For what seemed a long, lurid moment, Gideon could not even understand what he was seeing. It was as though the man, quivering and gurgling, had suddenly extruded a length of steel from his neck. In the next moment Gideon understood, and was looking over his shoulder for the assailant who'd just impaled the man with a thrown dagger.

But he saw only a dark figure ducking out the pesh den's veiled doorway.

Turning back to the man with one ear, Gideon saw his informant was already dead. It shouldn't have happened so fast. Even with such a wound as this there was a narrow path for survival. Someone was determined to close off even that.

"Poison," he gasped to the master of the house and his companions, who had rushed to his side.

"Leave now, and don't return!" said the master. "You bring trouble!"

Gideon and the others left without a word, Viridia surging ahead. She'd grown up beside genuine wilderness, the Whistling Plains beyond Stavian's Hold, and she alone among them was a true runner. They struggled to catch up with her.

Soon they had second thoughts about that. For they found Viridia crouched in an alley with dagger drawn, confronting not one but three men in gray.

"It seemed unwise to kill you all in front of so many witnesses," said one of the men, and he did indeed bear a Chelish accent. He stepped forward, a smile growing like a fresh gash upon his heavily scarred face. "Thank you for solving that problem."

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
Death's Heretic by James L. Sutter
Song of the Serpent by Hugh Mattews
City of the Fallen Sky by Tim Pratt
Nightglass by Liane Merciel
Blood of the City by Robin D. Laws
Queen of Thorns by Dave Gross
Called to Darkness by Richard Lee Byers
Liar's Blade by Tim Pratt
King of Chaos by Dave Gross
Stalking the Beast by Howard Andrew Jones
The Dagger of Trust by Chris Willrich
Skinwalkers by Wendy N. Wagner
The Redemption Engine by James L. Sutter
The Crusader Road by Michael A. Stackpole

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
Prodigal Sons edited by James L. Sutter
Plague of Light by Robin D. Laws
Guilty Blood by F. Wesley Schneider
Husks by Dave Gross
The Treasure of Far Thallai by Robin D. Laws
Light of a Distant Star by Bill Ward

Short Stories

"The Lost Pathfinder" by Dave Gross
"Certainty" by Liane Merciel
"The Swamp Warden" by Amber E. Scott
"Noble Sacrifice" by Richard Ford
"Blood Crimes" by J. C. Hay
"The Secret of the Rose and Glove by Kevin Andrew Murphy
"Lord of Penance" by Richard Lee Byers
"Guns of Alkenstar" by Ed Greenwod
"The Ghosts of Broken Blades" by Monte Cook
"The Walkers from the Crypt" by Howard Andrew Jones
"A Lesson in Taxonomy" by Dave Gross
"The Illusionist" by Elaine Cunningham
"Two Pieces of Tarnished Silver by Erik Mona
"The Ironroot Deception" by Robin D. Laws
"Plow and Sword" by Robert E. Vardeman
"A Passage to Absalom" by Dave Gross
"The Seventh Execution" by Amber E. Scott
"The Box" by Bill Ward
"Blood and Money by Steven Savile
"Faithful Servants" by James L. Sutter
"Fingers of Death—No, Doom!" by Lucien Soulban
"The Perfumer's Apprentice" by Kevin Andrew Murphy
"Krunzle the Quick" by Hugh Matthews
"Mother Bears" by Wendy N. Wagner
"Hell or High Water" by Ari Marmell
"A Tomb of Winter's Plunder" by Tim Pratt
"Misery's Mirror" by Liane Merciel
"The Twelve-Hour Statue" by Michael Kortes
"In the Event of My Untimely Demise" by Robin D. Laws
"Shattered Steel" by F. Wesley Schneider
"Proper Villains" by Erik Scott de Bie
"Killing Time" by Dave Gross
"Thieves Vinegar" by Kevin Andrew Murphy
"In Red Rune Canyon" by Richard Lee Byers
"The Fate of Falling Stars" by Andrew Penn Romine
"Bastard, Sword" by Tim Pratt
"The Irregulars" by Neal F. Litherland

The Dagger of Trust © 2013 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.

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Cover art by Lucas Graciano.
Cover design by Emily Crowell.
Map by Robert Lazzaretti.

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ISBN 978-1-60125-614-0 (mass market paperback)
ISBN 978-1-60125-615-7 (ebook)

Publisher's Cataloging-In-Publication Data
(Prepared by The Donohue Group, Inc.)

Willrich, Chris, 1967-
The dagger of trust / Chris Willrich.

p. ; cm. — (Pathfinder tales)

Set in the world of the role-playing game, Pathfinder.
Issued also as an ebook.
ISBN: 978-1-60125-614-0

1. Bards and bardism—Fiction. 2. Spies—Fiction. 3. Imaginary places—Fiction. 4. Good and evil—Fiction. 5. Pathfinder (Game)—Fiction. 6. Fantasy fiction. 7. Adventure stories. I. Title. II. Series: Pathfinder tales library.

PS3623.I57775 D34 2013
813/.6

First printing December 2013.

Printed in the United States of America.

For Susan, my first comrade in dice.

Prelude in Fog

The frothers were gaining.

Corvine and her friends' feet pounded the alley mud, raising echoes throughout the clammy dawn air, echoes she imagined could be heard all the way across the river in Andoran.

Or so she wished. For their footfalls sounded just around the corner behind, like a chorus of spasming heartbeats. And there were rather more of them.

At least I know the rumors are true, she thought with a chilly laugh. Next time, Corvine Gale, you should welcome a little more mystery in your life.

"What's so funny?" gasped Alaric behind her.

"To think I was once afraid," Corvine panted, "to go ruin-delving with Nicolaus..."

"That is funny," said Thea, bringing up the rear. "If they eat you first, I'll laugh."

Beside Corvine, Nicolaus said, "I'll tease you later. Keep running..."

In the dark of this morning, even the Admiral's Fen district of Cassomir was quiet, and the mists from the harbor ahead and the swamp behind obscured shadowy buildings looming up from the muddy ground. The lamplight was irregular, the moon had set, and the stars shone with indifferent brilliance upon lovers, dreamers, and people about to be torn to pieces.

The four scrambled onto one of the plank lanes that made walking this mucky region tolerable. It was less useful as a racetrack, but they did their best.

She glanced over her shoulder, checking that the other musicians were still with her: Thea with her fantasia of auburn hair, fidgety Alaric, cocky Nicolaus. And herself, of course—proud Corvine Gale, the only true bard among them, her usual impressive display of black tresses pulled back to a simple ponytail for this adventure.

Of course, her friends weren't the only ones back there.

More than half a dozen dimly glimpsed human figures burst from the alley and onto the planks. A strange fog accompanied them, its billowing cloud dimly lit from within as though by sickly hued green lanterns. It was almost as though the figures were merely solidified extensions of that vapor.

Spotting the fleeing musicians, the shapes let out a roar composed of slurred, threatening fragments of speech.

Rich brats
Uptowners
Teach 'em manners
Teach 'em with a rock
Laughing at us

But there had been no laughing, except when the musicians had joked among themselves. Corvine and her friends had simply skulked around Admiral's Fen, daring each other into investigating tales of citizens transformed into raving lunatics. The worst they'd done was interrupt a warehouse card game.

Then the fog had slithered in like coils of surf, and the gamblers had suddenly become as terrifying as any walking dead.

If only Gideon could see me now ...

It was at times like these that she most missed her fellow musician, the man who'd left a trouble-sized hole in her heart. It was she who'd sent him away, so he could get the true bardic training he deserved.

But then, she was a bard, too. It was time she acted like one.

Still running, Corvine let her mind's eye open on a sunlit, many-windowed conservatory filled with a symphony's worth of instruments and sheets dotted with notes from a stirring theme in The Elopement of the Dowager Princess. She felt the magic keyed to the image build inside her.

But the frothers snarled close behind. If she were to stop now to cast a spell, she'd be overrun. She needed help from the terrain. They raced into the shipyards, with the wooden skeletons of Shipwright Baler's latest experiments rising all around them.

"Where're the navy guards when you need them?" Nicolaus wheezed.

Thea bent nearly double, sucking wind. "Can we hide in a ship?"

"I'm a poor climber..." Alaric managed to say.

"I'll help you up," Corvine said. "Keep moving."

They zigged and zagged around unfinished ship hulls. Though the snarls of the frothers remained close at hand, at least the maniacs were no longer within sight. Corvine scrambled up a hull and assisted the others aboard.

Within the hollow frame, Cassomir's usual wet odors of salt and swamp gave way to the warm scent of wood. The frothers passed by below, their maddened voices growing dimmer.

The friends collapsed, taking care to avoid the shipwrights' chisels and hammers.

"How?" Alaric whispered after a time. "How can the authorities deny the fog's real?"

"Stories say the possessed return to normal," Corvine said, her heartbeats finally slowing. "They remember nothing. And only poor folk have been killed so far."

"What fog?" Thea said.

Corvine shot her an irritated look.

"No, I'm serious," Thea pressed. "All I saw was a bunch of crazy people."

Corvine frowned. "You didn't see the fog? The way it moved with them?"

"That was just the usual mist."

Nicolaus had risen, and was staring out a porthole.

"What about you, Nicolaus?" Corvine asked.

"You're not better than me! So-called bard—you'll stop laughing when I've wrung your neck!"

Nicolaus turned, and his eyes were filled with greenish fog.

He leapt toward her, but Corvine had already rolled to her feet. Her heart racing again, she got between him and the others, raised her hands. "It's okay, Nicolaus, we're not laughing, we're your friends..."

Thea and Alaric, no combatants, huddled against each other. "It's contagious?" Thea asked.

"None of them touched him—" Alaric said.

"It must be the fog!" Thea said. "Maybe it's seen only if it chooses—"

"A little help here?" Corvine asked. Nicolaus had seized a saw and was swinging it like a wobbly sword.

Not exactly military-grade, Corvine thought, but it could still maim. She ducked, and Thea and Alaric grabbed Nicolaus's arms. He seemed to possess the strength of anger, or drunkenness, and threw them aside like dolls. He prepared to bring the saw down upon Alaric's neck.

But Corvine had her moment. She crouched within the hull, but she also stood in her imaginary conservatory, conductor's baton in hand, while sprightly musicians of light and shadow played to her direction. In her mind's ear she heard the moment in the opera when the princess decides to elope, breaking free of all her family's constraints—and the music unlocked arcane formulae in her memory.

I must break this palace mirror
To see my true self...

Her spell washed over Nicolaus, breaking the enchantment. He shivered, dropped the saw, and crouched. When he raised his head, his eyes were clear.

"What just happened?" he asked.

"You don't remember, do you?" Corvine said.

Nicolaus rubbed his forehead. "No."

"We'll speak of it later. For now...well, friends, this is all worrisome indeed. If the authorities don't believe it, I'll need to do something."

"Like leave town?" Alaric said.

"Maybe..." Nicolaus said.

"Like writing to Oppara for help," Corvine said.

Thea shook her head. "You're going to ask Gideon to come back, aren't you?"

"It's crossed my mind."

"You remember that corsair who got Gideon into the Rhapsodic College in Oppara?" Thea asked. "What was his name?"

"Sebastian Tambour," Corvine said, knowing very well that Thea hadn't forgotten. "And he's more than a corsair. I think he's some manner of government agent." They'd met a year ago, the time Gideon had uncovered a Chelish spy operating in Cassomir.

"Whatever he is, I think he fancied you."

Corvine raised her eyebrow. "I think I fancied him a little in return. We've been in touch. Just like I've been in touch with Gideon."

Thea laughed. "Keeping two birds in hand, Corvine? Risky."

"Women make my head hurt," Alaric muttered to Nicolaus.

Nicolaus was still rubbing his temples. "That's not what's making my head hurt."

"Gulls are scavengers," Thea continued. "They'll peck at anything. Don't stick with him just because you pity him, Corvine. The other one, he's a raptor. He might be more help."

Corvine's first glimpse of Sebastian had been of a dashing man of action, hunting Taldor's enemies. By contrast, she'd first discovered Gideon in a gutter. She'd told people they'd met in a tavern, the most disreputable she could think of, because their concerns on that score she could manage. She'd had enough of friends labeling her a martyr.

But they'd not heard him singing to the stars.

No, I'm not a woman burning herself as a sacrifice to lost causes. Let a thousand other drunks lie where they fall. But not him. Because his voice had proved that he, too, heard the music.

And thus, he might be a man who could actually understand her.

"Don't keep us in suspense," Thea said. "Which of them will you write to?"

"Which will I write to? Why, Thea, you underestimate me." She smiled. "I'll send for them both."

∗ ∗ ∗

Chapter One

Overture for Voice and Poisoned Blade

The day of the murder dawned bright and rosy upon the Gilded City. At that hour Gideon Gull, having roused, stretched, and performed his morning exertions in the crisp wintry air of the conservatory roof, had no idea a killer stalked even now within his vision's reach. The brightly painted rooftops of Oppara stretched all around like spots on some ornate octopus, sprawling from the Black Cliffs to the lowlands upstream along the Mighty Porthmos, while the Grand Bridge lashed south across the great river like an arm snatching at some morsel worthy of imperial Taldor's ancient hunger. You could smell the sea to the west, chimneys and cookfires to the east, and a tang unique to the maritime district around the college, a scent that suggested sewage and sweat and sex and spirits, and which swaggered its way to Gideon's nose. All seemed cheerfully decadent as ever. You could write a song about it. Perhaps he would.

All he had to worry about was this morning's debate. And, of course, the assassination.

His acrobatics and shadowboxing done, Gideon sat cross-legged and pulled out his harp, a rugged and compact traveler's instrument carved by the gnomes up in Wispil. A good bodyguard needed his spells, so he plucked at the metal strings, finding the melodies he'd come to associate with particular magical effects.

The spell for throwing his voice he linked to a rafter-shaking aria from the opera The Winter of White Roses. The spell for curing fear he connected with the backwoods song "Ain't No Devil's Gonna Move Me." The one for making a rope move on its own? The sea shanty "Haul Away for Arcadia." The one for inducing uncontrollable laughter was simply background strums, fit for a tavern jester. The music itself didn't convey the magic, per se, but the bardic college had taught Gideon to coach his memory with such associations.

Arcane formulae crackled through his brain as he prepared spell after spell, ready for casting at need.

As he let the pattern of a final spell pass into his head on a wave of shimmering notes, something like a cacophony of brass horns assaulted his mind.

"Ah!" Gideon clutched at his skull, losing the spell. He could still see the stones of the college roof, but it was as if a writhing fog had obscured his vision. The air felt chill. He had the sensation of some cold, cruel intellect appraising him, and a voice sliced through the brass, feminine and cruel. He couldn't quite make out the words. But something about it was familiar...

Just as abruptly, the presence let him go.

The fogginess vanished, and the clear winter dawn returned. Gideon made the antler sign of the good god Erastil upon his chest. I will never eat Jalmeri dumplings before bedtime again.

As life would have it, there was no time for Gideon to investigate the bizarre event. Even having lost his favorite spell, the one that transfixed several observers at once, he couldn't spare time to recover it. Gideon wished the things that perplexed him would wait their turn instead of crowding for attention like unruly children.

Gideon heaved himself over the rooftop wall and descended a surface bricked with irregularly shaped stones, which he half-suspected was fashioned with climbing in mind. The Rhapsodic College had many such quirks, if you looked for them. But most students were too preoccupied with music or dance or theater to see.

When Gideon reached the ground he scrambled into a region of topiary and rose bushes. Concealed by fantastic green animals and prize-winning blooms, he scurried toward the meeting green. The garden provided more cover than any garden truly needed to—another quirk. If he dug around in particular spots he knew he'd find concealed weapons and message drops and a trapdoor to the underground complex known by its initiates as the Shadow School. No one could see him, for his stealth improved week by week.

If only Corvine could see me now ...

He stepped among the cushions of the college's meeting green, a well-tended lawn with a trio of columns set upon a slope at one end. Students were already arriving, and Gideon decided to test his stealth and eavesdrop on a couple of gossipy first-years.

"I hope Gull's sober for this one."

"You know, he acts drunk a lot, but have you ever actually seen him drink?"

"You think he's one of your spies?"

"I didn't say that."

"Ha! You see spies everywhere. Oppara's not the glamorous place you imagined out in the prefectures. The gold came off these rooftops long ago. Now, sure, probably there are spies in the city. But they'd be over in Westpark sniffing nobles in their silks. Not snooping on us poor performers in our motley."

There was no cover here, but people's expectations could be the best concealment of all. Gideon was bent over, eyes down, making a show of arranging the cushions, in all ways acting like a menial servant. The pair didn't even recognize him when he stood three feet away.

"I don't know...I'm telling you, he's odd."

"Well, sure, he's from Andoran, not Taldor. They have funny ideas there. People choose their own rulers. Crazy stuff."

"That's not it. He's more backwoodsman than bard. Kind of old for a student. Disappears at odd hours. Shadowboxes on the rooftops."

Gideon put his hands in his pockets. In his left he crunched two papers. The first was a summons from Professor Aurestia to appear at this debate, upon which a good chunk of his final grade would depend. The second was a tuition bill making it clear that Gideon could afford no second chance at the bardic college.

Meanwhile, in his right hand was the coded message that ordered him to thwart the assassination of Aurestia, at the same time, on the same spot.

"Gideon."

Gideon looked up. He noticed the gossipers doing double-takes as they realized he'd been standing there the whole time. He was professional enough not to wink.

"Sebastian," he said, offering his hand to the man who strode across the green. The new arrival reflexively studied it and Gideon's sleeve before giving his hand a surprisingly crushing shake.

Sebastian Tambour was an alumnus of the Rhapsodic College, and Gideon's sponsor at the college. A winsome man in black, he bore pointed ears and purple eyes that attested to some elven ancestry. At first glance, no one would imagine this delicate-looking fellow was anything but a rich dandy.

Many of Sebastian's foes never got a second glance.

"Surprised to find you here," Gideon said, feeling as usual that his mentor was three moves ahead. Beside Sebastian, Gideon felt gangly and clumsy, a hayseed with a haystack of yellow hair and a face rough from a life lived in farmlands and docklands. Early in Gideon's time at the college, Sebastian had often taken him out carousing—though with Corvine on his mind, Gideon's heart wasn't much in it—until one day Sebastian had confessed an ulterior motive: bringing along his rough-looking human friend enhanced the half-elf's appearance by contrast. The human mind is easily steered, Sebastian had confided. There's much your kind sees but doesn't apprehend .

"I've been back in Oppara for a little while, busy with this or that." Sebastian threw a smile at some arriving female students and got a few in return.

"Nothing too dangerous, I trust." Gideon felt a nick of envy, and he cast a look skyward for any winged messenger from Corvine.

"Nothing I couldn't handle. But I'm glad that matter's well settled so I can focus on business here."

"So I've you to thank for this debate?"

"Indeed. I'll be your opposite number."

Gideon's right hand clenched, compressing the black paper in his pocket. "Do I also have you to thank for the Shadow Taunt?"

"Ah. Well." Sebastian shrugged, and he lowered his voice. "As the one who recruited you for training in the first place, I'm curious how you're getting along. A mock assassination, like a good cup of Sargavan coffee, is always invigorating."

Gideon relaxed his hand. He owed Sebastian a great deal, not just for helping him get into the Rhapsodic College, but for placing him in the secret Shadow School beneath it—a school that trained Lion Blades, Taldor's elite espionage agents. Irritated though he was, Gideon played along. "What's the rationale?"

"Does it matter? Death is death."

"I know the Shadow School, Sebastian. These people tell themselves cover stories for bedtime. There's always a rationale, a scenario, a legend. Our enactor will pretend to be someone, and everyone has their signature. A Qadiran assassin, if rash enough to choose such a public setting, might whirl through the crowd with a scimitar. A Galtan revolutionary would favor a crossbow, and a perch on the conservatory roof. A Tian agent might conceal a dagger inside a wig."

"Tian Xia's on the other side of the world!"

"All the better to divert suspicion, if the hiring party's a fellow Taldan."

Sebastian chuckled. "Very well. You always amuse, Gideon. So I'll give you a word. Cheliax."

Cheliax. The name drew a line of fire through Gideon's memory, illuminating a land where power was defined by the patronage of devils. Cheliax had designs on the whole Inner Sea. It was by thwarting a Chelish agent in Cassomir that Gideon had come to Sebastian's attention, though sometimes Sebastian hinted that he'd known Gideon by reputation before then. It was always hard to know where one stood with the corsair. At least he wouldn't throw an actual devil at Gideon.

Probably.

Gideon sighed. "Does Aurestia know she's a target as well as a judge?"

"Of course not! The subject's cooperation is always a luxury."

"Am I allowed to inform her?"

"Under no circumstances."

"You know, I may only be a country bumpkin from Andoran, but it seems to me a sane spy agency would have that cooperation, and several agents in place, none of whom had a debate to perform."

"Who ever said the Lion Blades were sane? Or, for that matter, the world? Good luck."

Sebastian bowed, stepped away, and began stretching in easy view of the knot of female students he'd eyed earlier. Gideon rolled his own eyes and strolled upslope to the pillars. The knoll served as meeting place, sparring ground, and outdoor theater. But to Gideon, it was now an ambush site. And facing the audience, he'd lose half his view.

He shook his head and watched the gathering bards, most oblivious to the real contest they were about to witness.

Once upon a time, he wanted to tell them, there was a country that took its bards—those people who bask in the adulation of crowds—and made them into spies. You know, those people whose job it is to go unnoticed. I have yet to decide if this was brilliant or mad. Quite possibly both. Sometimes they throw that paradox into a student's face, in the form of the Shadow Taunt, the dark thread of an espionage problem woven into the bright fabric of a bardic test. I know what you're thinking, folks—can such an arrangement end in anything but disaster? Ladies and gentlemen, hold on to your harps. We're about to find out!

He hit upon a stratagem as he strode toward Aurestia.

Professor Aurestia was a jewel in the Rhapsodic College's crown. A tall woman endowed with regal bearing, red hair, and striking amber eyes, she embodied the bardic ideal of Taldor, able to imitate the poise of nobility, vibrate an opera house's chandeliers with her voice, and smile at admirers of every class and mean it. She was no longer young, and increasingly eschewed the opera house for the classroom, honorably building her academic standing year after year, until she could teach not just opera but rowdy tavern songs and holy chants, and not merely music but theater and puppetry and pratfalls (she left acrobatics and juggling to others). Before long, it was said, she'd leave off performances altogether, and lead the Rhapsodic to new greatness.

Among Aurestia's ideas of greatness was hitting you where you were weakest. Therefore Gideon would be judged on debate. Not his strong suit. Improvisational trickery, on the other hand...

He'd woken today with a hint of a cold, so he rummaged through his mind for his best memories of sickness, polished them off, and welcomed them with a convincing sneeze.

"Are you ill, Mister Gull?"

"Just a little, ma'am. Something's going around. New bug from the jungles of Garund, I hear."

"Oh?"

"Spreads by touch, so you'll forgive me if I don't kiss your hand."

There was the barest hint of a smile. "I wasn't offering it." Aurestia scanned the crowd as if gauging the health of the milling bards. She folded her arms. Good. She'd be warier of anyone approaching her. "You're prepared?"

"Yes, ma'am. I may have to sneeze away from the crowd a bit, from time to time." And thereby study the whole area.

"I don't deduct for illness. Only for laziness, illogic, and feigning a Taldan accent."

"I never do that, ma'am."

She studied him evenly. "I could've sworn differently. In fact, I believe it was my own voice."

"It's well known that no one can imitate the diva Aurestia."

"There are those who find you amusing, Mister Gull. I'm occasionally one of them. But not today. We may have an observer from the court. Our old friend the Royal Adjunct Vice-Critic for Moral Suasion in the Fine Arts. He can't shut us down—probably. But he can make life difficult. I hope you won't embarrass us."

The green was now full, with a hundred bardic students eager to see the triumph or humbling of Gideon Gull. They'd dressed for the occasion. There were aspiring fools in motley; traditionalist harpists in drab traveling cloaks; stage magicians in starry robes most true wizards would find garish; and dancers in a plethora of costumes recalling various historical eras, from ancient green-and-crimson Azlanti togas to modern Taldan fur-wrapped doublets and petticoats. If you looked closely, of course, the finery was ragged, the fools' hats were missing some bells, and even the traveling cloaks were too lightweight for their purpose. It didn't matter. Illusion was all. It was as though the Night of the Pale, when some folk cavorted in costume, had come early this year.

His roommate Leothric, a noble scion, wasn't in costume. But he waved with a puppet on each hand. The puppeteer was unaware of the Shadow School, and Gideon knew he'd soured any friendship with Leothric by his constant unexplained disappearances underground. Thus Gideon wasn't sure if Leothric was here to support Gideon or enjoy his defeat. But the puppets were a clue. One was of the legendary knight Sir Gothmoor, renowned more for stubborn durability than intelligence. The other hand belonged to the blue dragon Yallazak, whose electrical breath, according to those same legends, had roasted Gothmoor within his plate armor as he valiantly defended the town of Maheto.

But whether Gideon was about to be roasted or not, he was cheered to see his friends Ozrif and Viridia at the back of the crowd, the son of Katapesh's deserts juggling knives and the daughter of Taldor's eastern plains weaving a rippling dance beside him. Most everyone at the college agreed that Ozrif and Viridia would make the perfect couple—except, of course, Ozrif and Viridia themselves. That refrain was repeated in the catacombs beneath their feet, for like Gideon they attended the hidden Shadow School. Together they formed a small unit the school termed a cell. They were aware of the Shadow Taunt, and while forbidden to interfere, they gave Gideon salutes of encouragement.

Now Ozrif's blades returned to their sheaths, and Viridia spiraled herself to a cross-legged repose, for Aurestia had raised her arm.

Silence fell upon the green.

The professor's voice filled the hollow. "Now we begin the Test of Disputation of Gideon Gull. The proposition is: Should art serve society? Mister Gull's randomly chosen stance is negative."

Good, Gideon thought. He'd prepared a positive argument, of course, and it was good exercise to challenge your own beliefs. But this time he needed all his wits.

"Our honored alumnus Sebastian Tambour," Aurestia continued, "has consented to act as Mister Gull's foil." Sebastian stepped up to the pillars, nodding to Gideon and bowing to Aurestia, who continued. "The debate shall have three rounds: argument, free-for-all, and character assassination."

Aurestia raised a coin and tossed it like a gambler. The golden disc, a Katapeshi scarab, flashed beneath cloud-streaked blue.

Gideon took that moment (even as Aurestia whispered "Call it" to him) to search the crowd for an assassin of more than character. It would have to be the only person studying Aurestia, instead of the flickering scarab.

But Gideon spotted no one. All eyes followed the coin.

"Scarab," he said, almost too late.

The coin landed on the grass. An elongated, eerily inhuman mask stared up from the gold.

"Heads," said Aurestia. "The positive stance begins."

Sebastian surveyed every face. Gideon took the opportunity to do the same.

"Ladies and gentlemen." Sebastian waved a hand to take in the whole area. "You and I, and everyone around us in this fine city...are animals. Savagery lurks in every skull. Only two powers can tame this savage. Armed force—and art."

Sebastian paused, throwing Gideon a look as if his protégé had opened his mouth to mock him.

"Yes, art! You're surprised? You've been trained by our modern, decadent society to believe that art's a frivolous pursuit. Art's for diversion, you say, for escape. Or art helps us look inward, to unlock the intricacies of the soul." Sebastian chuckled bitterly and shook his head. "These are lies. Mendacious forces in our faltering empire perpetuate this untruth, so that a divide may slice the ranks of artists. On one side are the majority, who devote their art to irrelevant frippery. On the other side are a small number of propagandists who serve the powerful. Imagine such a state of affairs applied to the use of force. Imagine if the majority of soldiers saw themselves fit only to entertain, hacking away at each other in the Oppara Arena, while a tiny handful controlled the state, laughing at their fellows. It would be madness."

Gideon sneezed, made apologetic noises, and looked toward the greenery behind the arches. Was there something moving?

