbows when they were slow to make way.

"Elliendo!" I shouted. "Where are you?"

I couldn't see him anywhere, but I pressed through. A heavy hand fell on my shoulder, and when I whipped around to see a big guard standing over me, the butt of his companion's halberd caught me in the stomach. They dragged me out of the crowd as I tried to catch my breath. Just as I did so, Ivo Elliendo stood before me. He did not wear his uniform. Instead he was dressed from sole to crown in mourning black, and his steel gray hair showed more flecks of white than I remembered.

"If you dare disrupt the solemnity of today's proceedings," he began.

"Please," I interrupted him. "Let her go."

He looked back at me, uncomprehending.

"You don't want Pavanna," I said. "You asked me to leave Jeggare, and I will. I'll be your informer, your spy, whipping boy, whatever you say. Just let her go."

Elliendo stared back with a look of cold astonishment.

"I'm begging you," I said, surprised to find that I'd dropped to my knees voluntarily. I reached and almost touched his leg before I stopped myself.

He looked down with the cool indifference of a man who watches a centipede crawl across his boot. He leaned over and hissed in my face, "How closely did you observe the condemned?"

I had looked only for Pavanna, forgetting who else might have been condemned to death this Judgment Day. I recalled that many of the condemned were rather short and slender, the size of boys the age of Elliendo's son.

"I—" was all I could spit out before he slapped my face hard.

"Be silent and watch," he said. "I will not be the only one to suffer." With a gesture he ordered the guards to drag me back toward the scaffold's edge. There they held me as the Fool took his bow and the executioners began their work.

"Radovan!" cried Pavanna. I called back to her, but I couldn't think of anything to say but her name.

"Stay with me," she called. All my blood turned to cold water, and I couldn't have moved even if the guards had released my arms. "Are you there? Radovan?"

"I'm here," I croaked, but my words were drowned by the roar of the crowd. Another noose dropped, another neck snapped, another cheer erupted from the crowd, and Pavanna was a step closer to death. "I'm here!" I shouted, and something hot slid down my face. "I won't leave you."

We called out to each other that way for the time it took to hang and draw fourteen men and boys. Then it was her turn, and she called out one last time, "Don't leave me!"

"I won't!" I called as the platform dropped out beneath her.

Gruck was waiting for me outside the Plaza of Flowers. He had watched it all, and I saw the paths where tears had cleaned his dirty face. He didn't need to explain. I knew he must have scarpered as soon as he saw the Hellknights coming for him and Pavanna, and I didn't blame him.

He murmured, "I'm sorry." I pulled him away from the jabbering onlookers, all dispersing to their daily work after the spectacle. He followed me all the way to the Bunyip Dock, where I made a deal with the first ship captain who was leaving port. "Passage for the boy," I told him. I watched his face as he considered my request. "Unmolested passage," I said, looking at his crew of rough men and half-breeds.

If I'd offended him, the money smoothed it over. We clasped hands, and it was a bargain. Gruck was frightened, but I slipped him the purse from which I'd paid the captain, and he was clever enough to make it disappear before any of the sailors saw it. There was enough there for him to live for a couple of years, if he was frugal; enough to buy an apprenticeship, if he was smart. I told him as much.

"I'm afraid," he said. "Can't you come with me?'

And now I'm thinking about it. There's enough money to get us started in any kind of plain, decent life, if we keep our noses out of the gutter. There's no reason for either of us to stay in this city sworn to Hell, this city full of hypocrites who hate bastards more than they hate their own sins. Nothing here loves us, and nothing here needs us.

The red carriage pulls up at the end of the dock, and I hear the slip driver whistle to me. The carriage door is closed, but the curtain moves and I see a pale finger holding it open for a peek.

Behind me, the sailors are casting off, and the captain wants an answer. I throw him the pouch of money I promised for Gruck's passage.

I weigh the other one in my hand.

Appendix: The Infernal Compact

It's common knowledge in Cheliax that, in their rise to power, the diabolical nobles of House Thrune signed a contract with Asmodeus himself, binding his minions to their service in exchange for the worship of all Cheliax (and, some whisper, even more insidious prices).

Among other things, the Infernal Compact stipulates that the House of Thrune and its associated noble families shall receive Asmodeus's aid to the end of their bloodlines. While Orxines' insertion of his own fiendish taint into those family trees might be viewed as breaking the contract if conducted with Asmodeus's knowledge, if all known heirs to the ruling families were hellspawn, the result would be either a nation that served Hell rather than bargaining with it, or else an acknowledged end to the bloodlines in question—either of which might void the contract and allow Asmodeus to alter the deal as he sees fit. And while the Prince of Lies is rarely pleased with rogue agents and third parties meddling with his work, if Orxines succeeded, he could likely look forward to a princely reward—or a nation loyal to him alone.

About the Author

Dave Gross was born in Michigan and grew up in Virginia. After grinding out a Master’s degree in English, he worked as a technical writer and teacher before editing magazines for TSR, Wizards of the Coast, and Paizo Publishing. He’s been writing short stories and novels on the side since 1995. His other adventures of Varian Jeggare and Radovan for Pathfinder Tales include the novels Prince of Wolves and Master of Devils, as well as the short story "The Lost Pathfinder" and several upcoming stories and novellas. In addition, he’s also co-written the Pathfinder Tales novel Winter Witch with Elaine Cunningham.

Dave lives in Alberta, Canada with the best things in life, his wife and their small menagerie.