Sebastian's voice rolled over him. "Yet we apply such a division to art. And do not imagine that art is force's inferior! How else do we teach the dreams of Taldor? Six thousand years of Taldan culture surrounds us, a legacy that encompasses the now-wayward lands of Galt and Andoran and Cheliax and beyond. It's the ground beneath our feet and the air we breathe. No dusty history tome can convey the true essence of being Taldan. But one performance of an opera like Ymbert's The Talisman of Truth can kindle a sense of duty. One rendition of ‘The War March of the First Expedition' can summon martial pride. One recitation of ‘The Lost Admiral's Homecoming' can evoke awe at our ancestors. Art is like a knife-thrust to the heart."

Gideon made a mental note to review any Sebastian Tambour compositions for sharp edges. He made himself sneeze again, earning a hard look from his opponent, and scanned the bushes. Someone was coming around the bend...

"But gone are the days," Sebastian was saying, "when a work like The Talisman of Truth could embody virtue. Recent generations look instead to works like Blacwin's Wanderloss, salacious twaddle about doomed lovers aboard dueling ghost ships. It's aimed squarely at the baser passions, and has nothing to say about the ship of state. It's appropriate that both lovers, having been restored to life by their romance, should plunge to their deaths in icy waters. Would that the composer had met the same fate!"

Gideon covered his face with his arm and pretended to sneeze again. The maneuver covered his expression, for from childhood Wanderloss had been his favorite opera. It also let him keep an eye on the man coming around the hedge.

It was the groundskeeper, old Xeritian, a spry ancient sporting a goatee and a twinkle in his eye, his usual drab robe stained with mud and grass. He clipped serenely away at the bushes, yet Gideon didn't trust that serenity.

For Xeritian was also headmaster of the Shadow School.

In his above-ground guise as the groundskeeper, Xeritian could snip and clip his way all over the college without suspicion. He'd have no trouble trimming his way to Aurestia's side. Xeritian wasn't headed that way just yet, but the old man's presence was enough to make Gideon sweat. Here was his "assassin."

Sebastian ought to be making him sweat, too, Gideon realized. He'd lost the thread of Sebastian's argument, but he could tell the crowd was rapt, for all that arguing art's servitude to the nation was an uphill struggle at the Rhapsodic.

"There was a time," Sebastian was saying, "when old Taldor was ruled by a Grand Prince much less wise and resolute than our own Stavian—gods preserve him—who was taken on a tour of a northern prefecture recently conquered, in what's now Galt. The general who guided the Grand Prince wanted to impress his liege with the new lands—but the problem was, this region was then essentially wilderness. So the enterprising general Amalric built fake villages, realistic facades to be seen from a distance, to deceive the Grand Prince into perceiving a more prosperous region than was really there."

Sebastian gestured at the three pillars behind them, which stood in for any number of settings, from palaces to graveyards. "To this day students of history call such visual deceits ‘Amalric gambits.' But although our own Stavian—long may he reign—does not mislead us so, there are always unscrupulous nobles with similar tricks. Not all Amalric gambits deceive the eye. Some are carefully placed rumors. Some are parades, with paupers paid to become admiring crowds. Some are tales of a noble's grudging charity, dressed up to appear like an epic of generosity. Sometimes lies look fine and grand, while truth looks ragged and weak."

Speaking of looking ...Gideon scanned the crowd in case Xeritian wasn't the only threat. There appeared upon the green behind Ozrif and Viridia a man dressed in rich blue silks, with ermine draped over his shoulders. He possessed a black hat upon which blazed the seal of some bureaucratic office: a fiery bird. The man himself looked uncomfortably cramped in his clothing, for he was both powerful looking and plump, like a street fighter softened by rich living. This was surely Matharic, Royal Adjunct Vice-Critic for Moral Suasion in the Fine Arts.

Sebastian noticed the man as well. Smiling, he appeared to direct his next words to the official. "That most of all is why art must serve society. Not to enslave artists. But to keep the purveyors of falsehoods from enslaving the people."

Matharic frowned, as if searching for sedition. Xeritian smiled, as if nothing could perturb an innocent gardener.

Gideon coughed, because he could.

Xeritian coughed too, in exactly the same tone, as if afflicted by exactly the same imaginary disease. What was the headmaster up to?

"If genuine art, with its truthful insights about life, does not serve society, then the unscrupulous propagandist will fill that void. We see the results around us—a Taldor given over to the animal within, whose nobles endlessly squabble for status, a realm that can't stand united against outside threats and internal decay. We need a national story, a drama, that will unite us again. And it can't be the hollow narratives of the deceivers, but something true to Taldor's spirit. Perhaps someone here will dream that story..."

Sebastian let the sentence drift into the aether, and slowly lowered his head.

Matharic grunted and nodded. Xeritian clipped. Gideon took a breath and bowed to Sebastian.

Gideon said, "What does the artist owe society?"

He let the question drift like a cloud, in imitation of Sebastian.

"Absolutely nothing."

Into the surprised silence that followed, Gideon lobbed his words like moonmelons.

"Now, before you string me up, let me elaborate. The artist, as an artist, owes nothing to society. As a citizen he may owe taxes. He may owe martial service. He may owe respect for the law. He may even owe a dollop of compassion to his neighbor. But art owes nothing. Let me tell you why."

Gideon spread his arms to take in the green, Taldor, the world. "We're born into a country. We have no choice about that. We're born into a family, and have no choice about that either. But we're also born into a world, a place of majesty and horror and madness and wonder."

Frowning, Matharic crossed his arms.

"But," Gideon said, "we're also opened by our senses to the patter of rain on the roof and the brush of wind across our faces and the cold of the morning dew on our feet. We know the boom of thunder and the crackle of a dry leaf clapped in our hands. There are no rules about such things. There is no etiquette for admiring a sunset, no code of laws for tasting a raindrop."

He kept Xeritian in the corner of his gaze. "Make no mistake. This connection to the natural world precedes our links to our fellow man."

Gideon looked to the sky.

"Imagine you're one of a flock of birds winging amid the clouds, and you and your fellows' survival depends upon finding shelter a thousand miles away. And imagine that instead of matters such as wind direction, star patterns, and the lay of the land, all your flock wants to talk about is who has the brightest plumage, or the sweetest song, or the largest beak. Thousands of square miles of glorious and treacherous landscape all around you, and the birds focus their whole attention on a flock no wider than a city block. From within the thick of the formation it may seem obvious that nothing but wings and feathers and birdsong matters."

Xeritian's clippers were now inching back toward the pillars and Aurestia. Gideon began to pace, to widen his natural field of action. He spread his arms again, in accord with his metaphor.

"Artists are like birds at the edge of the flock. We can't help but notice a larger world. We can't help but report it. But the flock may not like it, nor even believe what it hears. In Andoran, for example, my countrymen never like hearing that we might be in the wrong. Self-righteousness is in our blood. But the artists at the edge of the flock have to say it."

The cadence of Gideon's voice made a rapid gait seem natural, and when it subsided, Gideon was right in Xeritian's path. This became Gideon's new fulcrum, the point about which his feet would turn.

Xeritian sneezed.

Gideon had stuck to his prepared speech. But something in the crowd's response—their attention, a new ease in their postures—made him want to wander off the trail.

"When I was a drunk living on the Dog's Teeth in Cassomir—if you've been there you might have missed those little islands, but let me tell you they're as memorable as any soiree in Westpark! When I was a drunk, waking up by the surf and staring up at a sky much like this (although entirely too bright!) I could regard those clouds and see incredible details. They looked like the coastlines of islands in an archipelago carved of bone..."

Xeritian sneezed again and rasped, "Excuse me," clutching his chest but waving at Gideon to go on.

"I could have stared at that universe of white and blue for hours," Gideon said, with an ease he didn't feel, "had not I experienced an urgent need to retch, and a subsequent need for food. But in that interlude between waking and retching, there it was: a communion with the world. I recommend trying it, though without the binge. You may be surprised how calm you feel, talking with your old friend the universe. You might be surprised how much you've ignored your first companion over the years. But the universe is patient. It's always waiting. It's one of the few things you can count on. Life promises nothing except death. And maybe wonder, if you're paying attention before death arrives."

Xeritian was starting to quiver. If it was an act, it was a good act. Even Gideon was becoming concerned. He shifted toward Xeritian, putting concern into his voice but flexing his hands for a fight.

"That paying attention, seeing the world around you and alerting the flock—if there's a purpose for art, it's that. And for that reason art can't serve society. Not only for the artist's sake. But for society's sake too. Thank you. May I help you, groundskeeper?"

"That isn't your place, Mister Gull," said Aurestia. "It's time for the free-for-all. You and Mister Tambour will verbally fence until I call the time. You have the first jab. I'll help Xeritian."

Sneaky old devil, Gideon thought with admiration.

Gideon rarely looked heavenward for inspiration. For one thing, signs from Erastil were said to appear in things of wood and earth and beast. For another, he got distracted by things like clouds. Yet a hint of shadow sent his vision skyward, and there he saw a gull.

Seabirds were common in Oppara. But something about this one suggested an abnormal interest in this gathering. Gideon acted on a hunch.

Remembering Sebastian's argument, Gideon proclaimed, "Society is nothing without ordinary folk's happiness!"

His outburst startled Aurestia, and she halted.

Good.

Xeritian commenced a cacophony of coughing and retching.

Not so good.

Sebastian offered Gideon rhetorical rope with which to hang himself. "You can't truly mean that the legitimacy of a government flows from the individual?"

A fresh round of hacking wracked Xeritian. The groundskeeper staggered toward Aurestia. She stepped closer.

Gideon was now operating on instinct. Striding toward Xeritian (whose eyes widened fractionally) Gideon bellowed, "I do! The only way to resolve the conflict between art and state is for both to arise democratically from the people! For doesn't art come ultimately from the gods? Doesn't Taldor's authority ultimately arise from there as well? And don't the gods care for every mortal? Why, they care even for our poor, sick groundskeeper. Even now they might send him a messenger from Heaven itself!"

Gideon put a brotherly arm around Xeritian's shoulder and with the other arm waved grandly toward the sky. "Behold!"

A gasp from Aurestia and the assembled students told him he'd captured their full attention, and that he'd deflected the "assassin," at the bargain price of acting like a radical. At least he'd a letter to look forward to. The seagull descended, for it was surely a messenger from Corvine. Never mind that she usually sent her birds to a nearby tavern, not the green...

...or that it was Sebastian's arm it alighted upon.

As Gideon stared in surprise, Sebastian took note of the tiny scroll upon the gull's foot. He locked gazes with Gideon.

"Well, open it," Gideon called, nonplussed.

"Gentlemen!" Aurestia broke in, Xeritian's fake illness forgotten. "Out of order! It's still the free-for-all round. We haven't even reached character assassination."

"Let's move on, then," said Sebastian, freeing the scroll. "Gideon Gull's a lazy drunk."

"It's true," Gideon said. "For a whole year I've been too lazy to drink. That's the first honest thing Sebastian's ever said. You know, even as a newborn, he lied when he wailed for milk, in fact seeking only the nurse's breast—a habit I'm afraid he retains to this day. What does the message say?"

"You're supposed to perform ad hominem attacks!" Aurestia said. "Not trade meaningless insults! You're indeed lazy liars."

"What manner of insane school is this?" boomed Matharic, striding forward. The Royal Adjunct Vice-Critic for Moral Suasion in the Fine Arts had a deep voice, all the more threatening because there was a hint of gloating in it, as if he'd caught the artistic elite in their underclothes in broad daylight. Gideon could now see Matharic's seal of office more clearly. It was a phoenix clutching a scroll in one talon, a harp in the other. Both scroll and harp were burning.

"I think it says Cassomir's under threat," said Sebastian, squinting. "Corvine Gale is asking for help. Something about a fog..."

"I asked a question," said Matharic.

"And we didn't answer," Gideon said, irritated. "Aren't we supposed to save our character assassination for each other?"

"You must think you're so clever, Andoren, talking democracy, mocking your hosts to their faces. Well, you weren't so clever today, and you'll be hearing about that."

"Enough!" said Aurestia. "Gideon Gull, this disputation is ended. The Rhapsodic board will have to decide how to handle this irregularity."

Gideon nodded, but his eyes remained on the letter. He wondered what menace worried Corvine. And he couldn't help wondering why she'd contacted Sebastian first.

So much did he wonder that he forgot Xeritian. The hedge clippers tapped him on the shoulder.

"I'm afraid you're ‘dead' now, Gull. The residue of a certain leaf from the Mwangi Expanse is generally fatal in one minute. In this exercise you've protected your target but have perished, serving Taldor well from the shadows. But in the light, in reality, you've made yourself suspicious to the powers that be. Such is the paradox of the performer who's also a spy. A mixed outcome for your Shadow Taunt."

Gideon wanted to shrug and pretend it all meant nothing to him. But it was hard to lie to Headmaster Xeritian. "Also," he sighed, "a mixed performance on my disputation."

People were departing the green, some waving, some staring. Ozrif and Viridia had already gone, for his cell was due for training. It seemed strange, somehow, that no one noticed he was "dead."

Almost no one. Sebastian offered a shrug and a wink.

Matharic stalked away with Aurestia. Leothric waved his dragon puppet at Gideon. "Did you really just talk democracy with a government agent watching? May I have your harp if you're imprisoned?"

Gideon slowly shook his head, and Leothric shrugged and walked on.

Xeritian chuckled. "It was an interesting debate! But events tricked you into forgetting the mission, and into assuming I was quelled. You can assume nothing. There's an old saying of the Lion Blades: ‘The dagger of trust is the sharpest blade of all.'"

Gideon didn't know about that. All he knew was that today couldn't get any worse.

But the day of murder had only just begun.

Chapter Two

Chamber Music for Three Assassins

Taking leave of the headmaster, Gideon raced into the building upon whose roof he'd greeted the day. Footfalls echoed through halls of dwarf-cut stone from the World's Edge Mountains and timber from the grim druids of the Verduran Forest.

Even corridor acoustics concerned the Rhapsodic College.

Weaving and dodging, Gideon passed classrooms, recital halls, dance studios, practice rooms, and the big performance hall, until he reached twin oaken doors carved with musical notes.

The smells of paper, leather, vellum, and papyrus greeted his nose. A gruff "Howzit, Mister Gull?" from the gnome librarian greeted his ears. Wintry light glowed through stained-glass windows depicting the rainbow-tailed bird of the goddess Shelyn and the purple butterfly of the goddess Desna, two powers particularly admired by bards. In their light, bookshelves stretched all around him.

"Need work, Mister Gull?" The librarian's skin was as dark as the oiled wood of his desk, and his gray hair had highlights that matched the colors of the windows. "They say a ship's in port all the way from Vudra. Might have some new sitar tunes."

While the library couldn't match the rival Kitharodian Academy's collection for size and depth, the gnome was fanatical about competing in breadth. Students could make money scouting docks, gates, and markets on the librarian's behalf, hunting for anyone with a new scrap of music. When busking went dry, Gideon often worked for the librarian, expanding his own repertoire in the bargain.

"Not today, Master Spindlegrim. Late for...studying."

"It's winter exams, boy!" As one of the oldest students in the college, Gideon only had to endure the term boy from this ancient gnome; he didn't begrudge it. "You're a little late indeed!"

"Don't I know it!" Gideon retreated into the stacks. He was never sure if Spindlegrim was in on the secret of the Shadow School or not, but in any case Gideon couldn't give the game away.

A dark turn in one corner led to Antique Musicology, a dusty, mazelike nook. The ancient music discussed here preceded all notation, and its true sound could only be guessed at, never recorded with certainty. Most students were too practical-minded to venture here.

If they did—if they slipped around the absurdly narrow last turn and peered through the shadows at the farthest books—they might find a low, slim, volume titled Toward an Ethnomusicology of the Serpentfolk, with letters of onyx embossed on black. It took squinting to find it, and it appeared jammed between its bulkier neighbors.

But if you were a truly determined seeker, seizing knowledge in both hands, you could slide the book out...and in so doing discover it was no book at all, but a slab of stone.

Pulling it further, you'd trigger two silent mechanisms, one shifting the stacks to cut off this alcove, the other sliding the final shelf just a fraction, revealing a dark passageway. If bold enough, you might slip into that tunnel before the shelves slid closed again.

Now trapped in total darkness, you'd have no choice but to descend steep stairs to a landing where magical light suddenly sprang to life. When your eyes at last adjusted, you might notice the murder holes surrounding you, through which guardians might jab poisoned spears if they didn't like what stood revealed in the light.

But if you were Gideon Gull, you said, "The crab catch is catastrophic in Korvosa," giving the passphrase of the week. "And hurry, I'm late."

Someone grunted and cranked a lever. A stone wall carved with notation from a requiem groaned aside and revealed the Shadow School.

It was not the only Shadow School, of course. Everyone knew there were others. It was guessed, but never admitted, that there was another beneath the rival Kitharodian Academy. Gideon suspected there were more, and there was even a rumor of one under Cassomir. The mastermind of the Lion Blades obviously liked both secrecy and redundancy. He also liked keeping his recruits on their feet.

Gideon moved as fast as he could without alarming the hooded guards that stood at attention like pieces of architecture. He passed quickly through a labyrinth of drab corridors whose only ornaments were slogans spelled out with magical glowing stones.

Speech is a sword, said one group of red stones, while Silence is a shield, answered another batch in blue. Around the bend, purple stones announced the silent pun No thieves aloud. Beyond another turn was a kind of mandala composed of green stones spelling out repetitions of Illusion Reality Illusion Reality in an ever-tightening spiral. Students argued as to what the innermost, tiniest message actually said. (Made You Look was Gideon's favorite guess.)

Gideon panted up to one particular slogan, Here lies truth. Gideon caught his breath and pressed the letter s. Stone rumbled.

His first time in the Shadow School had also been his first hazing, of sorts. Students were set loose alone into the maze, which apparently had no particular rhyme or reason, let alone classrooms.

Eventually he'd guessed that the slogans marked concealed doors. Gideon's first class had been behind Silence is a shield, where he'd met the other members of his cell. The instructor there, the Mistress of Lies and Memory, had claimed the particular slogan you first triggered said a lot about you, and determined which students you trained with. What exactly it said in their case, the Mistress never explained.

The concealed door marked by Here lies truth shifted inward, revealing the shape of a tombstone, then slid sideways. Gideon stepped through, and the tombstone rumbled back into place.

He stood within a vast chamber that at first glance appeared mobbed. The magical illumination was silvery as moonlight. As his eyes adapted, he recognized the crowd as fake. Mannequins, statues, straw men, and potato sacks, all wrapped in clothing, filled this arena. Facades like those Sebastian had spoken of created civic scenes. This time, judging by the sharply pointed buildings and the jagged symbols of devils and diabolism, Gideon was supposed to be in Cheliax.

The decor made the locale's nickname all the more apt. Although officially termed the Simulation Gymnasium, students called it the Scar Chamber.

"You're late, Gull."

Above, on the Rhapsodic campus, students were "mister" and "mistress." Down below, you were meat.

"As such, the simulation will incorporate your delay." If tones could cut like knives, this one was a surgeon's blade for that meat.

"Yes, ma'am."

"You're a Lion Blade on assignment in Cheliax, and you've stolen war plans from the desk of Queen Abrogail herself. Her armies mass on Andoran's borders, threatening to destroy Taldor's buffer with Cheliax—and, incidentally, your own native land."

"Yes, ma'am."

His instructor stepped forward into the faux moonlight. She was a short, compact woman with cropped gray hair, wearing a severe black tunic and goggles with lenses of dark crystal. Two dueling scars sliced her impassive face like a chart of the Porthmos and Sellen Rivers, with the curve of her left eye the coast, the Porthmos slashing east on one side of the eye, the Sellen slicing north on the other. She passed Gideon a scroll, sealed with a red, waxen mark that rivaled a sea-urchin for sheer number of pointy bits. "Find your contact and hand over these plans. Escape by locating a spot marked Exit in the language of devils. The word will be incongruous, but inconspicuous."

"How...how will I know my contact?"

"He—or she—is wearing a hat marked with the azure coin of the archdevil Mammon of the Third Layer, Hell's treasurer. Move quickly. Your colleagues Ozrif and Viridia are playing treacherous Lion Blades in the queen's service. Their job is to ‘kill' you. I will unleash them sooner, because you were late. Now inspire yourself!"

With that, the Mistress faded into shadows.

A low growl, nearly inaudible, filled his throat. The vibration's sound and sensation triggered a series of memories: hours spent beside the Mistress of Lies and Memory in a darkened chamber, surrounded by anonymous Lion Blades in leonine masks, all growling and chanting about him.

You are loved, brother!
You will triumph!
Your claws will tear the foe!
Your fangs will rip the enemy!
You will taste the blood of victory!
We are always with you, brother!
No force in the world can stop you!

And so on, in this enthusiastically bloody vein. On one level it was silly. Yet the sensation of trust and support had been powerful. Daily repetitions of the ritual had clawed the feeling deep into his brain, so that now if he merely rattled a soft, wordless echo of the chant, it was as if every Lion Blade stood beside him, urging him on.

Now he stepped into the crowded moonlight. The crowd wasn't moving, of course, but the Mistress would be watching, her magical eyewear bestowing perfect vision in the dark, so he had to behave as though it were. Gideon slipped into the frozen bustle and wove through it.

He couldn't tell where she was—perhaps due to some magical effect—but the Mistress's voice echoed through the chamber, goading and encouraging.

"The structures around you aren't lifeless, Gull! Crowd and city aren't just random flotsam! They're embodiments of what we glibly call ‘society.' They box in your body. Just as rules, strictures, and customs box in your brain."

As a child in Andoran, Gideon had gotten used to teachers who ordered him to sit still while they lectured. He'd never have dreamed of an instructor like the Mistress, who shouted maxims like some Ulfen wrestling coach.

"You can bypass these obstacles. Your body knows how. It's hungry to evade, to twist, to leap. Let it!"

Something in Gideon quickened at these words, as though every muscle he possessed yearned for the challenge of a city and the need to traverse it. He encountered a cart hitched to a wooden horse; he jumped smoothly over the singletree.

"Most people shamble endlessly through their days, as unmindful as constructs or walking corpses. You can be free!"

The faux horse was triggered to kick; Gideon spotted the danger and rolled away, getting himself around a corner.

A sound rose magically in the chamber, that of a multitude upon a busy street.

The Mistress's voice rose above the hubbub. "Remember, city dwellers have a mental shorthand. Class, gender, race, objective—all are surmised at a glance, below the level of true awareness. That shorthand is your friend. Step lightly, and leave no trace in the pliant mud of the mind."

Gideon hustled, searching everywhere for his contact. How long till his hunters found him?

"But not everything can be average or ambiguous. You can't help but present a gender and a class. Viridia! Your gender invites danger and opportunity. There are shadowed streets a prudent woman won't walk alone, yet also social occasions where only a woman blends in."

At Viridia's name, Gideon immediately ducked close to the facade of a building and removed his boots. This would call attention to him, and in daylight would be a critical error. But in this moonlight, it might not matter. He pulled off the boots and tangled the laces in his hand, so that he would have a pathetic little club, if need be.

"Class is more subtle," the Mistress said. "Its power varies by nation, city, and district. Here in Taldor, take special note of what stratum you're emulating—especially you, Gideon."

Now, as if people pulled off their shoes for no reason every Moonday night, Gideon returned to the crowd. His footfalls would be quieter now.

"In Katapesh, everything's for sale—including, potentially, you. Be suspicious, and in that way you'll be acting like everyone else. An innocent is a mark, or an idiot, or has something up his sleeve. I don't fear for you in this, Ozrif, though beware of sentimentality should you return."

A dummy moved, attempting to block him.

Gideon had expected this, though not so soon. Many of the figures were mounted on movable panels, responding to pressure plates or cranks operated by unseen staff. Some of the figures were even magically self-animated.

Gideon dodged.

"In Andoran, swagger—but not you, Gideon—to the point of insulting your betters. For the point is that an Andoren has no betters. Walk down every street as if you own it. For after all, you do."

Now he heard footfalls elsewhere in the Scar Chamber, though he couldn't tell where.

"It's best to think of wondrous Absalom not as one city, but many. Its variety is such that it's always easy to blend in to a degree. But each district has its special customs, and you'll have to learn them to operate with real success."

Glints of red and gold, emerald and turquoise lay on many of the dummies' hats or arms or necks. Gideon's eyes shifted back and forth, hunting for the blue coin of the archdevil Mammon.

"In Cheliax, tell yourself you're smarter than anyone else, and the appropriate sneer will develop. Learn the diabolic deferences, but remember that Cheliax respects devils without worshiping them. And never forget your common humanity with the Chelaxians. They'll surprise you with little kindnesses toward their foes, even amid the business of backstabbing their friends."

At last Gideon glimpsed an azure disc across an alley. He ducked low and veered between the building facades.

A mistake. A foot jabbed from behind a mannequin and tripped Gideon. He fell, rolled, and was up immediately, kicking at a dark shape that skittered backward. Such was Ozrif's style.

The juggler from Katapesh had grown up on mean streets, performing but also stealing, evading grown-up thieves and slavers and worse. Gideon's own street experience—mainly lying insensible in them—could not compare.

Remembering the lay of the crowd, Gideon gambled and danced backward between dummies. When he'd gotten a sufficient distance he threw his shoes to a point beyond where Ozrif must be.

Before the shoes had even hit the floor, Gideon was off through the forest of mannequins, circling the block to bypass the alley.

He reached his contact, an unusually realistic mannequin wearing a cap adorned with a devil-faced blue coin. Gideon stuffed the small scroll under the cap and ran, hoping neither Ozrif nor Viridia had seen. Now his job was to run.

He rounded a corner and met Viridia's knife.

The rough-and-tumble frontierswoman from Stavian's Hold had good hearing, and now that Gideon was taking risks with speed, she was quick to find him. She jabbed and swung like someone who'd grown up with a blade in her hand.

"Die, enemy of the queen!"

"She's a rebel!" Gideon pointed, knowing the Mistress would be imagining a crowd's response. "An Andoren trying to undermine the regime!"

"I'm a loyal servant of Cheliax!"

"Oh, yeah? Name all of the eight archdevils below Asmodeus!"

Viridia spat. "Creepy, Snarly, Greedy, Nasty, Farty, Crazy, Chilly, and Scum! Who the hell cares?"

When you first looked at Viridia, you thought you were looking at a weathered, strong-minded, dark-haired young woman with the plain-spoken wisdom of the eastern frontier. It was only after hearing her snorting bark of laughter, after watching her swill hard liquor with a burp or listening to her haggling at the market, that you realized either your idea of the solemn dignity of the plains was utterly quaint, or that Viridia was unique. Perhaps both.

Gideon leapt onto a facade's balcony. With Viridia swearing beneath him, Gideon jumped to the balcony of a neighboring facade and, with one quick scan for the word Exit, leapt back to the street.

He'd glimpsed a golden word...

Somewhere out there, the Mistress said, "Remember! Whenever you speak in the field, you play a role! When you're silent, only then will you be yourself."

"It's well you should know the names of devils," said a different voice, "for you'll be meeting them soon."

He whirled and ducked beneath Ozrif's spinning kick.

Ozrif's light brown skin, black hair, and almond eyes revealed his Keleshite heritage; and in a nation still remembering a withering war against a Keleshite land, this forever marked him as suspicious. Gideon sometimes wondered if Ozrif's bardic specialty deliberately deflected that suspicion. For a juggler is necessarily apart from his audience, the center of a whirling, transfixing phenomenon—if all goes well, anyway. It's only if one drops the ball that the spell is broken. It helped that Ozrif was also a bit of a comedian.

Oops! Gideon had once heard Ozrif say. Well, every moon must descend. Parents, thank you, and remember I have magic powers to cure your children of childish traits. Za zim zab! There, bring them back in thirty years and we'll see how that worked. Unattended money attracts thieves; save yourselves from such a fate by means of my handy cup!

Ozrif had no juggling clubs or quips today, but his limber punches and kicks testified to his quick reflexes and wit.

Viridia reappeared, flanking Gideon. She jabbed him in the arm. Gideon's old friend Pain rattled the bell of his mind. Ozrif and Viridia were indeed the perfect couple, if you needed someone hunted down.

Spellcasting was unwise under these conditions. But then again, anything was unwise under these conditions.

He wished he'd retained his spell to fascinate a crowd, but you played the instruments you had. He recalled one spell he didn't associate with any particular music, but rather with the random, perplexing, fascinating racket of an orchestra tuning up.

Waving his hands, he intoned syllables that would implant perplexity.

It probably shouldn't have worked, but it did. Ozrif froze. He began babbling what might have been a Keleshite nursery rhyme.

Gideon rolled away from Viridia, noticing that the straw mannequin nearest him, done up as a Chelish Hellknight with cloth for armor, was bound together with twine.

Humming the tune of "Haul Away for Arcadia," he rose beside the dummy. Viridia advanced within a foot of the Hellknight. The shanty opened a hatch in Gideon's mind, and out popped the arcane formulae and gestures for a spell.

The twine unraveled and engulfed Viridia.

As she shouted "Cheat!" and Ozrif's addled brain set the juggler to punching himself, Gideon reached the shadowy spot where he'd glimpsed the word Exit.

He heard the Mistresses' voice again, now from a new direction. "Remember, you're a paradox, for Taldor is flamboyant even in its secrets. Who but Taldor would recruit performers to become its corps of spies?"

He spotted a glint of gold.

The Mistress had never said Exit would appear on a structure.

He ran toward the voice.

"Only Taldor so smoothly blends guile and show," the Mistress said. "Hello, Gull."

"Hello, Exit." The word glittered, golden letters strung upon a necklace.

"Well played," said the shadowy shape wearing it. "But you must tag me to escape."

Gideon circled. "What does this represent in the scenario?"

"The unexpected. No plan survives contact with reality." She moved gracefully, shifting with him. "So sometimes our simulations simply cheat."

Gideon lunged. She shifted aside easily.

Behind him he heard the footfalls of Ozrif and Viridia. Gideon's spells had worn off or been overcome.

All he had to do was tag the Mistress of Stillness and Motion. But she could see in the dark and he couldn't.

Ozrif was upon him then, attempting a flying tackle. Gideon dodged, rolled, rose—and realized what he needed to do. As Ozrif got to his feet, Gideon treated the Mistress as a pillar, an obstacle, and she seemed not to object, so long as he wasn't trying to touch her. He kept his distance, so as to goad Ozrif into another leap.

Now—

Instead of evading, Gideon threw himself into the brunt of Ozrif's tackle. He'd positioned things so that the momentum threw him against the Mistress. Tag.

But even as he knew his gambit would succeed, his ears brought him the sound of Viridia's drawling incantation, the voice swiftly shifting location, for Viridia usually danced as she cast. He recognized it as her sleeping spell...

He awoke to the Mistress of Stillness and Motion splashing water on his face.

"Wake up. You're dead."

He was as groggy as if awakening in a gutter. His arm had the tingling sensation he always felt upon receiving magical healing.

"Twice in one day," Gideon groaned.

"All part of life." The Mistress offered him a hand and hauled him up. The lighting in the Scar Chamber now resembled bright noontime, revealing the mannequins in all their rumpled artificiality, the facades as disguised exercise platforms. "You did achieve your goal, at the cost of your death."

"It's becoming a habit." Gideon blinked at Viridia and Ozrif, who were sitting nearby, drinking some of the cold water Gideon was now wearing. Being dead was thirsty work. He took a cup from the Mistress and gulped it down. "Didn't I escape in the end?"

"You did, but with your opponents glued to you. No clean getaway."

Viridia drew a line across her throat.

"A draw," the Mistress concluded. "Class is done. I have a message for you from the headmaster, Gull. He'd like to discuss this morning's events, whenever you find it convenient." She paused. "And do be cautious, topside, all of you. Something strange is in the air."

"I appreciate the warning," Ozrif said. "I'd appreciate specifics even more."

"That's Kelish for ‘spill it,'" said Viridia, then added, "please."

The Mistress shook her head. "Just an intuition."

As they left the Scar Chamber, Ozrif said, "The longer I know the Mistress, the less I think I know her."

"She's odd," Viridia agreed, "even for this place."

"I'd listen to her, though," said Gideon.

"Well, you're odd too." Viridia turned toward a branching corridor. "See you both later?" The cell usually took different exits to the surface.

"This time let's stay together."

"You do take her warning seriously," Ozrif noted.

Gideon shrugged. "She's an honest spy, as these things go."

"Do you feel a chill?"

At first, Gideon thought Ozrif was joking, but then Viridia answered, "Yes," and Gideon's skin felt clammy too.

All sounds were muted. Usually there was a hint of footsteps elsewhere in the school, but now it was as though the trio walked alone in a long-abandoned labyrinth.

They rounded another corner.

"—what in Desna's name is that?"

Everyone stopped. Viridia pointed.

Mist crawled through the corridor. It was as though the air of some remote bog had been grasped by a divine hand and deposited here, where it had no business being. Aside from the glow of a nearby slogan—Every brain is a pickable lock—the white fog, swirling with hints of green, obliterated vision. It didn't begin gradually, as a natural fog would, but rather blurred into view a few yards ahead of the trio, and filled the hallway like a mass of cobwebs.

Perhaps it was the corridor's chill, but Gideon recalled his sessions in the Shadow School's icy dissection chamber, where exhumed corpses were sliced to show the finer points of humanoid anatomy.

No, that was not entirely true. It reminded him of something else as well. Something long ago, just out of his mind's grasp.

"This must be a prank," Viridia said. "The Night of the Pale's less than two weeks from now..."

"An expensive prank," Ozrif said. "Some sort of magic..."

"There are shapes inside," Gideon said, unable to look away.

Three long shadows of human forms stretched into the fog, as though he and his companions were backlit. Above each shadow twisted even darker images. At first Gideon thought of these as ink spills, then as octopuses, and finally as shadow plays, like those Leothric performed with certain puppets imported from Jalmeray. For now in crisp silhouette there loomed scenes from each bard's life.

Above Ozrif's shadow Gideon saw a dancing, juggling boy he was sure was Ozrif himself. The boy jumped aboard a ship and was embraced by the people there. The ship soon encountered a larger vessel, and it flew a chiaroscuro flag of a crown above a lion. Many on the smaller ship were killed, and many treasures taken from it. The ship sank into the mists.

Meanwhile over Viridia's shadow there rose a farmstead, where a girl rode a horse through the grass. There came an ornate carriage bearing the crown-and-lion banner, and the girl's parents pleaded with a robed official. In the end many bags went into the laughing tax collector's hands.

Gideon didn't want to look at his own shadow.

Above Ozrif's there was now a bazaar scene, with the boy fleeing a slave stockade where his old crewmates stood for sale; and above Viridia's were hangman's nooses, their purpose fulfilled, with the girl raging before them.

And still Gideon did not look to the third scene. He saw instead his friends' expressions, haunted, contorted in old anger and pain. But worse, they looked also toward him.

"Gideon," Viridia said, "what are we seeing? I know the girl is me, and I know enough about Ozrif's past to recognize...but I don't understand yours."

"These are scenes torn from our pasts," said Ozrif. "Grim things. Yet yours seems different, Gideon."

Now Gideon looked.

In his own shadow play, a boy wrestled with his older brother. From the little cape worn by the bigger boy, Gideon knew it was his brother Gareth. And from the smaller boy's toy sword, Gideon knew that he was looking at himself.

The idyllic scene by itself was not the cause of his dread. The Singing Knight had fought the Opera Ghost many a time, sometimes with the participation of their sisters in the form of the Captive Diva, the Master Detective, and Chomper the Dinosaur. (That was Zitha, the littlest, who introduced Chomper into everything from tea parties to formal dinners; after a while it made a strange kind of sense.)

There was no diva or detective or dinosaur this time, but there was another element. Little specks flew back and forth in the air above the brothers.

"What are the dark dots?" Viridia asked.

"Bees."

"Did the bees attack you?" asked Ozrif.

"No! The bees are just bees." What mattered was not the bees but what their presence said about the time and place. "Those are the bees of Bellis."

The fog curdled and thickened near the bees, and the swarm dispersed. The boys looked up, the Singing Knight and Opera Ghost forgotten as they looked to where the fog had congealed.

"What are they looking at?" Ozrif asked.

"It," muttered Gideon.

"What?" said Viridia. "I don't see anything."

"That!" said Gideon, for it was plain as a bear on the Grand Bridge. And now it was as if he were back in time.

He unsheathed his dagger and confronted the fog.

"Gideon!" Viridia shouted, and Ozrif tried to restrain him. But he plunged forward.

The touch of the fog was like the caress of some undead lover. It sickened him, for all that he remembered it well. And within it, something touched his mind. The same presence he'd felt on the conservatory roof. Laughing.

All at once, the fog withdrew around a corner. He followed, his friends close at his heels.

When they rounded the bend, it was gone.

"What manner of monster was this?" Viridia demanded.

"Now you're leaping to conclusions," said Ozrif. "It was a trick, a spell effect..."

"I suggest," Gideon said, trying to return to the here and now, "that you two reach an exit and inform the guards. I'll see if the headmaster will speak to me early."

"You sure?" Viridia asked.

"You seem most affected—" said Ozrif.

"I'm fine." Gideon turned and walked toward the headmaster's nook of the maze, not wanting to speak further. He needed to be alone.

The past was the past. And Gareth was gone.

Gideon at last reached a wall where silver light stones spelled out the sentence If you want to know what lies ahead, learn what lies behind. He found a spot on the unmarked wall directly opposite the word behind, and pressed the stone there. A panel slid aside, and cold rock gave way to warm wood, silk curtains, and embroidered furnishings.

The headmaster had an open-door policy—if you could figure out how to open the door.

In Xeritian's office hung portraits of the sort that great men, or men who fancy themselves great, commission. Each noble or official or wealthy merchant stood in a pose of ease and power, often fondling some token of authority—a heraldic shield, a book of laws, or brass scales—as though it were a concubine.

In each picture Xeritian stood in the shadows behind the great personage, a dagger in his hand, a smirk upon his face.

There was a large chair facing a vast desk strewn with papers. Xeritian made a point of having his back to you if you entered his office. A dare, Gideon supposed, though he personally thought it theatrical.

The chair was empty, however.

"Gideon!"

Sebastian came down the hallway from the direction opposite Gideon's.

"I was hoping to catch Xeritian," the corsair said. "What are you doing here?"

"Sebastian. I'm glad to see you." Gideon explained about the fog, though something made him hold back anything about dead brothers or voices in his head.

Sebastian frowned. Entering the office, he leaned over a brass horn embedded in the desk, its cone opening onto some cavity in the wood. He blew. Gideon heard nothing.

"That should bring everyone running," Sebastian said. "They'll also send a messenger to Xeritian, wherever he might be."

"They?"

"A school like this requires many hidden staff. Will you show me where this fog manifested?"

When they reached the spot in question, Ozrif and Viridia were gone, but there were guards present, as well as the Mistress of Stillness and Motion. Sebastian conferred with her, adding, "Do you think it was the same?"

"That's supposition. But I mistrust coincidences."

"The same as what?" Gideon asked.

Sebastian took his arm. "Come with me, Gull."

They reached a guard post and ascended a switchbacking stairway in the dark. "There've been reports across Oppara of these manifestations," Sebastian said. "Even in the Senate's halls."

"An attack?"

"A strange one, if so. Only certain people perceive it. Thus we've not been able to convince the mighty. Also, no one's suffered worse than a scare, and a riling of their emotions." He paused. "You do seem upset."

"I'm fine. On the green, you mentioned a fog. Are these apparitions similar to what Corvine described?"

"Her letter was brief, but yes, I think so. She requested an investigation. I was personally inclined to wait, but given the excitement her messenger caused at the debate, I had to show her letter to the headmaster. He insisted we inform Director Rell. I did so personally, and was returning to Xeritian when I found you. Evidently the headmaster chose to do some investigating of his own."

"I'd volunteer. To go to Cassomir, I mean."

"You're eager to see Corvine."

"Well, how would you feel?"

Sebastian laughed. "That's unclear, since no one but you and she understands your relationship. You were clearly lovers once, but something happened—"

"I became a worthless drunk is what happened. Well, became one again. She's hinted we might start again. But I need to build a life that doesn't center around a bottle."

They reached the top of the stairs. Dim light seeped through the edges of a secret portal. They emerged between wine barrels into a storeroom with frosted window-slits lining the upper ceiling. A permanent illusion portrayed the squeak and scuttle of a rat infestation. Sebastian pulled down a trapdoor from the ceiling as Gideon rolled a barrel back into place, with beady, illusory eyes glaring at him all the while.

"She knows you've gone to the Rhapsodic," Sebastian said. "Does she suspect the rest?"

"I don't think so."

"Do you think she's the sort who can love a Lion Blade?"

"I think that's a premature question." Gideon paused. Unless he's asking for his own benefit. "By the way, I hope our little argument on the green didn't raise a cloud between us."

Sebastian paused on the trapdoor ladder. "That could never happen. Even if I'm a great believer in the Taldan way and you're an addled democracy-fool of Andoran."

"Thanks, I guess. It's been a long while since I voted, however."

"Do you ever want to go back?"

"I love Andoran. But we're...estranged."

"Hm."

They ascended to the owner's office of The Harp and Harpoon, a tavern and inn popular with bards and sailors, and thus a natural safe house for the Lion Blades. Sebastian hailed Tithra Sparksteel, the proprietor, who grunted invisibly from behind her stack of ledgers.

"Thought that racket was you, Tambour. By the way, that girl from The Cat and Feather came by."

"I hope you told her I'm busy."

"I almost told her I had an opening. If she's going to keep popping up, she might as well work."

"You won't, of course."

"Settle your business, man."

"My business is Taldor, madam."

Sebastian pulled a heavy book from a shelf and led Gideon to the common room. Amid the bright babble of seafaring conversation and snatches of song, Sebastian said, "I must take my leave for now. For even without these apparitions, I've a full schedule."

"You won't be investigating?"

"Not primarily. Not with the faculty already involved. I've an appointment with a ship's manifest and a mug of Bellis Mead. I'd hoped to find the headmaster here, but a school messenger's surely found him by now. My own business with him isn't urgent, and I'd best resume my duties."

"What should I do? Before all this happened the Mistress of Stillness and Motion told me the headmaster wanted to see me."

"You've made the effort. I'll vouch for you. I suggest you return to the college, prepare for exams, and let him find you." Sebastian smirked. "If he does, mention I'd like to speak to him again as well." After a pause, he said, "Do be careful out there."

"You mean the fog?"

"I mean everything."

When Gideon emerged from the tavern into the street, the air had changed. The sky, once so bright and clear, was now pale gray.

As he stepped onto the cobblestones, something swooped out of the pale sky.

Gideon dove across the street, ducking around a carriage, a trio of sailors, and a flower girl in a way that might have impressed the Mistress of Stillness and Motion. He rolled into a crouch beneath a townhouse's timber jetty, dagger out.

Swooping past the staring faces, the pigeon landed beside Gideon. A little scroll clung to its leg.

Gideon rose and bowed to the passersby. "Alas, pigeon training is never done!"

There was muttering to the effect that there ought to be laws against this sort of thing as the wayfarers moved on. Gideon removed the scroll. The pigeon looked familiar; some of Corvine's couriers returned to her, which spoke well of her treatment of animals.

Bard said to bird, "Thank you. Go free."

The pigeon fluttered into the dour sky. He opened the scroll and squinted at rows of intricate and increasingly diminutive handwriting.

Dear Gideon,
Salutations, greetings, waves! I'd have sent a seagull, Gull, but pigeons are better at this, and I need to move fast. How are you? I'm haunted by eldritch forces, but otherwise fine. No, don't be alarmed. It's not me personally, just my whole city. Maybe that doesn't reassure you. Maybe it doesn't reassure me. Anyway, the long and the short of it is, there's a mysterious, magical, fog-like effect that seems to drive people mad. We've had reports of it around town and up the Sellen. Actually one of the reports is mine! Earlier I sent a letter to our mutual friend Sebastian

"A coded message from the Qadiran Satrap, Gull?"

Gideon started, and pocketed the scroll. "Headmaster!"

Headmaster Xeritian chuckled. He was still dressed in his spattered groundskeeper's robe. "I fear you mistake me for someone else, Master Gull. I'm but a simple groundskeeper." His eyes flashed a warning.

The day grew suddenly warmer as Gideon realized his error. They stood in the middle of a busy street, and here he was loudly proclaiming the headmaster's true identity. "Of course. My mistake."

Xeritian nodded to the pocket containing the scroll. "Your blushing haste suggests not treachery, but romance. Your friend in Cassomir, then."

Gideon's face burned hotter still. He stepped closer and lowered his voice to a safe level. "The Mistress of Stillness and Motion said you wanted to see me? And you were informed about the apparition at the school?"

"Yes and yes. Walk with me."

He followed the old man through Westport, feeling increasingly agitated at Xeritian's lack of agitation.

They crossed some of the rougher streets of that rough district. Sometimes Xeritian would chuckle at this folly of humanity or that. Gideon had no sense of what the headmaster was up to. From time to time a disturbance would make Gideon ready to spring. A man came hurtling through the much-abused window of a tavern. Beside a brothel a woman in a man's clutches laughed in a shrieking, mocking way that hammered the ears. A man in a gutter gripped at Xeritian's leg and gasped, "Money for pesh?"

Gideon wanted to say, You have enough trouble without sucking up that stuff, but Xeritian passed the man a coin, to a babble of thanks from which the headmaster silently removed himself.

"You disapprove?" Xeritian asked Gideon.

"I've seen pesh carve brains like melons."

"His fate isn't my concern, and I admired his candor. A little honesty is a fine thing in this deceitful world."

"In that case: why aren't you back at the Shadow School, when something like that fog's gotten in?"

"The truth isn't going to be at the school. This is a city of a million lies, and I'm a master of liars. Sifting the lies, I may find the answers."

"If you admire honesty," Gideon wondered aloud, "doesn't it bother you, being a master of liars?"

Xeritian raised an eyebrow. "Not at all. I train them, but I have the privilege of being an honest man myself. If anything, I feel guilty at the discrepancy. Do the lies bother you?"

"Somewhat." If Xeritian appreciated candor, then Gideon would give it to him. "Every song's a lie of sorts, you know. You take the pose of a narrator. Sometimes that narrator is you, sometimes not. Spycraft is kind of like that, I think. Except it isn't a show, it's a con. It does bother me, sometimes..."

"Spoken like a bard. You're not the first with that reaction."

"Were you a bard, Headmaster?"

"No. I was a historian." A few unexpected snowflakes fell around them as they spoke. Xeritian caught the year's first snow in his hand. "When you grow up amid the bones of past greatness, it's a lively field." The snowflake melted, and they walked on.

They departed Westport, and the snowflakes became a throng, dancing on the air like fat, lazy gnats. At first they left only a little moisture on the cheek or a few brief bright motes in the glorious weaves of a Taldan woman's hair. Opparans, busy with the business of the City of Empire—or surviving the City of Empire—ignored it. But the sky's gray mills weren't to be denied, and relentlessly churned out their snowy flour. Bit by bit, the streets and rooftops were covered in white, and the Gilded City became silver.

Xeritian led Gideon to the doorstep of the House of the Immortal Son, the temple of the dead god Aroden, now converted to an opera house. He pushed open one of the great doors and gestured inside.

"Headmaster? What does an opera rehearsal have to do with the fog?"

"Nothing, Gull. I summoned you because of your performance this morning. It concerns me. Crises come and go, but the need to train new Lion Blades remains."

A singing troupe was rehearsing inside, sans orchestra, yet augmented with the presence of spellcasters. As Gideon watched, illusory fires seemed to fill the air around the singers, and blasts of water withered the fire; yet the waves were outflanked by further flames.

"Have you heard of the thaumacycle?" Xeritian asked.

"A composition that incorporates magic. A revival of a lost Azlanti tradition. A difficult form." While true bards studied both music and magic, each discipline was quite demanding on its own. The combination defeated most composers. By tradition, every spell in a thaumacycle performance had to be at least theoretically castable by the author. The exact form was up to each composer, but most entries were operas.

"You're aware of the Taldan Thaumacycle Festival?" "I've heard of it but never witnessed it. It travels around." Corvine had spoken of it with interest, and had mentioned wanting to try her hand at it.

"The next one will be held here on Longnight, a little over a month from now. This group's already rehearsing." Xeritian winked. "But I believe there's enough time for you to enter and compose something."

"Me? What about the fog?"

"You're forgetting you're still a student, Gull. More experienced hands will deal with today's danger. I still need you in training, to face tomorrow's threats."

"But—respectfully—how does this help me become a better Lion Blade? I could do it, but I'd have to drop everything else, and I doubt very much I'd win." And if he were to devote his winter recess to the work, he wouldn't be able to travel to Cassomir to investigate the fog. And see Corvine. "Maybe I'd manage the score, but the magic..."

"Challenging, yes. But experience is the point, not victory. You seemed reluctant to employ magic during the Shadow Taunt."

Gideon reddened. It was true. He was a quick study at spells, and could cast them at need, but they never seemed natural to him. Outside of immediate danger, he rarely thought of employing them.

"I suspect your difficulty with magic's less a matter of talent, and more that you have a lopsided interest in music."

"Well, I was just a musician until recently."

"Quite. Sometimes we must coax the brain, rather than flog it. I have recommended the thaumacycle for others before."

Gideon smirked. "And it'll keep me out of trouble?" And possibly, Gideon considered, give him something that could entice Corvine to visit him.

"There's that. I'll place you on special assignment. For the college as well. As it's almost winter recess, that will be simple. Indeed, as soon as I return I'll cancel your commitments for the day, and rearrange your tests, so you may begin work. It might be good to keep you out of the official eye. Be careful this fine frosty day." Xeritian turned.

"Wait."

The headmaster stopped.

"You're the third person today who's warned me to be careful," Gideon said. "Is there something I should know? If there's danger, why can't I investigate along with you? What does the future hold?"

Xeritian smiled. "I'll use the historian's standard answer: ‘That is not my period of study.' As for the rest—you're simply not ready, Gull. I'm sorry. Even I must be wary, as I go hunting."

"Be careful, Headmaster."

"Always, Gull." The headmaster paused. "You dislike lies, and that is admirable. Remember the value of truth. It is high. But it is not infinite."

"I don't understand."

"I believe you will."

Xeritian walked into the crowd, and there should have been no way that the old historian could simply disappear from Gideon's sight, but that was exactly what happened. Of course the headmaster of the Shadow School would have access to magic. But Gideon knew that thought was merely an attempt to salvage his own pride. You're forgetting you're still a student.

Hoping his pride would be burnished by Corvine's letter, Gideon pulled it out and finished reading.

as we both know he must be rather connected in government. But he may be at sea. Alert whom you can. You're surrounded by bards, I'm sure you can get the word out. Sorry this is so rushed. I have good gigs, will report later. Am I done? No, I'm never done! But there's no more room and these letters are as tiny as I can make them GBYE

Gideon reread the letter and pocketed it. He smiled. The concerns about anything between Corvine and Sebastian dissipated like morning mist. He strode jauntily into the snowfall, looking here and there for swirling shadows. He took the letter out and read it again, put it back in his pocket. He whistled.

A dim part of his mind replied, You are pathetic, Gideon Gull. Your would-be lover is under threat and all you can think of is how relieved you are there's probably no reason to be jealous of Sebastian.

A bright-lit part of his mind said, You have that part right, Gideon Gull! But she did say not to be alarmed!

Pathetic.

Whistling, his mind drifted toward the problem of a thaumacycle. It was a welcome change after the visions of the fog. Perhaps if he completed the work quickly, he could still be involved in the investigation, somehow.

As his thoughts drifted, so did his path through the snowfall, his feet leading him through the city, the deep parts of his mind in charge.

Gideon's boots led him to an empty sliver of city park dominated by a bust commemorating the sponsoring royal. Dark trees cradled the air and brought a hush to the white cobblestones and granite benches. It reminded Gideon of the Verduran Forest that enfolded the border of Andoran and Taldor far to the north. He remembered the family trip to Bellis on the Andoren side, and running around trees trying to tag Gareth...

But best not to think of that day.

He stopped and stretched. Gideon appreciated the park but could never remember the benefactor's name, only the patrician expression the sculptor had conjured. He decided the royal looked like he'd take chill without a hat, so Gideon molded one from snow.

The two took up parallel views of the river, as men in serious discussion might.

"You know much about women, Prince?" Gideon asked the bust. "I'm assuming you were a prince. If you appear to desire a woman, she frequently edges away. If you give up your desire, she frequently returns. This would seem to be perverse behavior, yet I've seen it time and again."

Gideon paused and nodded.

"Yes, of course you're right, the obvious stratagem is to pretend a lack of desire. And as a performer I normally find pretense as simple as plucking a note. Yet in the matter of Corvine Gale, I'm just not myself. For I find, with her, I can only be myself. Maddening."

A long-suffering member of the Lighters' Guild shuffled into the park with his pole and began to kindle the park's lantern. He stopped to study Gideon as the bard conversed with a stone head. Gideon waved. The Lighter muttered a prayer to Abadar, god of cities, and hurried about his work.

"True," Gideon continued, as if the bust had just lectured him, "she's no flower wilting in the snow. If I want Corvine's attention, I must live what, to my lights, is a life of attainment and honor, whether or not she consents to share it. She won't want a man whose chief occupation is talking about her with rocks. Thank you, Prince."

The Lighter might have set a speed record, for his work was already done, and he padded on. The sky darkened, and with the lantern ablaze there was a wash of amber light about the white-frilled, dark-wooded branches, as though the park were some old etching in bronze.

The stillness was broken by the sounds of a snapping twig and the unsheathing of a blade.

Gideon's well-trained ears had alerted, him but couldn't make out the exact direction. So he did the prudent thing and scrambled onto the bust.

A thug was approaching with a dagger, faster now that he was discovered. The man wore a leather jerkin and breeches and a fine cloak. Even in this prosperous swath of the city, he might pass as a well-to-do merchant or a buccaneer who'd fetched a rich haul. For that matter, perhaps he truly was one of those things, and was angling for supplemental funds. This was not the finest of times for Taldor.

"First snow's beautiful, eh?" said Gideon.

"It is, good madman, it is!" said the other. "Now howsabout you throw down your purse, and you can enjoy it with your eyes still in your head?"

"Crude! Uncouth! Good sir, I've lived in places where mugging is a refined art, with certain protocols. I might say, ‘Lovely weather,' and you might say, ‘Yes, but it's cold,' and I might say, ‘Ah, and you are seeking a donation for those without good winter gear, who've only a rusty knife to see them through,' and of course you might say, ‘That's about the size of it,' and then I offer my purse out of generosity, you bow, and I run like mad. Civilized!"

"I got your civilization right here." The mugger waved the blade. "Just hand it over!"

"Ah, you didn't specify, ‘it.'" Gideon reached into a pouch, but not his coin purse.

He pulled forth a small rolled piece of parchment, wider at one end, upon which he'd written the aria "Valley of Echoes." Under his breath, Gideon incanted strange syllables to the song's tune...

"Who dares disturb the peace of my park?" rumbled a voice.

"What?" screeched the mugger. "Who's there? What was that?"

It was Gideon who mouthed the words, but the sounds seemed to emanate from elsewhere. "It is I, Prince ..." (he thought a moment) " ...Acerbic, of the ...Age of Enthronement!" (As the Age of Enthronement had lasted over four and a half thousand years, Gideon figured he could tuck an imaginary prince in there somewhere.)

"Where are you hiding?" The mugger, while frightened, had still not discerned that the voice emanated from the bust.

Gideon rolled his eyes and slapped a hand over his face. He thought of the old Carpenden song "A Helping Hand" and murmured another incantation as he spread his fingers to keep an eye on his assailant.

With his other hand he gestured and caused a clump of snow to rise from a bench and move toward the thief.

"Boo," Gideon said, and remotely shoved snow down the man's back.

This sort of trick was commonplace enough, but the thief was already nervous. He screamed.

Some people, if taken by fear, will run. Others will lash out. This one was the second kind. He whirled and jabbed madly at the air, shouting, "Where are you where are you where are you—"

Gideon, a person of the first inclination, was already fleeing the scene. He could probably overpower the thug, but it wasn't his job to protect the streets, and no amount of training was a guarantee when a knife was involved. Besides, the college didn't need a criminal investigation on top of their run-in with Matharic, Royal Adjunct Pain in the Posterior.

Panting, Gideon at last stopped upon the Grand Bridge over the River Porthmos.

A river. The thought hit Gideon like a snowball to the face. The thaumacycle—my characters will escape assailants by taking a raft upon the Sellen. That northern river, greater even than the Porthmos, churned with more than a thousand miles of adventure and mystery. Where better to let loose a raft of vagabonds?

His characters would come from Galt, he decided. They would flee the guillotines of that failed democracy and ride the river south, encountering elves and dwarves and gnomes, crusaders and traders and pirates, Andorens and Taldans and druids. They would argue and laugh and weep. And sing, of course. At last at the sea, all would be resolved, as much as anything in life is resolved. Blood and crescendos.

Smiling to himself, he nodded to the passersby, for there was always somebody on the bridge. He came around the foot of the statue of General Coren, leader of the Third Army of Exploration. There was a legend that if you touched Coren's foot you would always make a return journey to Oppara. He reached out and patted the statue. "Just in case," he murmured.

An image came to him unbidden, of a small hand touching a huge insectile leg.

Gideon stopped in his tracks.

Snowflakes hit his face like scores of tiny biting insects, the kind that attack once and perish. His eyes saw nothing of the bridge or the city or the wayfarers who glanced at him curiously.

In his mind's eye, he was ten years old again, looking up at a monster. It resembled a giant beetle with legs like broken halberds, vast green eyes and curved mandibles, and antennae that flexed and quivered far out from its nightmarish head. Behind it swirled an unseasonably thick, cold fog. His heart was pounding, in the past and in the now, and the monster had him half-entrapped by the spears of its legs. Yet terrified as he was, the boy Gideon knew the creature didn't mean to eat him. An eerie sound like a pipe organ cut through the fog of memory, and Gideon imagined the monster turning its head, and the boy following its alien gaze.

Then the vision was gone, and Gideon stood alone on the Grand Bridge.

But he could still hear the dirge.

No one else appeared to notice. The sound seemed to emanate from somewhere upriver. He moved to the eastern edge of the bridge, leaned upon it, and looked out. He had a good view of the river and the city. The crescent moon was up, and the lamps were lit everywhere except the slum district known as the Narrows.

The eerie music came louder to his ears, and squinting for a source he saw a ship beyond the city, a long way upstream.

It was a ship that had no business being that far inland. This was a galleon with a sweeping prow and high stern, wide amidships, with four spindly masts, and a deep draft. Gideon was no mariner or boatman, but even he knew that the river's unseen shallows should gut such a keel.

And perhaps such a fate had already occurred, and this was a dead ship. For the vessel was suffused with a ghostly glow. Its torn sails gleamed, its gargoyle figurehead glinted, and its crew stood at attention with skeletal poise, eye sockets aimed at the Grand Bridge.

"Do you see it?" Gideon demanded of the nearest bystander, a Taldan nobleman. "Do you see the ship?"

The richly garbed man's expression was unreadable. "There are many ships," he ventured, with a nod toward the harbor.

"Not like this! Right there! Something right out of Blacwin's Wanderloss. Isn't it the spitting image of Wanderloss's adversary, the cursed ship Demonwake?"

The man took a step back, then appeared to find his courage. "Good sir...your accent marks you as Andoren, no? You must be a stranger here. I happen to contribute to Madame Floret's Home for Troubled Travelers, and I'm sure they can assist you with whatever afflicts you. If you'll just come with me..."

"Don't you see?" Gideon looked around at the few other witnesses who might validate his vision of the ship (sailing closer, blithely unconcerned about the Taldan noble's reaction). All looked at him blankly or with unease. A young girl did venture, squinting at the river, "I think, perhaps, I do see a glint of light..." before her parents hauled her over to watch something suddenly fascinating on the bridge's seaward edge.

No, Gideon realized, they didn't see.

And even as he'd made the comparison, Gideon had realized that the spectral craft didn't simply resemble the fictional Demonwake. It was Demonwake, just as he'd seen it in a performance in Almas many years ago. It was correct down to the flag of the horned skull above the crossbones and Captain Crookwing there in his torn black cape, and his daughter Desdimira beside him, the only human-appearing spirit aboard, ready to tempt the similarly dead cabin boy Wickham of the Wanderloss.

All in a rush the ghost-craft reached the bridge, far swifter than a true sailing ship should manage, and as Desdimira passed beneath Gideon she looked up at him, mouthing some secret message. Then there was a flash of light, and she and her ship were gone. Gone, too, was the mournful dirge. Only a trace of bubbles remained below the bridge, and in this lunar illumination Gideon doubted even these.

No one else nearby was looking at the waters.

Just at him.

The Taldan grandee was saying, "If you'll just hold still a moment, sir, everything will be all right..." The noble inched forward, and was joined by a tough-looking sightseer dressed for dockland work. First a thief, and now these excessively honorable citizens. A man can't win.

He bowed. "Let this be a lesson to me. This is what comes of too much opera."

From his spell component pouch he plucked a feather and a clutch of diminutive fruit tarts. He stuffed the tarts in his mouth and commenced waving the feather at the dockhand.

"What?" said the man, and with that Gideon blessed his good luck that his spell looked too ridiculous to be considered magic. Mouth full, Gideon began the incantation.

"Fate and Chance walk into a tavern," he said, magic embellishing his words. "‘I wasn't expecting you,' says Chance. ‘Just the person I wanted to see,' says Fate, adding, ‘I wanted to play some chess.' So they agree to play chess, but every time Fate and Chance flip a coin to see who chooses colors, the coin explodes. Every time they pick a taverngoer to choose, the taverngoer's head explodes. By now the chess pieces have been so knocked around by exploding coins and so bloodstained from exploding heads that you can't tell which is white and which is black. And Fate and Chance both smile and say, ‘I choose red.'"

The man's eyes got big and he commenced a horrid giggling. He collapsed upon the ground, unable to do anything but gasp and titter at the cosmic joke.

The noble stared at Gideon.

"I can tell another," Gideon said.

The noble ran toward the far end of the bridge and the vagabond camp there, which said something about his desperation.

Gideon wasted no time dashing in the opposite direction, toward the city.

He had to talk to Xeritian about this. Even if the headmaster decided Gideon was insane, Gideon instinctively trusted the man. Once off the bridge, Gideon panted in the shadows of an alley and watched the river a little longer, until the call of the fire-lit dormitory and his pillow proved too much, and he retraced his steps to the college. Apparitions, he decided, could wait until morning.

But in the morning Headmaster Xeritian was dead.

Chapter Three

Bloodstain Sonata

Gideon awoke to a pounding on the door.

He'd been dreaming he was walking on the moonlit green when his muse appeared beside the columns. Gideon didn't really believe in muses as such, even during his dreams, but ever since childhood he'd imagined a young woman who gave him encouragement. She was a dark-haired, pale figure in a peasant dress, yet she bore a sword of gleaming steel few peasants could ever afford. She never spoke a word, yet in Gideon's dreams her freckled face would smile and nod, and her hands would raise the sword and strike.

Her targets were shadows, monstrous shapes that slithered and leapt and flapped and clawed. Gideon knew these were his fears given form. At times when he despaired of training his voice or learning his instruments, on days when he couldn't see his way through a composition, then sometimes the girl would appear in his sleep or his reveries, slashing through shadows with a grin. She'd disappear in a cascade of light, and he would find himself relaxed, able to work again.

Not so tonight. This time she stood in the shadows, smiling as if at a secret only she knew.

Hello? His voice was like rustling leaves.

Time is short. Her voice was the voice from the conservatory roof.

"Your books are overdue!" an unfamiliar voice shouted, and Gideon woke.

Message delivered, the knocker stomped away down the dormitory hall. By the time Gideon groggily opened the door, there was no one in the hallway. The dream of the muse, disturbing as it was, whirled away like fog.

"Is it me," Leothric murmured from the upper bunk, "or is the library getting more aggressive?" He answered himself with a snore.

Gideon got his nightclothes off and his jerkin, pants, and boots on with a series of hops and gyrations worthy of Viridia's dancing or Ozrif's juggling. When he'd joined the Shadow School, he'd been given a series of code phrases to announce genuine emergencies, of the kind that never happened in training.

Your books are overdue meant All-hands emergency. Only the alerts Here come the serenaders (Hostiles Approaching) or Free food at the Harbormaster's (Evacuate) were worse.

So Gideon was out the door before dawn, still buttoning his cloak, harp forgotten, spells unprepared. He ran to the conservatory. A handful of other students, some whom he'd never suspected of training as Lion Blades, joined him. They didn't look at each other. Most headed for the library, so despite the wording of the alert, Gideon and two others snuck into the costume shop. Although no one else was present, they walked nonchalantly past increasingly crowded racks of fake armor and royal gowns, Qadiran desert robes and Ulfen furs, until the room turned into a maze of sleeves and skirts and capes.

Still the students said nothing to each other. Gideon was in the lead, so without comment he bent low and shifted a pile of shoeboxes, kicking at one part of the exposed wall. The wall slid aside, revealing a descent much like the one in Antique Musicology.

Once the door was closed behind them, one of the students said, "Any ideas?"

"No," said Gideon.

"We'd best keep quiet," said the third.

So they did. Gideon suggested they simultaneously give the passphrase of the week, so they chorused their opinion of the crab catch and the guards let them through, evident tension in the sentinels' voices as the students were directed to the Scar Chamber.

The Chamber's door was already open, and the Mistress of Stillness and Motion, looking tired and shocked but determined to palliate the damage done to the students' anonymity, handed each arrival a black hooded cloak.

The Chamber was still filled with mannequins (although the decor had shifted from Cheliax to a bazaar in Qadira) and was again illuminated by faux moonlight. As such, it was difficult to determine the true number of students. Filling the chamber came a voice Gideon had never before heard underground.

"Headmaster Xeritian is dead," said the diva Aurestia, illuminated by a sudden circle of silver light. "He was murdered last night. As his Left Hand, I must now reveal myself and take command of the Shadow School." She paused a moment, to let the gasp subside. Gideon noted that aside from a few oaths, the future Lion Blades kept their silence. He was equally speechless.

"I had no wish to claim this post, as I enjoy my duties in the daylight. But now the diva will fall ill and the spy will awaken. My first order of business is not pretty. The assassin must be caught, and his or her masters exposed. As such, this is no longer truly a school, but a front in the twilight battle between Taldor and its enemies."

Despite the shock, Gideon's mind was already racing. He wished he could see the expressions around him. The only people unhooded and in the light were the key faculty. The Master of Steel and Sinew, whom Gideon knew to be Xeritian's Right Hand (Gideon had never heard of a Left Hand) stood beside Aurestia. The Mistress of Lies and Memory and the Master of Charm and Disguise each stood to one side of the pair. The Mistress of Stillness and Motion remained near the door. Their faces were all impassive. Only Aurestia showed real emotion.

"This is no doubt hard to accept. It is for us as well. Xeritian was like a father to many. He loved his nation and he loved this school."

Gideon's eyes searched the room. He could make out more details now, but the hoods hid most faces. Minor faculty, and the alumni who sometimes assisted at the school, must also be present in their own black cloaks. Had Gideon planned this meeting, he'd have had them here early, in key positions, armed, spells ready. He might even have a few mannequins replaced with people dressed and painted to resemble mannequins.

He inched away from his nearest, unbreathing neighbors.

"The killer will be found," Aurestia declared. "It's only a matter of time. You've experienced but a fraction of our capabilities."

The passion in her voice was real, Gideon realized. But it was also theater. Because the assassin might very well be in this room. If the killer was a student, this meeting might trigger panic. Gideon wished he'd been able to prepare his own spells.

The lights were dim as a crescent moon. Suddenly they flared bright as noonday in the Osirian desert.

"You!" shouted Aurestia.

Gideon was dazzled, shaken, his heart skipping a beat. When he could see again, he beheld Aurestia pointing at a shaking student.

"No, no! I didn't, I—"

Shocked, Gideon recognized Viridia's voice.

Figures in black dragged the struggling young woman out the door.

"Time will tell if she acted alone, or as part of a conspiracy," Aurestia said. "For now, you are dismissed to the rooms where you first met your cells. Keep your hoods on. Later you will be allowed to return to the Rhapsodic College, but remember that the investigation continues. If you try to leave the college grounds, you will be observed."

Not looking at anybody, Gideon traveled to his "home room," his thoughts swirling like dead leaves. It couldn't be. Viridia was hot-tempered, and perhaps in her past lay reasons to hate the elite of Taldor. But he knew she loved the school.

There was nobody he recognized in his assigned chamber. He didn't dare call out to see if Ozrif was among the hooded figures.

"Gull," came a voice from the far side of the room. "Come."

He followed what he presumed was a staff member through a concealed door he'd never noticed before. It led into a short hallway with many branches. A maze within the maze of the school.

The staffer opened another concealed door and nudged Gull through.

Magical lights flashed to brightness. There stood Viridia, Sebastian beside her.

"What?!"

"Don't be alarmed," Sebastian said. "We're sure your colleague didn't kill Xeritian. At the hour established for his death, she was in a training exercise."

"So they offered me the chance to try a little acting." Viridia looked not at all like someone facing a hangman's noose.

"The dazzle," Gideon guessed. "When Aurestia called out ‘You!' That was to induce panic in the real killer."

"It didn't work," Sebastian said, "or else the killer wasn't here. If he was, perhaps he's been lulled and will become careless."

"What do we know?"

"Headmaster Xeritian was seen entering his office late last night. There were two witnesses to this, suggesting innocence for each, although the possibility of a cabal remains."

"Who were the witnesses?"

"You don't need to know. I discovered the dead headmaster myself, with another faculty member at my side."

"Who?"

"You don't need to know that either."

"I have the feeling we won't be knowing much." Viridia patted Gideon on the shoulder.

"On the contrary," Sebastian said, "I'm telling you more than I should. We found Xeritian with dagger wounds in his back, and a cut throat. The weapon was left behind. A dagger of Qadiran make."

"Dropped or placed?"

"The headmaster was seated in his chair, the dagger upon his lap."

Gideon winced at the image of the thoughtful man he'd spoken to yesterday afternoon, reduced to a ghoulish display. "The signature of Qadiran assassins."

"Quite."

"I hesitate to ask, but surely necromantic magic is called for. If only to pose questions to Xeritian?"

Viridia made a warding sign against evil.

Sebastian smiled sadly. "The corpse has indeed been disturbed with questions. Unfortunately, it can only speak knowledge Xeritian possessed while living. And it seems he didn't glimpse his killer."

"That's something, though," Viridia said. "That he wasn't betrayed by someone he knew. That points to an outsider."

"Perhaps," Sebastian answered. "But we only know for certain that he saw nothing."

"There are more powerful magics," Gideon ventured. "Perhaps, with the Grand Prince's resources, and for someone important as Xeritian..."

Sebastian shook his head. "In the larger scheme of things, I'm afraid, Xeritian was merely a bureaucrat, albeit a valued one. As far as the palace is concerned, dying violently is simply part of being a spy. Regardless, he stipulated in his will that he didn't wish to be magically drawn back from the grave."

Gideon pounded the wall. "It's all so pointless."

"I agree. Nothing was taken from the office, although there are signs various documents were read. Xeritian possessed very few secrets aside from the school's operation."

"A statement, perhaps. Criminals and nations alike sometimes kill as a form of communication."

"I'd like to cut the tongue out of whoever sent this message," said Viridia.

Sebastian nodded as if mirroring just those thoughts. "That's the consensus. The questioning of staff and students is underway. But the investigation of our defenses is just as urgent. I think it likely the school will be closed, perhaps permanently."

"Would we be transferred?"

"I don't know. That depends on the nature of the threat."

"The fog..." Viridia said, looking at Gideon.

"Yes?" said Sebastian.

"The manifestation our cell witnessed yesterday," Gideon said. "It's too large a coincidence. A distraction, perhaps—something to draw attention away from an assassin."

"Perhaps. Which brings me to you, Gideon. You'll answer questions about this fog, and about your last conversation with Xeritian."

"Is Gideon a suspect?" Viridia asked.

"No more than anyone on site. I was among the first to be interrogated. We all have reasons to be questioned. Your friend Ozrif, for example, is unfortunately the only Keleshite in the school."

"Stop right there!" Viridia snapped. "No one's going to foist blame onto Ozrif. As if Katapesh were the same as Qadira!"

"And perhaps," Gideon said, "someone wanted to suggest such blame by using a Qadiran dagger."

Sebastian raised a hand. "I hear you. I'm merely pointing out that anyone might be a suspect. I myself am regularly in and out of Xeritian's office, and although I found the body, perhaps I arranged that, so you wouldn't suspect I'm the real killer. So, peace! I'd personally reject any suspicion of Ozrif as too obvious. Likewise, it's too obvious to suspect Gull—"

"Erm, wha?"

"—because he's Andoren, and was among the last to see Xeritian alive. But I'd bet he was too busy mooning over his lady friend."

"Hey now."

"I'll testify he's been mooning," said Viridia.

"Thanks," Gideon said. "I think."

"Anyway," Sebastian continued, "we must question. And even though you've got nothing to hide, Gull, I'd answer yours as fully as you can. Dominicus Rell is a tough interrogator."

"Rell." He'd encountered the leader of the Lion Blades perhaps thrice to his knowledge. Each time the director had acknowledged Gideon with such a glance as a naturalist might fix upon a moth.

"Rell's just a man, Gideon," said Viridia.

"Would you say that to his face?"

"You're worried," said Sebastian.

"That's because I'm sane."

They took Gideon to the Pindrop Room.

It resembled an oversized version of the small practice rooms in the Rhapsodic College. The wooden walls and ceiling were cut into a multitude of interlocking segments, each with two parallel clefts. Beyond that was a layer of rare and highly sound-absorbent wood from Sargava. The chamber was insulated from outside noise, and the waves of air which carried sound within the room would mostly vanish into those spaces and the wood beyond, so there would be no echoes, no reverberation.

Yet the room was by no means utterly silent. Gideon's bootsteps upon the stone floor came sharply to his ears. So, after a time, did his own heartbeat. When he scratched his nose, the friction was audible.

In normal circumstances, the Pindrop Room trained students to truly listen. You would sit facing the wall while an instructor would cough, rustle, step on a twig, unsheathe a dagger, even drop the proverbial pin. But one time Gideon was instructed just to sit here, with the magical light-stones removed, and simply be alone with himself—no outside sound, no light.

A student's ability to handle this environment was considered a mark of pride. Gideon thought he understood the message—a Lion Blade must often be alone, either skulking in the dark, or walled off from other people by a barrier of lies. Such an agent must be comfortable within his own skull.

There were students who were pulled out of the room within minutes, bellowing and ranting. They never returned to the Shadow School.

Gideon had coped for a formidable period. He had his full complement of inner demons, but he was familiar with them, and did not require constant distraction from them. But even so, he'd knocked on the wall after barely an hour.

There was light this time, but now the two chairs in the room were facing each other. Gideon waited alone for a time, as expected, then eventually decided to take advantage of the acoustics. Soft as a whisper, he began to sing.

O Brother Andoren, are you voting?
O Brother Andoren, are you voting?
You say the road is rough
But freedom's feet are tough.
O Brother Andoren, are you voting?
O Brother—

"I am not your brother."

You could have heard a pin drop.

Gideon rose to greet Dominicus Rell.

Rell was a tall man of supposed Azlanti ancestry. There were many dwelling in the lands around the Inner Sea who claimed a connection with the lost, fabled realm of Azlant, but Rell was the first Gideon had met who seemed strange and impressive enough to make it credible. The man's eyes mixed red and blue and the hues between, and it was unclear from moment to moment which dominated. As Rell gestured for Gideon to sit, Gideon would have said yellow; but the stare Rell offered next seemed tilted to the blue.

The door shut with a click. The silence seemed an age.

Still the man stared.

It was worse than suffering some bellowed accusation. That you could refute. But the eyes and the silence implied an infinity of guilt. Gideon found himself worried, not about having killed Xeritian, but about having spoken to Xeritian at all, about having shared confidences with his fellow students, about venturing off the college grounds, about being Andoren, about preferring folk music to opera.

Indeed, much as the darkened Pindrop Room inspired hallucinations, Gideon's imagination began conjuring phantom crimes for himself. He was a plant from Andoran, his magical conditioning forcing him to forget. He was unknowingly possessed by a conjured devil from Cheliax. He was a mass murderer, the memory of his violent eruptions buried under a guilt as smothering as volcanic ash.

"Speak," Rell said.

"What should I speak about?"

"I think you know."

"I've reported yesterday's activities—"

"I would hear them directly."

There was nothing for it but to proceed. Every attempt of Gideon's to make his voice sound calm, smooth, and cooperative resulted in his squeaking out rushed, anxious sentences. Rell's eyes seemed to conjure an invisible headsman at Gideon's side.

"Did your friend Ozrif behave normally yesterday?" Rell interrupted.

Gideon answered in the affirmative, still feeling the bruises from the Scar Chamber.

"Describe these visions in the fog."

Gideon saw no choice but to tell all. He hoped Rell wouldn't question him further about his childhood visit to Bellis, and was relieved when the director moved on.

"What work did Tambour say he was doing?"

Gideon explained about the ship's ledger and the Bellis Mead. Rell grunted.

At one point, as Gideon was explaining his evening activities, Rell snapped, "I have seen snow before. You may leave that description out."

Later still: "You are saying you fought this mysterious robber, but were forced to run. You, a Lion Blade trainee." His look was scathing.

Gideon could only nod.

"This ghost ship," Rell said when Gideon had finished, "did it hearken more to the Baldric production of 4671 or the Osbert interpretation of 4699?"

Gideon blinked. "What?"

"Come now. The Baldric production was by far the more elaborate, featuring titanic mock-ups of both Wanderloss and Demonwake. It toured much of the Inner Sea. Surely any version you saw in Andoran was based upon it. Yet if you've seen the opera in Taldor, probably it hearkened to the minimalist reinterpretation propounded by Osbert, where there were only rippling cloth backdrops to imply the setting."

"I would say it was more like the Baldric production."

"Ah. Precisely. Very well, Gull. Be assured what you've said stays with me alone. You may leave."

"I may?"

"Must I repeat myself even in the Pindrop Room?"

"No. Thank you, Director."

Gideon departed in a daze. He barely remembered reaching his dormitory room in the sunlight of the Rhapsodic College. Leothric was fortunately away for puppetry exams. The room was filled with woodwork and stitchery, the remains of Leothric's projects.

There was also Leothric's prized possession, an ancient fan depicting Osirion's pyramids, brought back from that land by one great-uncle or another. It seemed a flimsy thing of papyrus and cloth, but Gideon knew it could conjure up a gale-force wind. Leothric used it for dramatic effect in some performances. It was trusting of him to have it on display. Gideon wondered if Leothric would feel more secure if he knew about the Shadow School, or less.

There came a knock, and he opened the door to find Ozrif and Viridia, both looking weary. Gideon cleared away puppet parts and closed the door. "I'm glad you're here. I take it we all survived."

"Those eyes." Ozrif slumped down on a chair. Viridia and Gideon could only nod.

"Did you have the sense he was just toying with you," Viridia asked, "at the end?"

"Possibly," Gideon said. "He's quite deadpan."

"Any sense of what he suspects?" Ozrif asked.

"No," Gideon said, uncomfortably. Viridia shook her head, her gaze avoiding Ozrif. Gideon quickly went on, "But I'd guess Rell's using us not so much to ferret out the culprit as to paint a picture of events. He seems to have an eye for detail."

"I was relieved to learn Viridia was part of a ruse," Ozrif said. "The only trouble is, that strikes me as a desperate move. The faculty are at a loss."

"I think Xeritian knew something," Gideon said. "I think when I last saw him, he was off to visit someone elsewhere in the city. Or observe someone."

"Or just go carousing," said Viridia. "He would do that. As the college groundskeeper."

"It would serve many purposes," Ozrif mused. "Gathering information relevant to the school. Hearing rumors."

"Keeping his skills sharp," Viridia answered.

"Having a pint," Gideon said. To his friends' blank expressions, he said, "Well, sometimes mundane explanations are the best. But I'd still like to talk to anyone who might have seen him."

"We're not supposed to leave," Ozrif said.

"I believe the exact wording was that we would be observed. Very well, we'll be observed."

There was a pause.

"Xeritian's favorite tavern is The Capsized Clipper," Viridia said. "Was. He mentioned it."

"That probably means he also visits its neighbor," Ozrif said, sounding resigned. "The Saucy Starfish."

"We'll check both," Gideon decided, "and possibly get saucy and capsized ourselves."

Viridia consented eagerly, Ozrif reluctantly. "But not until tonight," the juggler said. "I still have exams."

"I may, too," Gideon realized. Xeritian might not have cleared Gideon's schedule after all.

"Tonight," Viridia said. "We'll meet here."

The rest of the day passed in a blur of tests, naps, and skipped meals. Gideon was not in fact relieved of his obligations, and his college career was careening toward disaster. He contained the damage as much as he could, and collapsed until his friends awakened him.

As they all headed back out, they nearly collided with Gideon's roommate. Leothric's head was hidden by the small crate he was carrying, full of puppets and props.

"Oh, hello! It's Gideon's gang."

"I strongly object to that term," Ozrif said.

"Okay, then it's just Gideon and girlfriend."

"I object to that term," Gideon and Viridia said almost simultaneously, and laughed.

The laughter seemed to pierce a dark cloud, and when his roommate said, "Say, where are you headed?" Gideon unthinkingly told him it was The Capsized Clipper.

"Great!" Leothric said. "I just conquered in the solo performance exam, and I've never been to the Clipper. Let's celebrate!" Leothric lurched into the room to put down his crate.

"This isn't good," Ozrif whispered.

"It's fine," Viridia replied. "We just tell him we're looking for the missing groundskeeper. Xeritian had two identities after all."

"I still don't like it," Ozrif persisted.

"He's cover," Gideon realized. "We'll look more innocent to our shadows with him along."

Leothric reappeared. "I'm all set. Let's have a night on the town!"

"You're carrying two puppets," Viridia observed, noting Sir Gothmoor and the dragon Yallazak.

"If I brought more than one for each hand, that would look strange."

And so four bards and two puppets ventured into the Westport nightlife. They reached The Capsized Clipper, with its mock-up of a ship's prow bursting through an exterior wall. The streets were quiet, with winter clouds snatching away the last daylight.

Gideon said, "I think we're being..." and caught himself, for Leothric might be all too interested in the idea of Being Followed. "...far too direct," he finished.

"What do you mean?" asked Leothric.

"Might as well admit it." Gideon glanced at Ozrif and Viridia. "We're out looking for the groundskeeper. We consider him a friend, and he's missing."

Leothric nodded. "Thought you were up to something. I'm glad to help. I like Xeritian, too." Sir Gothmoor scratched Leothric's chin. "We could get a window table at The Saucy Starfish. Perhaps Xeritian will enter or leave the Clipper while we watch."

It seemed best to agree, even if Xeritian would never appear.

The Saucy Starfish tried to be especially welcoming to women. A sign proclaimed that their drinks would be cheaper. Another sign said that "gentlemen" seen to be "knavish" would be shown the door or the window. A third admonished men to mind their language.

Viridia glanced at the signs, swore, spit, and ordered a cheap drink. Ozrif had a thin beer, Leothric (or rather Sir Gothmoor) got himself some hard liquor, to the stares of the others. Gideon contented himself with lemon water.

"You never drink," said Leothric. "Can't you hold it?"

"Weak bladder," Gideon said. Viridia snorted.

Ozrif found them a table where they could watch the tavern opposite. They noted sailors punching each other inside the Clipper.

"You know," said Leothric, "I'm glad we're over here, not there."

"It's practically an arena," Viridia agreed. "Some of them begin over here, try to find a bedmate for the night, fail, and console themselves with a brawl over there. Some of them start over there and wander here with bruises, looking for a pity fling."

"A reciprocal business arrangement," said Ozrif, toasting the air. "I'm impressed."

"I hear the two owners are sisters." Gideon looked around the tavern, and up and down the street, wondering if he could catch sight of their observer from the Shadow School. He spotted no one. Perhaps he'd been imagining things. "Let's disperse and start questioning people."

"I'm going to flirt with sailors," Viridia said. It seemed to Gideon that her gaze flicked to Ozrif, so as to observe his reaction.

"That sounds like a good ploy," Ozrif said, voice bright and eyes frowning.

"Who says it's a ploy? See you soon. Or not." And she was off.

Ozrif considered his drink. Leothric downed his. Sir Gothmoor opened his mouth as Leothric said, "Ahh!"

Watching Ozrif, Gideon said, "It might be useful if someone went to the brawling bar..."

"Ozrif!" said Leothric, his voice pitched for a livestock auction. "Why do you let her do that?"

"Excuse me?" Ozrif said.

"I can tell you swoon for her. Take it from me, my friend—I've done a lot of swooning." Leothric's movements embellished the point, his chair seeming as tippy as a juggling pin. Gideon had observed a great deal of drunkenness, from inside and out, and he'd never seen alcohol hit a brain this fast. "How can you just sit there like that?"

"What would you suggest," Ozrif asked, each syllable like a grain of sand counting down the seconds left in Leothric's life, "my friend?"

"The bar fight?" Gideon murmured to Ozrif.

"I'd love to start one," Ozrif said, staring at Gideon's roommate.

"Over at the Clipper."

"Are you sure?"

"I'm sure."

"Very well." Ozrif stood. "You're lucky in your roommate," he said to Leothric and strode out the door.

"Yeah!" Leothric called after him. "Gideon's a great guy! I just wish he'd drink."

"I tell you what," Gideon said, pulling out a gold coin. "My next order was going to be the Genuine Wispil Bog Whiskey. You can have it on me."

"Wow! Thanks! You're the best, Gideon—the best!"

"Sir Gothmoor, be sure to keep him safe." Gideon followed Ozrif out to the street. He cast a look back at Viridia, who was laughing between two urbane mariners from Jalmeray, who regarded her like doves and each other like hawks. It seemed to him Viridia was casting glances at the door, but he might have imagined it, for she swiftly turned her back. He caught up with Ozrif as the Keleshite was striding for the swinging doors of The Capsized Clipper and the raucous noise within.

"He's a lout, I know," Gideon said. "But what he said—"

"Eye of Abendego take what he said. Viridia is her own woman."

"Well, yes. A woman..."

"You're talking, when there's a fight awaiting us."

"That's not quite what I—" Gideon gave up as Ozrif entered the tavern.

There were signs here, too. We Reserve the Right to Refuse Service to Anyone. We Reserve the Right to Serve Anyone to the Refuse. When We Say We're Cutting You Off, the First Time It's Just an Expression. Spellcasters Pay Any Damage Done to the Facilities.

A Taldan getting pounded by an Andoren wielding a chair looked up to see Ozrif deliver a kick to his opponent's midsection, toppling the burly mariner like Leothric after some Bog Whiskey. Helping the Taldan up, Ozrif said, "You! What's your name?"

"Umfrey," the man said, bleeding from his nose and looking shocked.

"Umfrey!" Ozrif bellowed at the Andoren's colleagues. "You've hurt my best friend Umfrey! Now you'll pay!"

As he dove for the enemy, the Taldan followed, crying muzzily, "My friend! My friend is here!"

"Sorry," Gideon muttered, patting his dazed countryman on the shoulder. "It's about a woman. I think."

"Women!" muttered the man. "Women and Taldans!" He pounded the floor for emphasis, having evidently attained some key philosophical insight. Then he crawled out the door. That, at least, Gideon reflected, was wisdom.

A couple of Taldans had joined the fight beside their new ally. There was a bit of sloganeering as they screamed, "Crown and Lion!" in response to their opponents' cries of "Liberty! Justice!" Somewhere in there Ozrif was shouting, "Throat! Knee! Solar plexus!" Meanwhile a group of Chelaxians was sipping wine and placing bets. Gideon thought there might be a moral in that somewhere, but disregarded the thought as he prepared an illusion.

Yesterday he'd cast a goodly portion of his magic, and Xeritian's death had cost him the chance to refresh it. But he retained one of his most effective spells, a phantasm that incorporated sound. He pulled out a bit of fleece, and recalled a tune of his own devising, his mnemonic for the incantation.

What will I dream when the hangman hauls ...?

And Gideon dreamed.

He dreamed of a band of the Westport Guard, appearing against all logic from the back of the room, stomping their way toward the malefactors.

Cries broke out, and warnings, and the Andorens fled out the door. One lingered, narrowing his eyes at Gideon and raising a fist. "You—you're some sort of wizard—"

"Bard," Gideon corrected, and punched him.

Gideon, for all his training, was no brawler—he'd choose a dagger over a fist any day. His blow was strong but imprecise; the Master of Steel and Sinew would have taken points off. The man staggered, but Gideon's hand flared with bright pain.

Luckily, the Taldan combatants shoved their own way out of the inn, forcing the reeling Andoren out with them.

Gideon's wrist ached, as well as various tendons in his hand of which he was normally unaware. The proprietor, who did indeed look a lot like her counterpart at the Starfish, brought him a bucket of ice water and a bill for a broken glass.

"I didn't break a glass," Gideon said.

"I dropped one when I saw your magic. Impressive stuff. If I saw it on the street I'd pay you." She jabbed a thumb at the sign about spellcasting. "But because you did it in here, you owe me."

He paid the bill, and she took it and returned with a "free drink" that roughly equaled the change he should have been owed. It looked good, so he didn't argue. As he was about to quaff, Ozrif reentered the bar and sat down beside him, bringing along a couple of the now-quiescent Andorens and Taldans. They all seemed to be friends now, having broken the ice and perhaps a minor bone or two. Gideon thought about things and pushed the drink over to the nearest Taldan.

"Thanks," the man said. Gideon watched his free drink go away. Well, he still had a bucket of ice water.

"I explained," Ozrif said, "that we went a little crazy because we're in mourning for our missing and presumed dead friend. The groundskeeper."

"A good man," Gideon added on cue, but meaning it.

"It's a hard thing to lose friends," the newly watered Taldan said. "Even you Andorens and Qadirans know that."

"I'm from Katapesh," Ozrif said.

"I'm actually from Galt," put in one of the presumed Andorens.

"You know," said Umfrey, Ozrif's new best friend, from the doorway, "I never admitted it before, but my mum's from Cheliax..."

"To friends!" said Gideon, raising his mug before international diplomacy broke down. "Present and absent."

"Hear hear!" chorused the former combatants, and some neighboring tables as well.

"Umfrey here says he saw our groundskeeper," Ozrif said.

"He was talking with an old sailor from way off in Riddleport," said Umfrey. "A man with one ear."

"Him," said the Andoren whom Gideon had hurt himself punching. "I've seen that sailor around. Think he lives down by the Lost Pier. Bad neighborhood."

"Thanks, that's very helpful." Gideon excused himself and Ozrif as soon as possible, wary of the potential for the refreshed brawlers to fight anew.

"Was that not effective?" Ozrif said, limping a little.

"Did it get your mind off things?"

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

Outside The Saucy Starfish they discovered Viridia's two would-be paramours unconscious. Viridia herself was sitting at Leothric's table, patting Leothric's slumped head.

"Ah, there you are," she said. "One of those nice sailors outside told me that he'd seen someone resembling Xeritian at a pesh den called the Kismet House."

"I know the place," Ozrif said thoughtfully, "it's down by the Lost Pier." A pause. "Hey, don't look at me like that. It's simply that if you're from Katapesh half the people you meet expect to be able to buy pesh from you. It's good to have referrals."

"I wasn't judging," Viridia said. "Certainly I have plenty of vices of my own."

"What happened to your sources, anyway?" Gideon aimed a thumb at the street outside.

"Each mistakenly thought the other was all that stood between him and my charms. They began brawling. Leothric, or perhaps Sir Gothmoor, was gallant enough to intervene. He got a rude punch in the nose which Sir Gothmoor was alas not knight enough to parry. I had to employ my sleeping spell. You gentlemen may recall it."

"You caught Leothric too?" Gideon said.

"Only in a glancing way. I think the Bog Whiskey did most of that."

"Come," Ozrif said, "let's get some cold water and revive our friend. He'll need his wits for the pesh den."

As they weaved their way from the Starfish to the Kismet House, Leothric's gait grew steadier, but the conditions of the surrounding buildings steadily declined. At last Gideon said, "I believe that's our pesh den."

Beyond the Kismet House's variegated veil and its doorman with palm extended for the entrance fee lay a parlor decorated in a mishmash of styles from Osirian hieroglyphics to Qadiran geometric patterns, imitation Thuvian orchids to fake Jalmeri idols. It was as if the Kismet House pretended everything south of Taldor was one swirling goulash of exoticism.

At every table and booth men and women were sipping tea or smoking water pipes. Ozrif approached the master of the house, who wore a long, eerie mask of silver sheen, which Gideon supposed was meant to resemble the masks of Katapesh's mysterious Pactmasters. Ozrif argued with the man for a while and paid for a pipe. "We can settle up later," he told the others. "Each group needs at least one." They claimed a table and began looking around for their quarry.

"We'll look more believable if we indulge," Leothric pointed out.

"You're not having any," said Ozrif. "You're already drunk."

"I'm not the one who got into a bar fight."

"That's not what I hear," said Gideon.

"Fights are invigorating," said Viridia.

"Hold that thought. I see our man with one ear. Let me speak to him first."

Gideon hailed the master of the house and purchased a second pipe. Then he rose and slowly approached the sailor's table. Although Gideon had no disguise kit along, he imitated the body language of the people around him. He stooped and slowed his pace, movements becoming leisurely, yet cautious.

The man from faraway Riddleport, reputedly a haven of pirates, looked up warily. Gideon set the pipe on the table.

"I like my privacy," said the man.

"You also like your pesh." Gideon slid the pipe toward him.

The man grunted and gestured to the seat opposite. Gideon sat. "What are you buying with your pesh?" said the man.

"You were seen with a man from the college. An older man. A groundskeeper."

"You think he's a groundskeeper?" The one-eared man chuckled.

"I think he's dead."

The man stopped chuckling. "I think you ought to get far, far away from anything to do with your dead man. If you came for information, that's the best I have."

"Is it all you have?"

"No. You were generous, and didn't try to gouge a feeble old sailor, so I'll tell you a little more. And then you'll leave, for both our sakes. Your groundskeeper was mixed up in something magical, I know that. He was asking about the fogs seen now and then of late."

"Fogs?"

"Aye, fogs. I've heard about them from many, though I only saw them once myself. They creep here and there, in defiance of the actual weather, and they bring fear and madness. Not everyone sees them, not unless they choose to be seen. And not everyone who sees them, sees them the same. But all who stare long into them see wretched truths from their own pasts. I saw—well, never mind that. Anyone who stays near them, let alone breathes the vapor in, becomes...strange. Ready to fight over anything. Ready to be led to battle. Or slaughter."

"Led by whom?"

"I don't know for sure. But that one time I saw it, I also saw a man, a man in gray, and when he spoke to those bewitched by the fog, his accent was Chelish. The gray man, he walked in the fog itself. It followed him, like a loyal dog."

"Where did you witness this?"

"It was on the waterfront, near—ghhh—"

For what seemed a long, lurid moment, Gideon could not even understand what he was seeing. It was as though the man, quivering and gurgling, had suddenly extruded a length of steel from his neck. In the next moment Gideon understood, and was looking over his shoulder for the assailant who'd just impaled the man with a thrown dagger.

But he saw only a dark figure ducking out the pesh den's veiled doorway.

Turning back to the man with one ear, Gideon saw his informant was already dead. It shouldn't have happened so fast. Even with such a wound as this there was a narrow path for survival. Someone was determined to close off even that.

"Poison," he gasped to the master of the house and his companions, who had rushed to his side.

"Leave now, and don't return!" said the master. "You bring trouble!"

Gideon and the others left without a word, Viridia surging ahead. She'd grown up beside genuine wilderness, the Whistling Plains beyond Stavian's Hold, and she alone among them was a true runner. They struggled to catch up with her.

Soon they had second thoughts about that. For they found Viridia crouched in an alley with dagger drawn, confronting not one but three men in gray.

"It seemed unwise to kill you all in front of so many witnesses," said one of the men, and he did indeed bear a Chelish accent. He stepped forward, a smile growing like a fresh gash upon his heavily scarred face. "Thank you for solving that problem."

Chapter Four

Dirge for Spies and Ghosts

This is all a mistake," Leothric called out. "We're just looking for a missing man."

"You'll find him soon," said the smiling Chelaxian. A dagger appeared in his hand. Behind him the other figures in gray were commencing incantations.

Gideon recalled something the Mistress of Stillness and Motion had once said. You may find that if you're overwhelmed, time will seem to pass quickly, in a flurry of sharp impressions. By this you'll know you've lost command of a struggle, and are in desperate peril. Escape these fights if you can. By contrast, there will be times when you're ready for battle, when your heart thunders blood, and everything seems to slow down. In such a fight you may have greater confidence.

Although Gideon hadn't expected such opposition, he'd expected trouble, and time had indeed slowed. He didn't recognize the incantations, but he knew a wise man would interrupt those spells.

He grabbed Sir Gothmoor from the sputtering Leothric's hand and threw it into one of the spellcasters' faces.

The puppet hit hard, and the man swore; his subsequent phrases were colorful, but in no way magical.

"Sorry," Gideon told Leothric, and advanced with his own dagger drawn.

Viridia danced and kicked at the grinning knife-wielder. He evaded her attacks, though not so smoothly as would the Mistress of Stillness and Motion. Ozrif charged past Viridia, attempting to halt the second spellcaster.

Leothric, meanwhile, was doing something with another puppet.

Even so, Gideon was starting to feel optimistic.

That was when the second caster unleashed his spell.

What might have been an octopus tentacle vanished from the man's hand, and huge ebon tendrils rose up uncannily from the cobblestones. They snared Ozrif and Viridia, and nearly caught Gideon in their crushing embrace. The smiling, scarred Chelaxian stepped back at just the right moment, so that Gideon now found himself facing three foes.

Gideon stabbed at the nearer spellcaster. But the man, better alerted now, dodged. Gideon's optimism retreated.

There came an unearthly roar from behind.

Leothric had stepped forward, the dragon puppet on his hand making angry gesticulations. From its wooden mouth came a blast of sound that would impress a true dragon.

The spellcaster nearest Gideon reeled, hands pressed to his ears. The other two Chelaxians winced, but appeared able to fight.

"Thanks," Gideon called to Leothric.

"You owe me a puppet," Leothric answered.

The lead footpad advanced, his dagger making slow circles, and Gideon stepped back, risking a spell of his own. He began humming an old song of lost love.

You broke my heart so neatly
For a while I thought
It was meant to be in two pieces...

The song and the memory of enthrallment (wrapped up, he had to admit, with the image of Corvine) were key components for the hypnotic power of the spell. Gideon drew swirling, spiral shapes with his hands, and intoned arcane syllables that conveyed the rapt amazement of sudden love, or religious vision, or astonished wonder at the natural world.

One of the two remaining assassins dropped his hands and stared blankly at Gideon.

Unfortunately, it was not Mister Scarsmile.

"Why don't you go grab us all some pesh?" Gideon called to the man he'd managed to ensorcel, and that one nodded obligingly and shuffled toward the Kismet House.

The man passed too close to the region of tentacles, and was snared.

Scarsmile lost his grin. "Dismiss the tentacles!" he commanded the other spellcaster, even while slashing at Gideon.

His dagger, Gideon noticed, was of Qadiran make.

By now the Chelaxian he'd hit with Sir Gothmoor had recovered enough to cast a spell as well. He pulled a white feather from somewhere behind his gray cloak and began gesturing. Gideon was beginning to think he'd never escape this alley.

But the tentacles had vanished, and Viridia and Ozrif were again free. So too was the second enemy spellcaster, who was released from Gideon's compulsion as well. That one tangled with Ozrif, while Viridia launched herself against Scarsmile. Gideon grappled with him too, shouting, "Leothric! Got anything else?"

The spellcaster with the feather groaned something deep within his throat, the vocal equivalent of a collapsing tomb.

Terror gripped the closest bards.

Gideon's heart raced. He felt as if he were a boy again, lost from his family.

Beside him, Viridia called out, "Mother! Father!"

Leothric managed a wordless cry.

Scarsmile's grin returned.

Even through his rising panic, Gideon recognized the spell that awakened one's deepest fears. Desperately, he began to sing "Ain't No Devil's Gonna Move Me."

You brought me gold, you brought me wine
You brought me a woman who wasn't mine
You brought me tools to kill any I fought
You brought me what would get me bought.
I told you no, you became my foe
You raised up legions to bring me woe
But kill me dead, I'll still be free
Ain't no devil's gonna move me.

As he reached the end, he raised his hands, forming arcane gestures. The tune shattered the Chelaxian's spell, the fear falling away like a shed cloak.

"Enough of this!" Scarsmile snapped, and slashed the ducking Gideon across the arm. Viridia moved in, and the man kicked Gideon in the gut. Pain lashed his vision—and at first he thought it was a hallucination when five separate Leothrics ran into the fray.

All of the magical reflections of Leothric raised dragon puppets, making the dragons seem to roar defiantly. It was like a cavalry charge, except that every member of the cavalry looked identically terrified. Scarsmile jabbed at one of the big-eyed Leothrics. The blade passed right through its target, and with a shimmering in the air like a heat mirage, that particular Leothric faded.

Gideon hadn't died, so presumably Scarsmile hadn't applied poison to this blade. That was something. Nonetheless, his assessment of the fight, now that Leothric had bought him a moment, was not good. Viridia was struggling to stand. Ozrif was grappling with one spellcaster. The other spellcaster looked to be readying yet another work of magical mischief.

He had to hope that Leothric could delay the knife-fighter long enough to let Viridia recover. Gideon himself, unable to think of a use for his remaining spells, leapt against the spellcaster, kicking and snarling, hoping to make himself terrifying.

"Zar yogvark vashnok blarg!" Gideon screamed. It meant absolutely nothing, but the spellcaster turned pale.

Alas, fear made the man bold. He incanted and the air shimmered before him, a vast creature appearing to materialize between him and Gideon. It was a conglomeration of angry Andorens, who seemed human from about the knees up, but whose lower bodies merged into a slimy mass of tentacles spiraling from a gelatinous hub, a vast crimson brain the size of a small boulder that glowed and oozed. The humanlike extensions roared and shouted and spat and waved clubs. They screamed things like "Death to outsiders!" and "Long live the real Andoran!"

His brother's bloody corpse lay at their feet.

At the sight, Gideon's heart threatened to stop. As his vision swirled, his lungs refusing to draw breath, he realized that was the whole point.

"No!" he screamed at the mob-monster. "No!"

The vision faded; yet the effort of battling it, of insisting on living, had left him pained and dazed. He was likewise aware that Viridia was retreating from Scarsmile's assault, Ozrif was reeling from some manner of magical attack, and they were down to just one Leothric.

From the street behind, a voice bellowed, "Cease! In the Harbormaster's name! Cease!"

The Chelish force (if such they were) withdrew from battle as quickly as they'd engaged. The spellcaster who'd engaged Ozrif gestured as they fled, and a milky fog engulfed half the alley, concealing their retreat.

"Move!" said the wizard. "Let the mob take them."

Gideon rose and tried to follow. This fog lacked the eldritch chill of the apparition from the Shadow School, but nonetheless it seemed to be pushing back at him. Traversing it was like wading through murky water. In his exhausted state, he couldn't follow.

"Gideon!" Viridia called. "Look!"

Gideon turned around, and realized in that moment that the voice calling Cease! had not actually been addressing them.

The street was filled with snarling patrons from the Kismet House, some of whom shuffled into the alley. Gideon heard the patrolman futilely try to warn them off. His voice sounded increasingly frantic.

"Something's wrong with them," Leothric said. "Something more than pesh."

"The eyes," said Ozrif.

In the dim light, it took a while to understand what Ozrif meant, but then Gideon saw it. There were no pupils or irises visible in these people's eyes. The orbs were a milky gray, with a hint of green. It was the color of the strange fog from the Shadow School.

"You don't belong," one man told them, spittle dripping down his lips.

"Keleshite!" snarled another, froth at one corner of his mouth. "Andoren!"

"Um, no, just these two," said Leothric, snatching up the Sir Gothmoor puppet.

"Thanks, roommate," said Gideon.

"We should burn them," said another pesh-taker.

"Hang them," said another.

"Cut them."

"Gut them."

Gideon had the impression of a group of mountain lions ready to spring. He and his companions edged back toward the fog.

"You need to back off from my friends," said Viridia. "And you need a nap."

She pirouetted and blew crushed rose petals in the direction of the fog-eyed patrons, following up with an incantation and a gentle series of gestures traced in the air.

The four nearest lunatics fell to the stones.

"That's how you do it," Viridia said.

Many more of the possessed figures now entered the alley, stepping over the fallen.

"Now let's show them how we run," Viridia added.

As it happened, they couldn't run at all, but stumbled and shoved through the clammy magical fog that filled the alley's far side.

As they escaped it into the lamplit street, Gideon found himself grabbed by two men who seemed to have stepped directly off some pirate ship, what with their mismatched leathers and tricorne hats.

"Stand down!" said a man. "You'll answer to the Westport Guard!"

"Gladly," said Gideon. "But watch out for what follows us."

They waited, the other bards following his lead and letting their captors immobilize them.

Nothing emerged from the fog.

A dwarf with an ill-fitting mariner's coat and an oversized voice ran around from the other side of the Kismet House. "Whatever's wrong with that lot from the pesh den, they're back to normal," he said, and Gideon knew him for the one who'd originally cried Cease! "They don't seem to know what's happened. And the men who ran off got clean away."

"At least we've got these miscreants," said one of the men who held Gideon's arms.

"That's bards, good sir, bards," said Ozrif.

"Fine. Arrest the bards."

The bards were chained, their weapons and instruments and spell pouches and puppets confiscated, then led to the Harbormaster's Residence.

The building was a four-story brick manse, a noble's house from the days when Westport was an outlying district and not the heart of Oppara's maritime trade. A wooden guardhouse had been affixed to the structure, and beyond it a stone stairway descended to a warren of underground chambers.

"I feel a little as if we've been abducted by pirates," Leothric said, "not rescued by the police."

"That's not entirely inaccurate," said Ozrif. "The Guard is made up of some interesting—"

"Shut up!" snarled a member of the Guard.

"He means," Viridia said loudly, "that he's glad we're not in the hands of ordinary police. Boss Hallador's known as a good man."

"Tell it to the Boss!" said another guard. Yelling seemed to be a perk of joining the Guard.

Gideon stumbled his way down into a torchlit chamber. The Guard, for all its fearsome appearance, did indeed boast a good reputation in Westport, which had been all but abandoned by city law enforcement until Harbormaster Hallador had, out of sheer exasperation, built his own militia.

Sitting on crates, surrounded by glaring guards, the bards awaited the Boss's appearance.

He soon arrived, showing his reputation for both efficiency and temper. The Boss loomed over his people and had to nod and suck in his breath to squeeze through the passageway. He had the look of a man who, if he didn't continually hurl himself into frenetic activity, would soon go fat. He was not fat. There was no ostentation in his dress, just simple leathers and cloth, with a wool stocking cap. His seal of office hung from a chain around his neck. His burden of office was represented by the thick ledger he carried with him, and which he studied as he walked. Boss Hallador did not look up as he said, "What do we have here, Cediric?"

"They were fighting in an alley, Boss," said the lead guard. "Against some wizards, who got away."

The Boss continued scanning his ledger. "Rival ships?"

"These're from the college, sir."

At that the Boss grunted and looked up. "You're a long way from school," he said. "Why're you fighting in the streets?"

Gideon explained, with some interjections from the others. He left out anything to do with the Shadow School, although the missing groundskeeper story would serve well enough.

"Something evil's at work, Boss Hallador," Leothric insisted, acting as though Gideon was being far too calm about everything. Perhaps that was true.

"Name?" Hallador said, and Leothric gave it. Hallador went around the room. He raised his eyes when he heard Gideon's name.

"You know my performances?" Gideon said with gratified surprise.

"No," said the Boss, flipping over several pages on his ledger. "I have a note here that one Matharic, Royal Adjunct Vice-Critic for Moral Suasion in the Fine Arts, put you on a watch list."

"A watch list? What sort of watch list?"

Boss Hallador read, "My 'weekly list of persons to watch, lest they threaten the Empire through sabotage or incitement.'"

"Fame at last," Gideon sighed.

"You and your friends will be my guests in the common gaol, until this Matharic can be alerted."

"Gaol?" Leothric blurted.

"We're grateful for your forbearance," Gideon said.

"We are? He's locking us away!"

"You would prefer the Screaming Pillars?" Boss Hallador asked. At the nickname of the headquarters of the official city constabulary, Leothric and the others were silent.

The gaol for disturbing the peace was on the uppermost story of the residence, and was fairly pleasant as such places go, although the high window conveyed a chilly draft. Someone had carved inscriptions into the wall, like cheap imitations of the sloganeering in the Shadow School. To be unnoticed is the greatest good in this world. Be patient with your lot. Do not aspire to be a knight or even a pawn; be rather as the dust upon the game board.

"Some prisoner wrote this in his despair," said Leothric.

Ozrif snorted. "Just as likely one of the jailers wrote it to promote cooperation."

"You have a most devious mind, Ozrif."

"Thank you."

"Well, we're here for a while," said Viridia. "Let's not despair." She raised her voice. "We've survived assassins! I, for one, am grateful. Let's be of good cheer and entertain each other, and our hosts. It's our calling, after all."

She winked at the guards and began to dance.

Afterward, thinking of him and Ozrif and Leothric staring at Viridia's swaying movements, Gideon would wonder if Viridia's act was one of kindness or cruelty. For all that he longed for Corvine, over the waters beyond the window, Gideon considered asking the guards for a bucket of cold water, so that he might empty it over his head. Leothric was rapt, looking hopeless. Gideon felt an unexpected sympathy for the puppeteer. Meanwhile, poor Ozrif was receiving the lion's share of Viridia's sultry glances. Gideon's colleague adjusted his clothing uncomfortably. He'd looked happier during battle.

When the dance was done, Gideon applauded, noting that the guards had begun watching as well and joined in the applause. He also noticed that their dinner of water and hardtack had been replaced with servings of stew and wine. Gideon didn't know whether Viridia was brilliant or foolish, attracting their captors' attention thus. The guards seemed honorable sorts, and having them think positively about the bards couldn't hurt. But maybe some cold water was indeed called for.

"And now a song," Gideon declared, and he sifted his brain for something strident, brave, and full of war, something that could refocus a room full of lusting men. He wished he could think of something Taldan, but what came to mind was a patriotic song about the Andoren revolutionary Alysande Benedict, seizing Augustana harbor to keep the warships there from the defiant Old Guard who sought to prevent democracy's rise.

I've seen the fires burning on the margin of the world
They're spinning in confusion like a battle flag unfurled
They'll burn in people's hearts until the final spear is hurled
Ride on, Alysande!

We've had our fill of holy men who make the world a hell
We've suffered under venal men so quick their souls to sell
They'd whip us to submission, so let Andoran rebel
Ride on, Alysande
Ride on, Alysande
Till Augustana's dawn!

And so on, until even the Taldan guards were joining the chorus. He supposed that Andorens rebelling against Andoren nobility was an acceptable topic.

After that, Ozrif asked for things to juggle (everyone laughed when he suggested keys) and so his hands danced soap, two plates, a spoon, and a guard's hat through the air. Leothric got his puppets back, and Sir Gothmoor proved less damaged than he'd feared, allowing knight to battle dragon to the cheers of the guards.

The bards ate their stew and reposed on their luxurious straw, feeling inexplicably better.

"Why am I enjoying all this?" Viridia said. "Truly."

"Because," Gideon speculated, "there's nothing more exhilarating than almost being killed. Have you ever wanted to know why certain individuals spend their hard-earned coin on weaponry and expedition gear, simply to plumb monster-haunted ruins? They'll tell you it's about treasure, or a lofty long-term goal, or the chance to hone their skills." He shook his head. "Liars. They're addicted to this feeling."

"I'm in," said Viridia. "Let's go explore some ruins."

"You're insane," Ozrif said. "Mind you, I respect that."

"You're all insane," Leothric said. "Have you considered just what we encountered tonight? We went to have a little fun, and perhaps investigate a missing groundskeeper. Now we find out he's dead, having gotten involved in some bizarre conspiracy involving Cheliax, assassins, wizards, and for all I know, warrior bug-women from the planet Castrovel. This is serious. Do you have any idea what's happening?"

The other three were silent, waiting for someone to go first.

Gideon ventured, "I've talked with Xeritian, from time to time. I've always suspected he had a hidden life. But I don't know anything certain."

"You might have warned us better, roommate. Leading us into this trouble. And now we're all in trouble with the prince's government—long may he reign. You're a fool, Gideon Gull."

"No, I'm a harpist. But you do have a point. Sorry, everyone."

Leothric looked at Ozrif and Viridia. "Do you two have any ideas? Because groundskeeping now seems like a much more exciting profession than I'd ever dreamed."

"Chelish wizards don't show up every day," Ozrif said. "At a wild guess, I'd say Queen Abrogail's hatching a new plot."

"The government should be warned."

"By now it has been," Viridia said. "Just remember, 'the government' is really many different factions, each with its own agenda. I'm sure we'll hear from at least one of them in the morning."

The answer didn't satisfy Leothric, but by unspoken agreement the bards ended it there. At last the exhausted party drifted into slumber—except Gideon. Restlessly, he thought of the fog and its victims.

When the dirge sounded through the window, he at first supposed it was his own imagination.

But it was clear, and familiar.

He rose and gripped the bars of the window, hauling himself up.

As he hung there, he looked out upon the moonlit mouth of the Porthmos, with the curve of Oppara bending north and the dark fortress of Jadrishar Island brooding to the southwest.

There were the dim sails of great ships anchored in the river.

And there, too, was the ghost ship.

∗ ∗ ∗

Madness ran in the family. Great-Grandfather Garrison Gull—who'd returned from an alleged voyage to Arcadia with a chest of weird treasure, bloodcurdling anecdotes, and the passionate desire to become a vintner—had in the end succumbed to the allure of conspiracy theories, and shaped the family sanctum to ward off ancient Azlanti spirits by diverting them to dead-end passages and empty mazes. Grandfather Gerard believed all persons of Varisian descent practiced the evil eye, and so pulled his hat over his head whenever one walked by. Great-Aunt Glynda believed cats were the secret masters of Golarion. Gideon half-suspected she was right, but that concession to unreality did not reassure him now.

For Demonwake set out to sea, and although he couldn't see the woman on deck, he heard her singing in his mind. The sound was gentle, resonant with sorrow. But it was the same voice that had mocked him atop the conservatory. The same that he'd heard from the mouth of his muse.

"Gideon?"

Gideon returned to the cell floor, to find he'd awakened Viridia. "A ship," he said, knowing how foolish he sounded. "There's a ghost ship out there, or something that looks like one."

Viridia came to the window and lifted herself up. "I see nothing, Gideon."

He followed suit. The ship was indeed gone.

"Ah. Well." They dropped. "No worries. Maybe I'm simply going mad."

"It's a strange night." Viridia put a hand on his shoulder. "I wouldn't blame you for having bad dreams. Talk to me about it?"

"There's something that happened a long time ago. I haven't talked about it in years. But recent events reminded me."

"What we saw, in the corridors..."

"Yes."

"You never talk about how you grew up. Was it unhappy?"

"No! Not at first." He recalled a green hill and a manse upon it, sprawling bright in the summertime. "We're a family of vintners. You should see our winery. Great-granddad built it like a castle, but the kind of castle you only get in books, with a great green area for the folk of Carpenden to come and enjoy music. That's how I came to know and love performance."

Leothric was awake now. "That's strange, Gideon. Here I thought you came from poor farmers from the backwoods. But it seems you're as much a son of privilege as I. Is it morning?"

Viridia snorted. "No. You should sleep."

Ozrif was awake too. "Leothric, the elite of Andoran are modest merchants compared to the poorest nobles of Taldor."

"So we've woken everyone up," Viridia said.

"I'd like to hear how Gideon learned about backwoods music," Ozrif said.

"Well," Gideon said, "I did listen to poor farmers. They had wonderful songs. I made my own."

"But it was an affectation!" Leothric chortled. "Your supposed common touch. So, too, your great-grandfather's."

"Indeed!" Gideon refused to take offense. "He didn't cotton to real nobility. But he loved the idea of pretend nobility, and he made himself a pretend noble, ancient ruined family seat and all. That's how it should be, I think. The trappings of nobility for the rich, with all the comedy that implies. But the real gravitas with ordinary folk."

"Every society," Leothric insisted, "needs a class free of toil, a class that can think, and plan."

"And throw wild parties," Viridia said, laughing. "Don't forget the wild parties."

Leothric didn't appreciate the teasing. "You commoners would be nowhere without the guidance of nobles!"

"The nobles who lost two-thirds of the empire with their incompetence?" Viridia scoffed. "The nobles who spend most of their days plotting against each other, instead of our enemies?"

"You know nothing of my world," Leothric answered. "You lack the background."

"I know enough. Your ilk thinks you live in a secret realm, Leothric. Let me tell you, you're constantly surrounded by commoners, retainers, servants—do you truly think they never talk about you? Do you truly think they're ignorant of how you live?"

Leothric flushed. "You dare to say these things because we're all in jail together. You have the illusion of being my equal."

"You're the one who knows nothing. And I will say anything, anywhere."

"I'll hold you to that."

"We were talking about me." Gideon smiled.

"Very well," Leothric snapped. "Talk about you."

"So...as vintners it was important to find markets. From time to time my father had to travel to Almas, or Augustana, or other places around the land. Sometimes he took some of the family along. Well, the day came when we went to Bellis."

"Not sure I've heard of it," said Viridia.

"It's not a huge place. It's up the Sellen River, many days beyond Cassomir and the druids' isle, in the thick of the Verduran Forest. Lots of lumbering up that way, and beekeeping. Bellis Mead comes from there."

"Oh, I have heard of it. You mentioned it when we saw..."

"Saw what?" said Leothric.

"Never mind," said Gideon. "We went there to see about getting wine barrels sent up to Galt and the River Kingdoms and farther north, and also to get a low-tariff inroad to Taldor. Dad also wanted to learn more about the mead. We thought it was just a woodsy town full of good, honest Andorens. It was—on the first day. And then night came."

Gideon sat down, linking his hands. "The fog rolled in. And people saw strange visions in it, and those who stayed in it for long...they changed. It started by the docks, and Dad had the good sense to lead us away from there. The people who stayed became a mob. I don't know why. Maybe I'll never know."

He remembered the jeering nightmare monster invoked by the Chelaxian's spell. The mob at Bellis had stayed human in form, but for Gideon's family it had indeed seemed one vast beast.

"They started screaming, crazy stuff. I've heard stories about how things went insane up in Galt, when the cause stopped being about democracy and started being about killing anyone the crowd didn't like. Andorens will tell you we could never do such things. That's a lie. The good people of Bellis turned into a bloodthirsty mob. They ransacked their own town, burned houses, and killed seventeen people. My brother Gareth was one of them. We'd gotten separated from our family. He tried to save me—"

Gideon studied the gaol stones. "I ran. I was only ten. I knew with a cold clarity that I couldn't save Gareth. But I hated myself for running. Somehow I got away from the mob, but to do it I had to run through the fog. There was something—Erastil's antlers, I don't know how to describe it. A strange voice in my head. A woman's voice, singing. Despairing and lonely. If sadness is like a stone in the gut, her voice was like that stone chipped down to a knife-point. I felt like it was singing to me. Just to me. I got away from it and rested beside the river. I—I slept. When I awoke, I saw things..."

He didn't want to talk about the insectile monster. That surely had just been a nightmare.

"I saw the ghost ship for the first time. It didn't look identical to the ghost ship I saw just now, but very similar, gliding down the Sellen, as if in mockery of all the life upon the shore."

He rubbed his temples. "I do fear that I am going just a trifle insane. I wonder if perhaps I should give up the...college."

"No," Viridia said.

"Don't be foolish," Ozrif said. "We all have bad dreams, visions—"

"I just had one," Leothric said. "I decided to have a night on the town and ended up in jail. Wait a minute..."

No one laughed, but the darkness seemed to lift a trifle.

"They're right, though," Leothric added. "You shouldn't give up on anything, even if there's a little madness in your life. It's like you said in the disputation: the world is full of wonders, and terrors. And they can all wait till morning, at least."

Gideon blinked at Leothric, surprised. "You're right. May I count on you all to keep this possible...madness...to yourselves?"

"Of course," said Viridia, and Ozrif nodded.

"You have my word, roommate," Leothric said, with surprising formality.

"Thank you all," Gideon said. "We'd better sleep. I'd like to prepare spells in the morning, at least."

But he couldn't sleep. Not until the moon had passed by, taking all hint of ghost-light with it.

∗ ∗ ∗

Gideon woke to find Viridia snoring and Ozrif and Leothric performing a routine for the guards. Ozrif would juggle Leothric's puppets before tossing them to Leothric for various skits. The story was Sir Gothmoor's endless doomed pursuit of the dragon Yallazak. The guards were clapping.

"So," said Sebastian Tambour, entering the gaol. "This is keeping a low profile?"

"We're model prisoners," said Gideon, getting up. "Just ask the guards."

"Can they stay a while?" asked one guard. "They're fun."

"They beat the last bunch we had," said another. "Crew of lunatics from those pirate isles, the Shackles. They told us how they'd boil our eyes, stick our heads on a prow, gamble with our bones."

"We might all be safer if my friends here stayed locked up," said Sebastian. "But that is not to be. I've shown the Harbormaster a writ from the prince's magistrates—may he live a long and opulent life—pardoning them and releasing them into my care." Sebastian raised a scroll and the guards scrambled for their keys. Viridia groaned at the noise, stretched, and got to her feet.

"You?" said Leothric. "With a writ? You're just some kind of bard."

"Oh, I'm not just some kind of bard. I'm a sea-captain in the service of Taldor. I have a little sway."

"Thanks." Gideon was glad he didn't have to improvise a cover to explain the situation. "When may we return to the college?"

"Immediately." As the others showed their relief, Sebastian raised a hand. "But—temporarily."

"What?"

"There's a catch, I'm afraid. You're released into my custody as commander of Riposte, bound today for Cassomir. You're now my crew, you see."

"What?" Gideon said again.

"You overreached by investigating the death of—" Sebastian paused only the tiniest bit—"the groundskeeper. There are consequences."

"But the Chelaxians!" Leothric sputtered. "The fog! Something is going on here, Tambour!"

"The authorities have been told. But you four need to be away from here, for your own safety. It's not all bad. There may be other ways to investigate this situation."

"Cassomir," Gideon said. "They've seen fogs like this too."

"Indeed," Sebastian said.

"I'm in."

"You just want to see Corvine Gale," Viridia said, but her tone was light.

"Guilty," Gideon confessed.

"The lovebird needs looking after. I'll go. I've never been to sea."

"It's not as romantic as advertised," said Ozrif. "I much prefer the city. But I'll show you the ropes."

"Aboard ship," Sebastian said dryly, "they're called 'lines.'"

"I don't think I can leave in any case," Leothric said. "My family won't like it."

"I'm sorry, Leothric, but I don't think you realize how serious this is. Once I explained the situation, your father agreed it was for the best."

"What? I won't!"

"There's no choice. If you don't come with me now, you're technically a deserter. Boss Hallador would have no option but to transfer you to the Screaming Pillars. One way or another, school is at an end."

Chapter Five

Shanty for Vagabonds

Faring better?" Gideon asked Ozrif, who was staring into the portside waters as though divining a fortune.

"You're only asking because you're smug about your iron gut."

"You do sound better," Gideon decided, but was cut off by a tirade from Leothric to starboard.

"I don't need your sanctimonious pity! I'm no beggar pleading for alms. My father raised himself from nothing, and I follow in his footsteps. From the time I could talk, I instructed and rebuked the servants myself. I managed and budgeted my allowance from the day I could count. I need no one! I can vomit my stomach juices all on my own, thank you very much."

"I think Leothric needs me," Gideon said.

"I might just muster the strength to help you push him overboard. For your consideration."

"Thanks."

Gideon shifted carefully across the deck. He remembered the advice to always seek three points of contact when on a ship, two feet and one hand, or two hands and one foot. The lurch and heave of the vessel was greater than he remembered, perhaps because Riposte was petite for a warship, about seventy feet long and twenty across, with two masts and a great complexity of rigging, and a crew of perhaps two dozen, including the bards.

"If you don't want help, then stay out of the way," Sebastian was telling Leothric. "We're focused on the crossing."

"What do you mean, crossing? I see only water all around."

Yesterday's clouds, with their foretaste of true winter, had dispersed, and the afternoon was bright and clear with a chill that had soothed Gideon's stomach. The waters were choppy from a strong breeze from the west.

"No, you don't see." Out here upon the waters, Sebastian's voice was more clipped and brassy than sardonic and smooth. "You don't see the currents shaped by the rocky coasts. You don't see the hidden shallows. You don't see the tidal surge."

Gideon wanted to spare Leothric a fraction of Sebastian's ire. "If the mouth of the Porthmos is so dangerous, why not use a river pilot?"

"Too much delay. I have a feeling time's of the essence."

Gideon nodded. Sebastian had indeed moved with dispatch. They'd departed Oppara in the gray of dawn, steering out of the harbor and around the naval fortress of Jadrishar Island. Beyond they'd entered the main flow of the Great Porthmos, so wide as to seem a bay. But it had still been a full thirty miles to the river's mouth and the sea. Sebastian had been keen to get them into open ocean before sunset.

"The day's near spent!" called Sebastian. "Look alive as we cross the bar!"

"Jibe ho!" called the helmsman, and Gideon got Leothric out of the way of a shifting boom.

Leothric muttered, "Why do the sailors use so many strange terms? It's as if they're deliberately confounding us."

Gideon shrugged. "Every occupation has a tongue of its own. The more canny the trade the more uncanny the language."

A green-haired gnome keeping watch near the bow overheard him, grinned, and called out to a brown-skinned, black-haired human supervising the riggers. "Away put the quizzlesticks! Step lively past the snipewinders! Tie off the loopmonkeys!"

"Fool!" bellowed the human without cracking even a hint of smile. "We dare not tie up the loopmonkeys in a sizzlesquawl like this. It'll stockhammer the fishermizzen!"

Gideon waved. "Even I know you're talking nonsense...Adebeyo, isn't it? Hello, Grizzendell."

The gnome guffawed, and the human grunted.

They were an eccentric crew, for an unusual ship. It was always unclear to Gideon if Sebastian's true second was First Mate Adebeyo, the cheerfully dour man from the southlands of Garund who seemed to know everything about motivating crews; or perhaps Quartermaster Grizzendell, the cackling gnome from Taldor's southern garrison town of Zimar, who seemed to know everything about ships. Then there was Zethril the bosun, an imperious elf of Kyonin who split the difference between them and seemed expert about everything and sardonically superior about it; and Lunette, a sad-looking silver-haired woman of Yanmass in Taldor's far north, who seemed a jack-of-all-trades, and whom they simply called the carpenter.

Those were the ones Gideon remembered. The others were a blur of activity that included a halfling in the rigging whose feet never quite seemed to hit the deck; a half-orc nearby whose belly-laughs echoed all over the ship; a peg-legged helmsman swearing with a Sardis accent; a one-eyed sailmaster swearing back with a Ridonport drawl; an Ulfen sailor who wore chain armor and such a cold gaze she seemed plucked from a storied longboat; and an elven rigger with a prominent scar who seemed determined to ignore his fellow elf the bosun.

Whatever their eccentricities, they seemed good at their jobs. Riposte cleared the Porthmos and began lurching with the waves as the river shook hands with the Inner Sea. Gideon nearly lost footing and face. Leothric found something left of his lunch to lose.

The river had fooled Gideon's eyes; but here was the true sea, as his guts remembered it.

Viridia emerged from the little cabin given over to the bards. She stalked over to the edge near Gideon and Leothric, vomited into the deep, and scowled at her schoolmates, the crew, and perhaps all of Taldor behind them. "I want you to understand," she said, "that I hold you all responsible." Then she marched back into her cabin.

"That's three times," Leothric remarked.

"She comes from the plains. It's a very different environment for your feet."

"And head. And stomach."

"So mine are telling me. Rough weather today."

"Eh?" Grizzendell said. "It's a wonderful sailing day. You want rough weather, wait till we hit the Jagged Saw!"

Leothric shook his head. "I don't know how Tambour convinced Father to abandon me. Perhaps he felt this experience would toughen me."

"He may have said something of the sort," Adebeyo confirmed.

Leothric nodded. He looked back at the Taldan coast, green and rocky behind them, with an ever-increasing expanse of blue between. "Well. Father never was wholly pleased with my attending the Rhapsodic. He never understood the call of the puppets."

Ozrif whispered to Gideon, "No one understands the call of the puppets."

"Peace," Gideon whispered back.

Leothric shook his head at them, but if he'd overheard he didn't acknowledge it further. "I have nothing left to leave." He covered his mouth. "Or heave...But that won't stop me..." He stepped unsteadily toward the railing.

Viridia emerged some time later, looking somewhat better. Whether it was because Sebastian's work was done for now, or because there was a woman to impress, the captain intercepted her and offered his arm. When they reached the other bards, Sebastian let go, bowed, and addressed his passengers. Or prisoners. "Now we sail west for a time, to be fully clear of the coast, and to trick any spying eyes. But soon enough, we make for Taldor's northwest coast."

"Good," Viridia said, her ire gone. "Open sea seems to agree with me."

"You must be the only one," Gideon said.

"Something about the wind..." Viridia watched the horizon. "It's calming."

"I've always loved it," Sebastian said. "I grew up along a forest river. Yet it was the water, not the wood, that called to me. When I came to the sea, I felt I'd come home."

"This is your first command," Ozrif stated.

"Yes. How did you know?"

"A certain pride in your bearing. How long have you been master of Riposte?"

"A year. Gull here was actually with me on my first shakedown. We sailed from Cassomir, where she was built, south to Absalom, then on to Oppara. She was brand-new then."

"You've seen some action," Gideon remarked to Sebastian. "There are cracks here and there in the wood that suggest ballista bolts or sword impacts." And stains, he didn't add, that couldn't entirely be swabbed away.

Sebastian grunted. "Yes, we've been in battle. Riposte isn't a large vessel, like my mentor Jean Coremont's Happenstance, and we must avoid heavy seas and heavy prey. But we have advantages larger ships don't. We can travel far up the rivers, for one thing."

Gideon nodded, noting the ballista near the prow, the heavy crossbows stowed along the sides, and a contraption amidships which he suspected was some manner of extensible boarding plank.

"She doesn't seem large enough for prize-taking," Ozrif said.

"You'd be surprised, and so would the prizes."

"Captain," Leothric said, "You speak of combat."

"True."

"And you claim this vessel's name is Riposte."

"Indeed."

"Yet unless my eyes entirely fail me, the name I saw upon the keel as we boarded was Roundelle."

"A ship is a lady, and it's a lady's privilege to dissemble."

"You're not entirely an honest crew, I take it."

Sebastian laughed. "My dear Leothric, we're honest as they come. We're privateers. We carry a letter of marque and reprisal from the Grand Prince himself. Anything that floats beyond Taldor's lawful protection is our rightful prey."

"Pirates, more or less."

"Bah," chipped in the gnome quartermaster. "Pirates are monsters, enemies of all civilized races. We are ladies and gentlemen of fortune, a chimeric collection of passions, with thunder in our laughter and rum in our blood."

"My fate's entrusted to knaves," Leothric moaned.

"I urge you to be polite, good bard," said Sebastian. "Many here are thinner-skinned than Grizzendell."

"Then I'll politely bid you good evening." Leothric stumbled off to the bards' little cabin beneath the fo'c'sle.

"We need to tell him," Gideon said.

Ozrif shrugged. "You're volunteering, I take it."

"But it's fun hearing him sputter," Viridia said.

"Keeping him in the dark will just make him suspicious," Gideon said, "but revealing the truth may bring out his Taldan patriotism. Might be better if a Taldan did it."

"You're his roommate," Viridia said.

"You're all his roommates now," Sebastian noted.

∗ ∗ ∗

And so it was that the fo'c'sle's tiny cabin—little better than a guard shack—became the scene of many a talk, starting with the one that rendered Leothric speechless.

They hung in hammocks, Ozrif and Leothric on one side, Viridia and Gideon on the other. (Once again Viridia and Ozrif seemed determined to defy the conventional wisdom and keep apart. Not that "apart" meant much in this space.) With their gear in place—harps, juggling pins, dancing veils, puppets, weapons, disguise kits, breaking and entering tools, and the like—there was no place to sit.

It was night, and they swung in their hammocks like pea pods in a breeze, as the sea boomed about them.

"Generous of the quartermaster to provide us space," Gideon said by way of conversation. "Aside from the captain, we have the closest thing to privacy."

"Huzzah," said Leothric without enthusiasm.

"Leothric, we should take advantage of that privacy."

"You're about to tell me you three are some kind of eccentric romantic unit, and that I'd better go stargaze."

"Um, no. We're spies."

"Oh. It's possible prior experience colored my expectations. You wouldn't believe my roommate stories. This is another good one. Except that if I tell it you'll have to kill me, I suppose." He paused. Seeing their expressions, his eyes widened. "You're serious. Spies."

"'Lion Blade' is the preferred term," Viridia said.

"We're not the sort of agents who quietly pass along information," Ozrif added. "We're more the flamboyant sort who might rescue such agents when things go bad."

"Or sneak into palaces to overhear war plans," Gideon said.

"Or remove people who need removing," Viridia said.

Leothric was silent for a full ten seconds.

"All right, I admit you had me going for a minute there," he said at last. "Gideon, if this is to get me back for that time I put a rat puppet in your—"

"It's no joke," Gideon said.

As the silence stretched on anew, Viridia said, "Think about what's happened, Leothric. How quickly everything's moved. Why do you think we were out looking for the groundskeeper? He was our teacher."

"All of you?" Leothric said. "And you 'remove' people?" Gideon could almost see the gears turning, as Leothric thought back to every snide remark he'd ever made about the three.

He felt a little sorry for Leothric, and quickly said, "We're really just students. We're told that when we graduate, we'll receive assignments appropriate to our talents."

"Therefore," Viridia said, "Gideon will be assigned to keep very close watch on divas in Cassomir."

"You're students?" Leothric said. "Spy students? This is preposterous! Where do you study? How do you have time?"

"You may have heard rumors of catacombs beneath the college," Ozrif said.

"I figured that was some overblown legend! Or at most the meeting place of the Ghost Choir, the secret society of elite students."

"I suspect the Ghost Choir's an invention of the Shadow School," Gideon said.

"As for time," Viridia said, "well, somehow we manage. Schedule-juggling is perhaps an important trait for secret agents."

"Schedules are the one thing I fear juggling," Ozrif added.

"So this truly is a government mission?" Leothric thought about it. "I suppose it explains why Sebastian had so much sway with my parents. That's been puzzling me. He's your leader, I take it?"

"That's an interesting question," Gideon said. "He's taken charge of us. There are special circumstances."

"And the rest of the crew?"

"I think they're aware of their captain's moonlighting," said Ozrif, "but are not otherwise involved."

"Except to help drop the right people in the right ports," said Viridia. "Like us."

"You're enjoying this," Ozrif said.

"And you're not?" Viridia shot back.

"I've merely acclimated."

"Liar."

"I take it you weren't fully prepared for this mission," Leothric said. "Well, good. I feel more parity that way. But a couple of questions: Viridia, in the past you've sounded less than worshipful of Taldor's nobility. Why would you spy for us?"

"The answer's simple: I don't. I spy for my country, which is a damn sight more than just you lot."

"Hm. And Gideon, Ozrif—you're not even Taldans. Why do you spy for my country?"

"Katapesh is my home," Ozrif said, "but in Katapesh you're less a citizen than a commodity. Taldor has accepted me. Grudgingly in some cases, I admit. But I have a home here. I'll do my best for my adopted land."

Gideon nodded. "I'm not Taldan, you're right. I'm not ashamed to be Andoren. But Taldor, even much reduced, is a great civilization. I want to help preserve it. And I love its people and the liveliness of the Taldan spirit. Sometimes I think you Taldans live more easy and free than we Andorens, with our endless speeches and self-righteousness. Even if you drive me crazy sometimes."

"And if you're ever forced to choose?" Leothric asked. "Between your homeland and your employers?"

Gideon realized he was echoing the thoughts of many a warrior of mixed loyalties, throughout the ages. "If torn between countries, I won't so much choose between them as stand with my comrades, come what may."

"Hm. One more thing," Leothric said, "if this turns out to be an elaborate prank, you will all be the subject of spiteful puppet shows for the next fifty years."

Gideon smiled. "I've seen you fight. Once I might have scoffed at that threat. No longer."

∗ ∗ ∗

The night's watch kept Riposte sailing in the relatively calm region west of the Porthmos, but come the dawn they bore north toward the rocky coast known as the Jagged Saw. Sebastian called the Rhapsodic contingent onto the deck and assigned them mops.

"This is just make-work, isn't it?" Viridia asked. "You think we're not worthy of useful labor."

"You're green, Viridia."

"I feel much better."

Sebastian laughed. "I mean you're new to the sea. You think the mop's a badge of scorn. It's not! We know you lack seamanship but are willing to pitch in."

"It'll be fun," Gideon said. He didn't mind labor, make-work or otherwise. There had been plenty of that at the family winery.

As the next hour passed, the waves grew larger, sometimes taller than a tall man, with white crests. The air was full of spray. Gideon took care with his grip. It had become impossible to mop.

Sebastian bellowed, "Swabbies, stow your gear! Welcome to the Jagged Saw! Here the winds of the Inner Sea act like arrows at an archery range, and every ship's a target."

"Is this the worst we can expect?" Ozrif shouted, the wind stealing his voice.

"Ha! This is but a strong breeze!"

"Why did he ask?" Leothric moaned.

"We completely bypassed this passage on my last voyage!" said Gideon. "I have to admit, I'm missing Absalom!"

"Indeed!" Sebastian said. "But today we make speed!"

Before long the bards banished themselves to their little cabin. There was nothing for it but hope Sebastian's crew knew what they were doing. Some waves were now tall as trees. The crests foamed and streamed. There was so much spray in the air that Gideon's face dripped as he secured the door. There were times he was sure Riposte would scuttle.

He was wrong. Whether due to hidden properties in the gnome-drafted design, the supreme skill of the crew, or divine intervention, Riposte survived to return to what Sebastian called a "strong breeze," and which felt now like a tranquil moment on a lake.

Of them all, Viridia seemed the most renewed. She emerged from the cabin spinning, half-dancing, in air that seemed fresh-scrubbed. She was halfway to the prow as the other bards emerged, blinking, into the sunset.

"She seems to have the best sea-legs of all of us," Gideon remarked.

"The best leg-legs too," said Leothric.

"Mind your tongue," said Ozrif.

"Just an observation."

"Death by drowning's mere inches away. That's also just an observation." The juggler followed after Viridia, leaving Gideon with the sputtering Leothric.

"He's a pig," Leothric said. "What does she see in him?"

If he's a pig, at least he's not a bore. "So you think she likes him?"

"It's obvious they're dancing and juggling around each other. You could cut the tension with one of those curvy pirate swords."

"Cutlasses."

"Whatever." Leothric sighed. "I don't know, Gideon, do you suppose if I moved in, it would help?"

"What?"

"Well, two things could happen. I get rejected and Ozrif realizes he's not the only one to notice her, so he finally makes his move. Or I get accepted, and well—praise Shelyn. It's a good thing either way."

"Leothric, I'd advise you not to pursue your plan aboard ship."

Leothric nodded. "There are taboos against shipboard romance?"

"On land there are more places to run."

They reached the bow, where Viridia was perched as far forward as possible, Ozrif a respectful distance beside her. Seeing them, Gideon did feel a certain sadness that Viridia's would-be suitors included one man overly diffident, and the other a lout.

Ozrif nodded to them. "Viridia seems fully recovered, and ready to compete with the ship's figurehead."

Gideon leaned over to look at Riposte's wooden mermaid, the one with the dagger in her teeth.

Leothric frowned. "Is that a real dagger...?"

Gideon said, "I admit, Viridia, I'm surprised you've taken so much to the sea."

She looked toward the east, far beyond the Taldan coast to where the Whistling Plains lay. "I'm surprised too. But perhaps it's simply that I love grand expanses. Stavian's Hold is at the edge of another kind of sea—a sea of grass. There you can climb the highest tower and see endless swaths of green and yellow stalks, kingdoms of grass sliced by river after river. You can ride past that horizon and beyond it there's more of the grass, more of the rivers, as if it will all never end."

"You must love it," Gideon said.

"Or perhaps you've found a new love," Leothric said. Then, belatedly, added, "The sea."

"The sea's the greatest of adventures," Ozrif cut in. "Often I've wanted to sail you off to my port city of Katapesh, show you its wonders."

Viridia shook her head. "I do think I can come to enjoy the sea. It's wide and humbling like the plains. But you can't build a homestead on water."

"No, but in Katapesh we'll sell you deeds to imaginary islands."

"Ha! Well, our adventurers are the ones who clear the land, build a farm, and move their families into the great green void. And that's the wonder of it: you can really do it. New land, new opportunities." She looked troubled, then, and Gideon remembered the fog within the Shadow School, and the scenes therein.

"But sometimes things go wrong," Gideon said.

"Well...We were loyal subjects of the Grand Prince, of course—may he be free of bonechill and brainworms—but on the homestead we felt as though we were on our own. Would that we were. The governor of Stavian's Hold had a mandate to build the city as strong as possible, and for that he needed taxes. He looked the other way if the tax collectors shook down a homestead. My parents eventually had enough, and denied the collector any more than he was due."

"Ouch!" Leothric said, leaning precariously over the side. 'It's a real dagger..."

Viridia folded her arms, frowning against the wind. "The collector lied to the governor, saying my father had struck him. We were hit with crushing new fines, and my parents protested directly." She looked down at the waves splitting against the bow. "They were hung."

The other bards were silent.

"I'm sorry," Ozrif said. "I always knew something terrible had occurred, but not what."

"I'd offer you a hand of consolation," Leothric said, "but I'm bleeding. Excuse me." He went in search of a bandage.

"We're all acquainted with loss," Viridia said. "You lost a brother, Gideon. And you your whole family, Ozrif. I still have relatives in the east."

Ozrif gazed out at the open ocean. "Pain is pain."

Viridia put a hand on his shoulder. Clouds rode across the sky, frothing with fantastic shapes, moving in advance of a dark mass of storm to the west.

"That looks ominous," Gideon muttered.

Leothric returned with a strip of cloth wrapped around his hand, Sebastian beside him. "Did you see those clouds?" Leothric said. His gaze flicked to where Viridia's hand still lay on Ozrif's shoulder. "Not good."

"It's well we make haste," Sebastian said. "That looks to be witchy weather. Enough to drive a landlubber beneath his soft pillows."

"Do you have any soft pillows?" Gideon asked.

"No. Shall I send to Absalom for some?"

"That's quite all right. We'll manage."

"Then I suggest you return to your cabin."

The bards did as requested, noting that no one was attempting bravado about this weather. Rain gushed against the hull for hours, and lightning flashed frequently, with thunder uncomfortably close behind. By the middle of the night all was calm, if calm was clear air but an exceedingly bumpy ride.

The next week passed with much the same rhythm, rough weather punctuating stretches of merely challenging weather. The bards found simple maintenance tasks suited to their level of seamanship. They tried to further justify their existence with songs, juggling, dancing, puppetry, and "swinging the lantern," as the sailors called storytelling.

As it happened, the winter solstice passed while Riposte was at sea. For followers of the goddess Shelyn, it was a time of artistic creation. For devotees of Desna, it was a time of song. And for all it was a time of comradeship. The bards were much in demand.

"We could take our act on the road," Gideon said after one calm, successful evening.

"The Seasick Troubadours Limited," said Ozrif.

"Very limited," said Viridia.

"Less talk," said Leothric. "More lying around and groaning."

This last was another key activity for the bards. While earlier in the journey they'd been more voluble, by now most of their exchanges featured monosyllables and grunts. Gideon reflected that it was a bad sign when even bards didn't want to talk.

He missed Corvine's cramped letters, and wished he could speak to her, or at least know she was safe. One clear evening toward journey's end he tried to picture her. He saw her eyes of pale blue, like open sky glimpsed through a tunnel of clouds. He saw her stormy tangle of raven hair, secured with a simple ivory pin lashing through it like a lightning stroke. He saw her light-brown skin dotted with perspiration after singing a particularly challenging set. He visualized her so well he perspired a little himself.

"The mind's a funny thing," he murmured.

"How's that?" Viridia answered from a spot near the railing nearby.

He stirred out of his reverie. "I'm starting to think the mind's like a sailing ship. Some minds are as shipshape as Admiral Kasaba's flagship. Others are as rickety as the Wanderloss."

"Some minds are like ships carrying traveling circuses," Leothric put in.

"Yes, that's a fair way to think of it."

"Why stop at minds?" Ozrif said from somewhere nearby. "Whole countries could be assigned characters in this way. Taldor is like an ancient trireme. Qadira is an ornate baghlah."

"This is an amusing game," Viridia said. "Let's see. Andoran is a clipper which elects a new captain every battle."

Leothric said, "Cheliax is a galleon whose captain just repeats whatever its evil-looking parrot says."

"Galt's a sloop," said Sebastian, stepping out of the darkness, "that replaced its mainmast with a guillotine. At ease, all—weather's calm, and we can relax discipline. Let's watch the stars."

"Not just stars," Viridia said. "Sometimes, low on the horizon..."

"Ah, yes. There's your metaphor for Taldor. See those lights?"

Gideon saw a pair of bright pinpoints to the west, another in the middle, one, flickering, far off to the east.

"Are they villages?" asked Viridia.

"Lighthouses. Set down by our ancestors in days when their mastery of the arcane arts surpassed ours. Once the coast was filled with them, evenly spaced. Now many have gone dark, and of those that remain, many are erratic."

"They call the one by Cassomir 'Treacherous Jack,'" Gideon said.

"Yes, at times they seem mischievous—bright in calm weather, dim in a storm. They should have been replaced long years ago. But we've lost the means. That's Taldor: a constellation of bright lights, slowly flickering to dark."

"Surely Taldor could relearn that knowledge?" Ozrif asked.

"Of course we could. But it would take a program of magical research, vastly expensive, supported by the Grand Prince and probably a group of nobles too. It's within our capability. We just won't do it."

"You'd think that a power so dependent upon the sea would rebuild its lighthouses," Gideon said.

"We see many enemies all around us, all too clearly. But the greatest enemy we don't see, and that's time. If we continue as we have, Taldor will simply decline. Eventually one of our many foes will claim us. Perhaps not in our day, but in our children's day. Like a lion culling the weak from the herd."

After that they watched the ancient lighthouses in silence, like stargazers spotting meteors. Then they beheld a final light, one that expanded as the sky turned gray, and dawn revealed the harbor of Cassomir.

Chapter Six

Solo (with a Chorus for Madmen)

Storm clouds darkened the morning horizon like a titan's fallen cloak as Riposte heaved into the harbor.

Compared to Oppara, Cassomir was spare and compact, for all that thirty thousand souls sheltered within. The city had two distinct halves, north and south, with the harbor glistening between. North lay the wealthier residential districts and the Admiralty Citadel, while south lay the castle and the town's equivalent to Oppara's Westport. Stretching between was a great shipyard, key to Taldor's strength upon the sea.

"I don't see anything amiss," Gideon said. "But I'm still worried. I want to look for Corvine as soon as we moor."

"Wiser to wait until we can speak with the admiral and the mayor," Sebastian warned.

Gideon didn't answer. Navigating the harbor took excruciatingly long. At last Riposte eased into its mooring between two vaster ships. Sebastian's crew was still tying off when Gideon leapt onto the pier.

"Where are you going?" Sebastian called out.

"To find Corvine!"

"Wait for backup, you fool."

"He has backup," said Ozrif. He and Viridia and Leothric jumped off as well.

"We're with you," said Viridia.

"Well, mainly I just want off," said Leothric.

"Bards! Bards are mad!" called Sebastian.

"Aren't you a bard?" Viridia answered.

"I'll never admit it again! Very well, find your Corvine. But be wary! Leothric, you may go with them."

"Thank you, good sir," said Leothric in the voice of Sir Gothmoor.

"At least he's taking the puppets," Gideon thought he heard Sebastian say.

Gideon led his companions through the shipyard and the harbor businesses, on past the reputedly haunted ruins of Quickfall Abbey, and into the district of Abbey Green, with its old stone buildings housing artists and artisans, merchants and military retirees.

Gideon stopped at a flower shop whose proprietress rented out rooms.

"Why, Master Gull! Thought you were long gone."

"The musical life is full of surprises, Mrs. Amaranth. Is Corvine in?"

"She's singing at the Threegates Irregular today."

Gideon thanked her and bought a bouquet.

As Gideon led his companions into the prosperous district of Threegates, Leothric asked, "Are you going on a rescue mission, Gull, or a date?"

"Hush, Leothric," said Viridia.

"It's a reasonable question," Ozrif said. "Unless fog-maddened lunatics are especially vulnerable to roses."

"I know this is strange," Gideon said. "But I've got a bad feeling, and I've come to trust my intuition. If I'm wrong, though, flowers are in order."

∗ ∗ ∗

A few years back, some prominent Threegates families had realized that the intersection of Threegates, Old Cassomir, and the city moat had created a little no-man's-land—a tiny artificial gully bordering Threegates and formed from an indentation in Old Cassomir's ramparts, with the moat washing its edge.

The area was too small and shadowy to be much use to anyone. But though it might be no-man's land, it held plenty of appeal for the city's youths. The families were at first tolerant of their younger children using the place for mock battles by day, until they discovered that their older children, in the ancient manner of wealthy scions, were using the area by night for unauthorized experiments with sex and alcohol.

The families took it upon themselves to remove this bit of wildness from their cultivated world. They leveled the ground, added shade plants, benches, lampposts, and a pavilion, and announced a performing arts festival.

The Threegates Irregular Festival was a middling success, and while from time to time anarchy returned, the families were satisfied, and the setting had grown more popular. Corvine had written that the Irregular Festival was a good chance to try out something offbeat, since the patrons saw nowhere to go but up.

As they arrived, spectators were indeed gathered, and Corvine Gale was singing.

Her voice was wild and beautiful, yet with a touch of the stubborn and sardonic—rather like Corvine herself. She stood in the leather armor common to those who delved the abandoned tunnels beneath Cassomir, and sang a fanciful song about those depths.

Far below the booted feet
Of Jackknife Lane and Mermaid Street
Far beneath the weary load
Of Sailors' Walk and Timber Road
Where sewage spills and garbage plops
And rats repair to dine on slops
A dukedom sits of skulls and bones
A barony of catacombs
In the land beneath the street
The Locker of All Light's Retreat.

It was hard for Gideon to turn away. But he'd hustled across half of Cassomir to make certain she was all right, not just stand and gawk. He scanned the surroundings for anything amiss.

At first, all seemed well, and Gideon was relieved, hoping just once to simply enjoy a performance.

Then he spotted the fog.

He could barely see the apparition, for although the sunlight shone into the hollow, shadows pooled at the edges, where the misty tendrils were rising. The fingers of fog reached from the moat, curled among the bushes and flowers, and slipped under the benches to climb up the bodies of certain viewers and slip into their ears.

Gideon pointed with his bouquet, his voice stolen by the speed and scope of the nebulous assault. Gideon thought Corvine spotted his gesture, recognizing him with widened eyes. So great was her composure, however, that she didn't gasp or miss a beat.

Viridia, however, did both. She grabbed Gideon's arm. "I have two comments. First, she has an amazing voice. Second, what are we supposed to do against that?"

"Against what?" whispered Leothric. "What do you see?"

"Don't you see the fog?"

"No," said Ozrif.

"That man killed in the Kismet House," Gideon said. "He told me not everyone can see it. Perhaps it chooses to be noticed, or not."

"What's it doing?" Ozrif asked.

Gideon frowned. "Nothing good..."

Corvine reached her final chorus, wherein her narrator implored against the folly of ruin-delving:

O my brother, do not go
Down to where no light is known
Chase no more a foolish dream
Of magic's lure and treasure's gleam.

Corvine bowed, the last echoes of her voice dying in the hollow.

As the applause began, the fog-afflicted spectators were the first to rise, clapping in a fierce yet mechanical way. One of Leothric's puppets, back in Oppara, was a mechanical monkey eternally clanging cymbals against each other. These fog-swayed people reminded Gideon of that sinister simian. Clap-clap-clap-clap.

There were thirteen, perhaps fourteen. Then they were lost to sight as the rest of the audience rose and clapped in the more random manner of an ordinary crowd.

Corvine straightened, smiled at the crowd, and searched for Gideon's face. She fixed him with a wondering look. Then her gaze flicked to something behind him.

"Gideon! Look!"

Her voice was no longer the smooth instrument of moments before, but the shriek of a tavern singer who had no trouble being heard over a score of workmen's stamping feet.

He spun to discover the fog hadn't merely been infiltrating the crowd. It had billowed up into a wall, cutting the gathering off from both the moat and the path back to town. Images swirled within the fog, as they had down in the Shadow School. Already some seemed familiar.

Leothric was nearest, and now it appeared he could see the fog, for he stumbled toward it.

Gideon ran after him. "Don't look!" But it was too late, and Gideon found he couldn't look away either.

Leothric gasped. Within the white canvas, a shadowy townhouse stood in the midst of a great city. As they watched, leaves blew past the house like swarms of madly swirling insects. Branches, too.

"The storm," Leothric murmured. "The great windstorm of '99."

The house shuddered. A shadowy man and woman dragged a shrieking boy and two girls from the building just before an immense oak tree fell against it, destroying the work of generations.

But the work of generations was of no concern to little Leothric. The boy in the vision was struggling to escape his parents' grasp, to run back into the house.

"My cat, Growler," Leothric whispered. "He was never found."

The vision faded. Leothric sat upon the ground.

"Leothric," said Gideon.

"Shut up!" Leothric yelled.

"Ozrif joined them. "I see it too, Leothric. I understand. But we all have losses, and must all move on. Get up."

"Shut up! You weren't there! You can't understand. It's not just Growler. The house was the symbol of our wealth and power, and it was destroyed by a stupid random act of nature. By a tree! A tree!"

"Gentlemen!" Viridia was calling. "If you're through with your picnic, a little help?"

Gideon dragged Leothric up by the arm.

The lunatics were about their work.

Just like the possessed pesh-den customers back in Oppara, some frothed at the mouth, while all had greenish-white eyes the color of the fog. Some were busy lashing out at their fellows, shoving, punching, clawing, biting. But several were surging through the panicking crowd toward the stage.

"Corvine!"

"Sleep," a spinning Viridia told the crazies, emphasizing her command with rose petals and arcane syllables. Then she did it again.

Knots of the madfolk tumbled over into magical slumber, along with some of their targets. Unfortunately, one lunatic remained standing, finding it easy to throw himself against a helpless victim. Viridia swore and dove onto him. Ozrif sprinted to join her.

Gideon ran too, hoping to somehow aid Corvine, adding his own curses to the air. He wished he'd studied attack spells rather than more subtle effects.

But his shout at least roused Corvine from shock. She didn't have time for a spell, but she did call out, "Enough!"

Astonishingly, the nearest madmen stopped, staring, as though awaiting instruction. Ascending the stage, Gideon tried to conjure something to keep their attention. Absurdly, he still held the bouquet. He tossed it to Corvine; it landed at her feet.

"Really?" she said.

"Bad timing," he said, and commenced his spell of illusion.

What will I dream when the hangman hauls?

To anyone who succumbed to his spell, the dream was of a throng of maniacs rushing from around the back of the stage, charging off toward the fog and screaming incoherently.

As the phantoms rushed off, several of the real maniacs followed. Though rather fewer than Gideon had hoped.

"Next time," Corvine said beside him, "warn me before the lunatics attack?"

"It's a rescue in the nick of time, okay? A classic."

"This is a rescue?"

Their exchange seemed to break whatever hold Corvine's voice had on the four still confronting them. The fog-bewitched Cassomirites advanced, screaming.

"Get them!"

"Grab them!"

"Kill them!"

As they retreated down the stage, Gideon got in front of Corvine and tried something new.

The enemy seemed resistant to illusions, so inflicting laughter seemed doubtful too. But perhaps something that affected the environment directly...He pulled out a lyric-inscribed strip of parchment, rolled into a cone—the material component for his spell of voice-throwing. He held it to his lips.

In response, the air beyond the fog resonated with Gideon's voice singing the lament of Captain Crookwing, from Blacwin's Wanderloss. One of the lunatics was so confused and distracted by the voice that she broke from her cohort and charged snarling into the fog. Several of those menacing the crowd joined her.

Alas, three remained in front of Gideon.

"Wizard!" the first accused him.

"In league with devils!" screamed the second.

"He has an Andoren accent!" bellowed the third, spewing spittle.

"Why, thank you."

"Kill him! Bite him! Eat him!"

"Ah, back to the classics." Gideon retreated to the stage's edge.

But Corvine had not been idle. She cried out in an arcane language, and her voice caused the attackers to snap to attention as the spell washed over them.

Their eyes returned to their proper color, and they ceased their talk of killing and biting. "What?" said one.

"Thank you," Gideon managed. "What was—"

Corvine grabbed his hand and dragged him toward the front of the stage. "No time. I had only one spell for banishing magic. We'll have to do the rest the hard way."

They reached the edge, jumped onto the green, and advanced to where the other bards were struggling against ten foes. There were five Leothrics waving five dragons, running like mad in a wide circle and letting the crazies chase them. Ozrif and Viridia were throwing rocks. A few lunatics lay in the grass with daggers protruding from their bodies.

"Try not to kill them!" Gideon called out. "They've been controlled. We know they can recover."

"An Andoren!" cried the nearest, turning toward Gideon. "Die, foreigner!"

"You sure about the no killing part?" called Viridia.

"It's the right thing to do," Gideon insisted, getting behind a chair.

"What kind of assassin are you?" Leothric gasped.

"He isn't," said Ozrif. "And we aren't. Not precisely."

"If you say so."

We say so, Gideon thought. We're Lion Blades. He began his growl, inspiring himself with the thought of his comrades beside him. Even Headmaster Xeritian seemed to be there in spirit.

This time he was ready.

He shifted from his growl to the love song of Wickham, the doomed cabin boy from Wanderloss. He sang of a hopeless love that defied death itself. As he did so, he called up within him that magic that was no spell, but rather a bard's gift to weave within a performance itself. And the maniacs responded, just as Gideon had guessed. They stood transfixed, held in place for the moment by his voice, just as Corvine's song had kept them motionless until the end of her performance.

Whatever it was that impelled them, it could be steered. Song could battle hate. There was hope.

He paused, and the misty-eyed ones studied him expectantly, spittle dripping from several lips.

"Get them," he said, grabbing a chair.

Corvine, Viridia, Ozrif, and a handful of Leothrics responded, along with some braver members of the crowd. The foes were clubbed, tackled, kicked, and punched, and though the fray was fierce, it was brief. The maddened ones lay battered into unconsciousness.

The fog dispersed upon the morning breeze.

Corvine panted, a chair held over her head. She turned and stared at Gideon. Gideon had lost his own chair a while ago. She kept hers raised.

"So," she said.

"Indeed."

She seemed to think something over, then set her chair down onto the red-stained grass.

"Have a seat," she said. "We should talk."

Chapter Seven

Duet (with Dissonance)

Of course, like most such gestures, it was not as neat and tidy as all that. Corvine immediately recognized a duty to the injured, and as she and Ozrif possessed healing spells, she saw to their needs, as did the local guards from the post in Threegates, who'd heard the battle and come charging in just after the nick of time.

Gideon made the antler-sign of Erastil when he heard no one had actually died, though it was a close thing. In a smaller town, without healing magic, the story would have been very different.

The bards were on the verge of being dragged to Grayguard Castle on general principle when a messenger arrived proclaiming Admiral Kasaba herself vouched for the crew of Riposte. It would be sufficient to appear before the admiral by nightfall.

Thus, with the sun rather higher in its track than when Corvine planted her chair, she again suggested Gideon put a seat beside her. The gesture still impressed him. Sometimes style was all.

"So," he said.

"So," she replied. "You might have written."

"I've been busy. Assassins. Mind control. Fog."

"Blaming the fog? Truly a fair-weather friend."

"There were exams. In fact, I've missed several."

"Out carousing no doubt."

"I don't do that. Much. Expenses."

"You could find honest work."

"You'd lose all interest."

"Perhaps you know me after all." Corvine looked around at the wreckage of the concert. "Perhaps I should thank you for saving my life."

"That would be nice."

"Thank you for saving my life."

"You're welcome."

"Though it's not entirely clear I couldn't have handled it. If they hadn't gotten so close, I could have employed my spells earlier."

"I quite sympathize. I'm sure you could have. All we really did was provide distraction."

"You frequently do provide distraction. Now you need to introduce me to your friends."

Gideon waved over the others. "Ozrif, Viridia, Leothric, this is Corvine Gale. Corvine, my school friends."

"Charmed," Corvine said.

"You have a marvelous voice," Ozrif said, bowing.

"Even when you're screaming," said Viridia. "You've got fine timbre."

Leothric, looking shy, made the ragged Sir Gothmoor wave.

"Puppets!" said Corvine. "I love puppets."

"You do?" This time it was Leothric, not Sir Gothmoor, who responded.

"Yes! You know, as a girl, I wanted to be a puppeteer."

"Really," said Gideon.

"Really?" echoed Leothric. "It's my primary area of study. Not many people understand the complexity of the art."

"We must discuss it sometime," Corvine said, and Gideon could see Leothric blushing. This annoyed Gideon more than he wished it did. Corvine said, "We've a great deal to discuss, I think. This fog business is getting serious. I'm wise enough to know my moment of fame in Cassomir won't last forever, and I'm annoyed that this apparition keeps interrupting. Well. I take it Gideon has brought you all here to help us. A school holiday?"

"A bit more than that," Gideon said. "Sebastian Tambour's with us."

"Good!" Corvine smiled, and Gideon found himself wishing she wasn't quite so enthusiastic. "This is welcome news. I've long suspected Sebastian was well connected."

"You have no idea," Leothric said.

Gideon threw Leothric a warning look. "Perhaps it's best we discuss this with more privacy."

"You should all come to my home," Corvine said. "My roommate's visiting relatives in Old Sehir. There's plenty of space."

∗ ∗ ∗

"Welcome to Gale Estates." Corvine gestured grandly at the cluttered apartment with its music stands, flute and lute, bookshelf and straw bed, and little fireplace with a cooking pot hanging within. The joke was two-edged, for all of them (save perhaps Leothric) knew that for most performers even a dwelling such as this was a prize. There was only a pair of chairs, but the low shelf against two of the walls was covered in embroidered pillows, and served to seat more guests. Gideon sat beside a pillow decorated with a grave marker, daisies growing beside. Remember, said the message in cheerful red letters, nobody's tombstone ever read, "She kept a clean house."

"Wait here. I've nothing for guests, and the baker next door gives me a discount."

"We must give you some assistance," Leothric said. "Or some coin, at least."

"Nonsense. You may have saved my life. That's worth some bread and cheese."

"I'll help you carry," Viridia said.

"Thank you."

The three men were left alone.

"Why does Viridia get to help, but not me?" said Leothric, lightly shoving the cook pot.

Gideon grunted.

Ozrif said, "You're male. Viridia's female."

"What does that have to do with it?"

"As I see it, women are smarter than we are. At times they communicate better without us around. Viridia and Corvine will swiftly take each other's measure, conclude that each can trust the other, and return to us reassured. With food, I hope."

Gideon chuckled.

"Also," Ozrif continued, "it might be inappropriate for you to escort Mistress Gale, seeing as she and Mister Gull here are engaged in some bizarre manner of quasi-courtship that only they understand."

"Well," said Leothric, "you'd know all about that."

"Have a care," Ozrif said as he studied the bookshelf.

"Right," said Leothric. "You don't want to talk about you and Viridia. No one knows anything, it's just an invisible elephant in the room, eating all the straw from the bed. What I want to know, gentlemen, is where I can find a quasi-romantic, highly deniable non-relationship of my own. It looks fun."

"Well," Gideon said, feeling a trifle evil, "Corvine's roommate is away. That's perfect. You can start spying on her things, here, and inquire with Corvine about her. Maybe Corvine will make a good report of you. You could leave a token of yours by accident, an excuse to return. There are so many possibilities."

"That's pathetic," said Leothric. After a while he shifted surreptitiously from the cook pot and began looking at various objects around the apartment.

Gideon didn't feel proud of himself. But at least it was quiet. It was pleasant to sit in a comfortable spot that was neither rocking nor the site of a battle.

"Intriguing," Ozrif said as he continued his survey of the bookshelf. "Judging by these books, Corvine seems to have quite the interest in Andoran. Unless it's the roommate..."

"No," Gideon said. "Corvine's the reader. Thea can only read music. Not that I'd mock her for that; I only learned to read notation at the Rhapsodic. What books do you find so interesting?"

"Jubannich's On Government. Grayflint's No Other Time. Alysande Benedict's war journal. Fierce stuff. Perhaps your paramour should get a visit from the Royal Adjunct Vice-Critic for Moral Suasion in the Fine Arts."

"That's not funny."

The door opened, admitting the laughing Corvine and Viridia and the smell of bread, cheese, and cream biscuits. Neither was a juggler, but somehow they'd wrangled a pail of hot Sargavan coffee up the stairs.

A sort of magic happened as they chattered and dug in, both like and unlike the magic of spells or bardic performances. This apartment was no luxurious faux-castle, no prestigious city school, no shadowy headquarters. But that morning it became something just as wondrous—a place of lively talk, of equanimous interest in music, jokes, history, and good food. Gideon felt at ease for the first time since the strange voice had rattled his mind on the Rhapsodic rooftop.

Corvine did not so much create this atmosphere as allow it to unfold. While the Seasick Troubadours might snipe at each other on their own, Corvine had a knack for sensing when someone was feeling left out of the conversation, or when someone had built a bridge of words over some social precipice and needed hauling back.

In this way she seemed to gently polish the group, until everyone shone. Ozrif seemed endlessly sophisticated, Viridia hilarious, Leothric full of pungent insight. Gideon, oldest among them, felt himself wearing a sort of gravitas he probably didn't deserve. He enjoyed it anyway.

"Is your troupe still together?" he wondered out loud, for he realized for the first time how natural a leader of musicians she was. Perhaps a leader of more than musicians.

Corvine shook her head. "Life's tugging us elsewhere. And the fog and the frothers encouraged them to leave town. I can't blame them."

"Frothers?" Viridia asked.

"That's the name people give to the ones driven fog-crazy." Corvine frowned. "Thank you again for the rescue. I see Gideon has good friends. Now, Gideon, you hinted there were things about Sebastian, and your mission, you wanted to keep private. May you share them now?"

"Sebastian!" Gideon said. "He'll be wanting a report. I was enjoying myself so much, I forgot." He looked around the room hopefully. "Perhaps someone could run a message to him?"

Viridia rose, "I think, Ozrif and Leothric, that the three of us should all go report. Captain Tambour will appreciate a complete picture." She smiled. "Let's let Gideon debrief Mistress Gale in his own inimitable fashion."

"You make that sound so dirty," Ozrif said.

"I love a good debriefing," Viridia said.

"What?" Leothric said, but the other two led him away.

Having his fellow students depart paradoxically made Gideon feel more, not less, awkward. It was hard to know where he stood.

Corvine came to his rescue. "Perhaps a turn at a tavern?"

"I'm buying. The Pious Knight?"

"You're sure?"

"I think I owe you a hundred rounds at this point."

"The Pious Knight would make up for at least ten."

"It's all right." He took a breath. "Before we go, though, I think I should probably explain a few things."

And so he told her, in the vaguest terms, of his doings. The sun moved on past noon before he was done. The storm front outside seemed to wrap itself around two-thirds of the sky, and it felt nearly like evening.

As such, when they left, it almost felt like an evening walk.

They didn't stroll arm in arm, but they did walk closely together. The clouds blotted out Cassomir's sun like cloth over a nasty wound, spreading scarlet across the sky. They neared the sign of a knight draining a foaming stein.

Gideon noted a number of people across the street, entering an establishment sporting the sign of a spooky house, bat fluttering out of the attic. Something about the manner of the group—agitated, gesticulating, scowling—tickled his instincts.

"Perhaps we could start over at the Belfry Bat," he said. They'd spent many an hour at the Bat.

"If you're worried about prices..."

"No, it's merely nostalgia. We can move on to the Knight later."

"Do they pay you well," she asked as they crossed the lane, "these mysterious government not-assassins?"

"Well, they feed us."

"Sounds familiar."

"But I do make a little money busking."

"That doesn't surprise me. You were always good."

"Thanks. I never could call myself a bard, though, until the training at the Rhapsodic. I'm grateful to you and Sebastian."

"I put in maybe one good word. He's your real patron." She looked thoughtful. "An interesting man. I once assumed him an unserious, smooth-talking lout, but it turns out he's a power."

"Do you correspond with him often?"

"Not often. Why do you ask?"

"Merely curious."

In silence they entered the Belfry Bat. Despite the patrons Gideon had spotted, it was uncrowded now, for most laborers were still at work. They were able to claim a table with a window, near the agitated group that had caught his eye.

The window opening had no wax, horn, or glass, but was thickly shuttered. They pulled the shutters open, letting in cool air. It conveyed the nearness of the storm.

"I love that feeling," Corvine said.

"What?"

"The feeling that something is about to start. Don't you?"

"It depends greatly on what's about to start."

"You don't like a little mystery? A little danger?"

"I never seem to get a little mystery or danger." He thanked the server and paid for the gnome whiskey and lemon water. He listened for trouble from the peculiar group nearby, but nothing was audible. "My cup's either dry or overflowing. Sometimes I'd love to have just the excitement of a life of music." He raised his mug. "To your success."

They clacked and drank, but she said, "Success has its own dangers."

"Disorientation? Pride? Exposure?"

"Food. Never eaten so well in my life. Cassomirites these days like their divas dainty. I must always tell myself, 'You needn't have that last cream biscuit, Corvine. Pastry is not destiny.'"

He laughed. "I think you have little to worry about." He sipped. Perhaps he was wrong about the neighboring table, although he had the intuition they were waiting for something. Whatever it was, he could relax a while.

"Men say that sort of thing." Corvine watched him drink his lemon water. "Perhaps you're trying to restrain yourself, too?"

"Say what you'll say."

"I'm surprised you'd get me a bog whiskey and not even order a Bellis Mead."

"I have trouble with the strong stuff. You don't."

"You've never been so direct about it."

"Life is short. You drink strong drink, you hone your talent, get gigs, and all's well. I drink strong drink, I end up facedown on the deck of a ship bound for Sargava." He shrugged. "Some people have difficulties with this aspect of life, and I am one. I accept it. I don't make the mistake of believing that what's an ill for me is an ill for everyone."

"My. Gideon Gull. You've changed."

"So have you. You're more confident. Freer of fear."

"I was always confident."

"Not like this."

She smiled. "Then I truly am in danger. No one should fear disaster more than the arrogant."

"I assure you, we pessimists encounter plenty of disaster."

"How are your disasters, Gideon? I feel you're carrying a weight."

"They have good food in Oppara, too."

"Be serious. The fog. Your headmaster's death. These things must affect you."

"Levity keeps me going. That and your eyes."

"Oh, it's my eyes you're looking at? Stay focused, man. What do you think's happening?"

"I don't know." He sipped cold water, thinking cold thoughts. "This fog bends minds, that's for certain. I saw it bring visions of fear and woe. And we've seen it turn ordinary folk into madmen. But you've experienced more of it..."

"I don't know what it is any more than you, Gideon. I've had a couple of run-ins, but they weren't very illuminating. I have the feeling you know more you haven't confided."

"I don't know more. But I suspect more. I just don't know if my suspicions are based on evidence or madness."

"Tell me. I may just trust your madness."

He looked out at the darkening street. When they'd entered, it had appeared a charming and homey lane. Now it seemed to hide sinister shapes, just out of sight. What a difference light could make.

He told Corvine about Bellis, as he had told his colleagues in the gaol.

"Gideon." She reached out and gripped his hand. "I never knew. I'm so sorry."

"It was long ago. I rarely think of it. But that fog—it touched me somehow. My memories of that time are confused. I saw, or dreamed, a monster, and a ghost ship."

He looked out at the sky. More so than in Oppara, in Cassomir you could hear the sounds of the coast, the birds shrieking, the surf, the wind whistling through the lanes. These things comforted Gideon. Immersed in music, he'd missed the choir of nature. "Well, I've seen that ghost ship again, heard its strange music. I think the fog of my childhood's returned."

"If so, what then?"

"Then something that attacked Bellis years ago is back. And it's a threat to Taldor as well as Andoran."

They were silent for a time. More people filed into the tavern as shipyard shifts came to an end.

"Did the Andorens not investigate the fog?" Corvine asked. "They might know something useful."

"I think the Eagle Knights did follow up. But I was a boy, with my own problems. I don't remember anything about it. Perhaps they didn't try very hard."

"I doubt that. You sound bitter."

"My homeland likes to pretend it's better than anywhere else on Golarion. The truth is it's full of human beings, so it's bound to disappoint. Still, I might suggest we contact Almas for advice." He raised his mug. "That was a very helpful idea, thank you."

"Oh, I'm not done helping. I think this is important. For this, I'll interrupt my work for the thaumacycle competition."

He stared at her. "You've entered too?"

"You must be joking! We're opponents?" She laughed and swigged. "May the best bard win."

"You must tell me your plans."

"You really are a spy, aren't you? It's an opera called Death in Cassomir. It's about the existential bitterness of life, and it has catchy tunes. It's going to have blood, doomed lovers, monsters, and lots of song and dance."

"Aha! The song you performed today was part of it."

She nodded eagerly. "Cassomir's Locker can stand in for all the mysterious spaces beneath normal consciousness, where memory and nightmare dwell."

"Have you been to the real Cassomir's Locker?" Everyone who'd lived in Cassomir for long had heard about the warren of old basements, vaults, sewers, and tunnels underlying the shipyard. There were rumors of weird creatures far below the known levels, but even Gideon didn't believe them.

"I have! Nicolaus and I went down there with a group of wandering bravos. They're crazy, Gideon. They dream of getting rich by robbing ruins, but I swear they spend more time arguing about their plans and shopping for gear. But it was exciting. All we found was a few really big rats and a skeleton with a few coins in its pouch. But it was quite fun. I'd do it again."

"And you're basing your opera on your real experiences?"

"Sweet Desna, no! That would be dull. No, my Cassomir's Locker has ninety-nine levels of catacombs of ever-increasing doom. A phantasmagoria of tunnels leading all the way to Galt. Temples of forgotten gods, tombs of forgotten kings, and concert halls of forgotten composers. You haven't lived until you've encountered my five-thousand-year-old vampire composer."

"Still composing, I assume, not decomposing?"

"That's her motto. So how about your entry?"

"Well. Dreams on the Sellen's a more bucolic sort of opera. We meet three vagabonds on the run from Galt's guillotines. They have to flee a crusading Gray Gardener, fight river-monsters, wander misty byways. They'll encounter imaginary towns, each one skewering an aspect of human nature. I think they'll have to face a bug-monster..." Gideon's voice seemed to slow of its own accord, as though something over-large and shadowy were looming just behind. "And a...ship of ghosts."

"Gideon. You look pale."

Gideon looked over his shoulder, but all he saw was the agitated bunch of inebriates at the neighboring table, arguing about some issue involving druids. There seemed to be many more of them now. He turned to Corvine. "It's just...It's sometimes as if my artistic mind is off in a separate chamber from my other mind, some musty attic where it cackles and composes. Hopefully not decomposes. And the rest of me doesn't compare notes sometimes..."

"The story elements. They're similar to what you've been encountering. And what you remember from Bellis."

"Yes." He rubbed his temples. "Corvine, I feel I'm going crazy...as if this fog's calling to me. Connected to me." He paused. "I'd prefer you not speak of this to others. My superiors might object to using a mad spy."

"I swear I won't, although I don't think you're mad. Then again, a connection to the fog and insanity are not necessarily mutually exclusive."

"Thank you. That's highly comforting."

"I'm not a very comforting woman, I'll admit. But I'm an honest one."

"Do you prefer honest men?"

"Are they honest to me?"

"Honestly, I can't lie to those eyes."

"Ah! Now you really are looking into them. Well done. Gideon, you're once again joking your way out of a serious conversation...Gideon, are you listening?"

"Wait..."

More of the conversation from the noisy table behind them had crept into Gideon's ears. He remembered something the Master of Charm and Disguise had told his students:

The most equitable aspect of the world is that each day is as long for us as for anyone else. As such, we can babble only so much. If a local gab is saying one thing, that means he has foregone saying something else.

Some of Gideon's training had consisted of sitting in the Scar Chamber, listening as a group of volunteers talked their way through scripts, forcing Gideon to listen and pluck out meaningful patterns in the chatter. It was difficult work. The human animal, he'd come to realize, wants to talk as well as listen, and with all the frogs croaking it was hard for the frog called Gideon to stay silent as a log.

But he'd learned.

haven't found ship work in weeks harbor's slowing down
world's gone downhill
kids don't show you respect no more
telling you it's the druids
them gnomes and halflings too
tree-lovers telling honest Taldans where to go
hey now the Shipwright's a gnome he's a good man
he's not a man
been around a long time just like that druid Zaganos
bet they conspire together
laughing at us short-lived folk
Savaric said so I think
you gonna listen to him
I dunno
come hear what Savaric has to say
you're not afraid of a few words are you

"Something's wrong," Gideon murmured to Corvine, leaning in. "You hear it?"

"The table behind you? I was trying to ignore them."

"More than one table, now. Hate has a weather to it. A wind speed. This feels like the air before a storm."

"You may be right. But it's not our problem."

"I think it may be. I felt the same atmosphere before. In Bellis. Will you trust me?"

Corvine nodded.

Gideon turned in his chair and pulled a Taldan accent over his voice like a mask. "Hey! Couldn't help but listen in. You've got yourself some good points there. Where's this Savaric going to be?"

He earned some squints, but also some raised mugs. "By Quickfall Abbey, on the hour," a shipworker said. "Savaric fears no storm. Or ghosts."

"Neither do I! See you there." Gideon turned to Corvine and murmured, "Let's chat a bit, then proceed to the Abbey. I have a notion..."

"The fog?"

"I have to see."

As they left the tavern, Gideon sensed gazes upon him, so he imitated being sloshed, and Corvine obliged him by pretending to hold him up. The contact was quite pleasant, and he was pleased as they continued arm in arm on their way from Old Cassomir back toward Abbey Green.

"I'll stay next to you," Corvine said, "if you'll stop lurching."

"Sorry."

"No worries. But don't get too many ideas."

"I'm not sure what you mean."

"Mm. So what's the plan?"

"So, this anti-forest, anti-druid talk's got me suspicious."

"There's always some anti-druid talk. We're so dependent on the Wildwood Treaty for timber, it makes people uneasy. And the druids are a little disconcerting. Have you ever heard Brother Zaganos speak?"

"I used to see him around." Everyone in Cassomir knew of the druids' representative, and where he lived. "But never close up."

"The man's mind might as well be on the planet Akiton. I understand there's a need for nature priests. But it's like the druids commune with the wilderness so much they forget they're human—"

"Or elves, or gnomes—"

"You know what I mean."

"Sure. So Cassomir's uneasy about the guardians of the Verduran Forest. Even angry about being so dependent on the druids for lumber. That's a perfect hunting ground for our mind-twisting fog."

"You want to catch it in the act."

"This Savaric person might be connected. A human link. And there's something else: it seems to me significant that the attack this afternoon was near the moat around Cassomir. The moat connects to the Sellen. And the ruins of Quickfall Abbey are near both the moat and the bay."

"You think the fog attacks from water?"

Rain hit Gideon's cheek. "I do. Every instance I know of is beside water, or at least in a maritime district. I don't know why, but the pattern fits. I know Cassomir, and most people shun those ruins. If someone wants to hold a rally they use the marketplaces—or Pharasma's Pulpit."

Corvine laughed, and the patter of fresh rain on the streets added percussion to that music. "Because an execution site's more charming than a ruin."

"Well, that's a matter of taste. But the Pulpit's intended for crowds...uh oh."

"I see it too. Lots of people headed for the Abbey."

Someone had set up a pair of torches beside a crumbling tower, and between them stood the man who must be Savaric, with a small crowd already in front of him. Mostly the assembly was male, but there were women and children, too, and the air of an angry festival. It did indeed feel like the atmosphere of a public hanging. Gideon and Corvine positioned themselves away from the bulk of the crowd, with a collapsed wall beside them. The terrain was small comfort, but they now had an easy escape toward the shipyard district, and Riposte.

Brother Zaganos's home also lay that way. Gideon feared he might know the ultimate destination of the mob.

"I know this man," Corvine said. "I've seen him here and there, but couldn't place the face with the name. He often speaks against the druids."

"Is he popular?"

"I'd always considered him a village idiot. I'm surprised so many people are here."

"I'm surprised he'd have a gathering like this in daylight. Are there no city guards?"

"Look again. A few of them are in the crowd."

Savaric began. "My friends! It warms my heart to see so many of you here. The hour's late—in so many ways. The empire's faltering. Common decency's collapsed. Work's harder to find. But there's one part of Taldor that's doing better than ever, and that's the Verduran Forest! Up at the Isle of Arenway, and in the woodland town of Wispil, they grow fat from the Wildwood Treaty."

There was an increasing tempo of boos and bellows from the crowd. Savaric held up a hand.

"Don't misunderstand me! I don't mean all forest-dwellers are against us. No! I've lived among them. I have friends in Wispil. And even they say the druids of the Wildwood Lodge have overreached. Power breeds arrogance. Their values are not our values. Compare them with the dwarves, who've long lived with true Taldan culture and are an integral part of it. Think of the Grand Bridge of Oppara, a gift to Taldor from their ancestors, freely given. Now compare dwarven generosity with the frugality of the druids! A skimpy selection of trees, given only grudgingly. Here we are, the men and women of Cassomir, struggling to build the ships that safeguard all of Taldor. We work long, bruising hours. Do we ask to become rich? No! Do we ask to be treated as nobles? No! We ask only for the right to do our work, and defend our homeland. The same homeland of which the druids are a part. And do they thank us for our work?"

"No!" cried many in the crowd.

"No," agreed Savaric. "And do they show us respect?"

"No!"

"Indeed. They sneer. And they mock." Savaric gave a bitter laugh.

"Do you see it?" Corvine hissed in Gideon's ear. "At the people's feet?"

"I see it."

It was hard to see through the increasingly heavy rainfall. But just as at Corvine's performance, he noticed tendrils of fog moving among the crowd. They did not rise to insinuate themselves into every pair of ears, but perhaps one of out ten listeners were thus embraced.

Gideon looked carefully at his own feet, and Corvine's, but saw only grass and mud.

Savaric continued. "We ask, we beg for more wood, even as the enemies of Taldor grow stronger every year. And still, when we cry out for more trees, what do the druids say?"

"No!"

"That's right. And when we beg for the right to work, without anything more than a little pay, and a little thanks, what do they tell us?"

"No!"

"Even so. And when we plead to them, telling them that Taldor itself is menaced by tyranny and diabolism, still, what do they say?"

"No!"

"No. That's right. So when they tell us that they should enjoy our hospitality, drink our finest wine, enjoy the best Taldor has to offer, all while laughing at us behind their precious treaty, what should we, the honest men and women of Cassomir—what should we say?"

"No!"

"Send them back!"

"Burn the treaty!"

"Burn the forest!"

Savaric raised his hands. "No, no, my friends. These aren't the things we should burn. But the house of the haughty druid ambassador who chuckles at our sorrow, as he has done for generations, living his high life and smirking at the little people of Cassomir...I say it's time we pay him a visit. Who's with me?"

"We are!"

"Burn out the druid!"

"Savaric! Savaric!"

"I'm thinking," Corvine said to Gideon, "that warning Brother Zaganos would be a public service."

"I concur."

They ran like jackrabbits through the rain. For just a moment Gideon thought he'd glimpsed vapor on the ground they'd just left. It was probably his fevered imagination, but it made him move a little faster.

Chapter Eight

Hellfire Jig

Gideon had never visited the home of Brother Zaganos, but everyone in Cassomir knew it, for it stood in a prominent spot, with the heart of the shipyards on its west side, a bizarre garden on the north, the city moat on the east, and an ancient canal on the south, its waters leading deep into the murk of Blackwood Swamp.

Gideon and Corvine approached through the garden, a strange assemblage of plants from across Golarion, many of them inappropriate to the climate but growing just as vitally as on the palm-shaded island of Jalmeray or the cactus-strewn desert of Katapesh.

"Ouch," said Corvine.

"Almost there."

Zaganos's home itself was a simple log cabin. It would have looked ordinary on a frontier, like Viridia's Whistling Plains, save perhaps that its logs were all the result of natural falls, assembled over many years, or so it was said. But while unassuming, the rustic cabin's presence here in urban Cassomir was almost a provocation.

Panting, they reached the porch and knocked upon the wooden door. An endless time seemed to pass. The rain redoubled its force, and it was hard to see beyond the garden.

The door creaked open.

A bearded old man in a threadbare gray robe peered from the shadows.

"Brother Zaganos, I'm Corvine Gale. Maybe you remember me?"

The old man said nothing.

"This is my friend Gideon Gull."

The old man looked at Gideon as though contemplating an ant.

"You're in great danger, sir." Gideon glanced over his shoulder and saw, at a great distance, torches through the storm. He wondered how they all stayed lit.

Still Zaganos said nothing. He opened his door and stood aside. It seemed the only thing to do was go in.

The interior was at first glance as plain as the exterior, but as his eyes adjusted to the darkness, Gideon realized it was as full of objects as Corvine's apartment. Yet instead of instruments, books, and pillows, by firelight he beheld a mastodon horn, a mass of branching orange coral, a gnarled and petrified log, and a smooth slab of stone with the imprint of some long-dead, nightmarish creature.

Brother Zaganos sat upon the petrified log, the orange coral framing his head like fiery lightning. He remained silent.

"Brother Zaganos," Corvine said, "a mob is coming to burn down your home."

Zaganos smiled as one who was trying, not particularly hard, to disguise his disinterest. "You seem most concerned."

"You seem most unconcerned," Gideon said.

"I am a branch."

"What?"

Zaganos shrugged. "They are leaves. They do not see the branch that holds them."

"Beg pardon?" said Corvine.

Zaganos meshed the fingers of his hands. "Branches may jostle. Some might crack. You may wish to leave."

"I feel," Gideon said, "that you are not treating this matter seriously—"

"Do you wish to treat with them?"

"Are you asking us to?" Corvine said.

Without another word, Brother Zaganos turned fully toward the fire, sat cross-legged, and studied the weaving flames and shining embers. There was a strong sensation of having been not so much dismissed as abandoned.

In wordless concord, Gideon and Corvine stepped out onto the porch. They could hear the cries of anger from the north, and see the line of torches approaching like obsessive fireflies.

"I do wonder how they're managing to keep those torches lit," Corvine mused.

"I wonder how by Erastil's grace anyone ever negotiated the Wildwood Treaty with these druids."

Corvine laughed. "The worst of it is that Zaganos is said to be the most cosmopolitan and human of them all."

"So, what are we going to do?"

"We're not running, I suppose."

"You can run," he said.

"Only if you run."

The mob grew nearer. They could hear snarls and catcalls.

"See," Gideon said, "this is what drives me mad about you. You most likely have a strong opinion. But you're forcing me to guess."

"You're thinking too hard about this. There's no hidden opinion. I simply realize you have more insight about this situation, and so I defer. Believe you me, there are many things on which I will never defer."

"I think we should stay."

"That's good, since we've just been surrounded."

"Surrender Zaganos to us!" came somebody's voice, though Gideon couldn't see the speaker amid all the florid torchlit faces in the downpour. Nor could he see the tendrils of the fog, but he was certain they'd followed the mob.

Gideon found himself grimly amused at the idea that they had ownership of Zaganos in the first place. "Who says?"

"We all say!" boomed Savaric. "None speaks louder than any other," he added, speaking louder than any other.

"If we give him up," said Corvine, "what then?"

"Then we drag him to Pharasma's Pulpit, and demand he surrender more wood to Cassomir's shipyards. Or else we string him up!"

There was a roar of support.

"You know it doesn't work that way!" Gideon yelled over their voices. "Even if he said yes, the Wildwood Lodge would have to agree."

"They'll listen when they see we have power! That we're not afraid of their tricks!"

"The treaty's stood for nine hundred years," Corvine said. "Your parents and grandparents all benefited by it. Who are you to wreck it?"

Gideon felt a power in her voice, and the crowd felt it too. Many in the front blinked, shifted, opened their mouths, and looked as though they suddenly wondered what they were doing there.

"Return to your homes, good people of Cassomir!" he called. "Leave aside fear and hate. Remember the wanderer who left his battles behind." So saying, he called upon his own talents and sang the chorus of "General Coren Looks Homeward," letting his magic seep up into the words like fuel through a wick. He could almost feel the fires beginning to kindle in the listeners' minds, the embers of ordinary wholesome thought blown to brightness by the familiar tune, popular for closing time at taverns.

But his was not the only fire.

"Ooh, how precious!" sneered a new voice. "Home and hearth, family and comfort!" The speaker laughed its contempt. "Go home, go to sleep, little sheep! Let the mighty bards and druids decide what's best for you, little children!"

The heckler stepped into view. For a long, ghastly moment, Gideon thought he was looking at a capering child, unaccountably covered in blood. As he squinted and the figure came nearer, however, he saw it was no child, that the face was that of a wizened old man, and that its crimson hue was simply the color of the thing's hide. It looked so scalded as to be near death, yet the being grinned and danced, clearly in the full flush of health. Its fingers and toes were clawed, and flame sprouted from its pointed ears and swinging tail.

The thing bore in its hands a shining tool, a brassy, cone-shaped device half as big as its wielder. It was covered in arcane inscriptions and wreathed in fires.

And Gideon knew how the torches had stayed lit.

"A devil," Corvine said.

"An ukobach, if I'm not mistaken." Gideon was nonplussed to find in the fiery flesh a thing he'd previously encountered only in two dimensions and between two covers, while cramming for tests in the library. He wished now he still had that book. "They appear in the novel Shagreen, about an alchemist who comes to a bad end after dealing with one." It was in fact an alchemist who'd written that book, and legend had it Shagreen was semi-autobiographical. Ukobachs were said to be diabolic innovators, spurring mortals to vile creativity.

They also liked burning things. Ukobachs reputedly carried enchanted fire-pokers, but this one had a more inventive implement.

"Why aren't these people running away?" Corvine wondered. "It's a devil. And what's it holding? A fire-casting device?"

"Not just that, I think—"

As Gideon spoke, the ukobach put the cone to its lips. What emerged was not fire, but sound that seemed akin to fire.

"Don't let them fool you!" came the magnified voice. "The druid is weak! The bards are weak! They hate you, and they laugh at you even as they plot against you! Burn them first!"

"He carries his own bardic voice," Gideon said, flinching at the sound of it, "and the mob responds to it."

"The frothers most of all," Corvine added.

What was that strange alchemy of hate, Gideon wondered, that cruel combination of believing someone weak and contemptible while at the same time thinking him overwhelmingly dangerous? Never had he heard it so baldly proclaimed as by the ukobach, yet the magic of the devil's bullhorn made the clattering contradictions of hate seem like stirring music, while somehow preventing the crowd from noticing the fiend in their midst.

The mob responded. It rushed the house, waving torches and screaming.

"Fools!"

Brother Zaganos's voice boomed even over storm and crowd, and winds rushed upon the mob from the direction of Blackwood Swamp. The druid's robes billowed as he stepped before the shocked Taldans, and many torches blew out.

"I would call you ants, but ants have my respect. Begone."

And Brother Zaganos changed.

At first Gideon thought the druid's very flesh was melting off his bones. Then it became clear something more horrifying was happening. Hundreds of gobs of skin, muscle, and viscera puckered and split off from his disintegrating body, and as they launched into the air the scarlet spatters coalesced into insects. Fingers exploded into spiraling golden squadrons; eyebrows and beard resembled the crawling innards of a hive; eyes turned a feral yellow and burst buzzing out of their sockets.

"Don't listen to his ranting!" the devil was shouting. "That's how he controls you..." But the entity's speech trailed off as Zaganos completed his transformation into a swarm of wasps.

Or rather most of Zaganos. The druid's bones, still nestled within his robe, clattered to the wood as his outraged flesh buzzed all about the garden, spreading fear and venom.

Gideon and Corvine leaned against each other, shaking.

"Erastil's antlers," Gideon murmured.

"We mustn't run. Guard the bones."

Good rule. If a druid turns his flesh into bugs and swarms all over your enemies, guard his bones. If I ever have children, I will teach them this. They will thank me, I'm sure.

Savaric was among the first to bolt. The mob dispersed in all directions. Terror of the druid had unshackled their minds from the fog and the urgings of the ukobach, who fled into the night. It was more quickly lost to sight than Gideon might have expected.

It left fire behind, however. The porch was burning.

"Quick, smother it!" Corvine told him.

A moment later, she said, "Not with Zaganos's cloak!"

"Gah." Gideon dropped the hem. Bones clattered anew. He ran into the house, careful to touch nothing except for the curtain he found hanging over the window. It didn't attempt to strangle him or speak in riddles, for which he was grateful. Back outside, he joined Corvine in smothering the fire.

Smoke puffed into his face and he gasped and coughed, eyes stinging. Between the curtain and the rain, however, they kept the fire from spreading, and soon there was only a charred area, not a blaze.

They stood together, panting, simply being alive.

"I have restored my flesh," Zaganos said behind them, and Gideon and Corvine jumped. They turned; the druid stood before them as if nothing had happened. Did the tip of his nose twitch a little, or was that a trick of the light?

At that moment, Sebastian, Ozrif, Viridia, Leothric, and three crew from Riposte ran into the garden. "Are you all right, Brother Zaganos?" Sebastian shouted. "Mistress Gale? Gull?"

Zaganos didn't acknowledge him. "I see no reason for your presence," he told Gideon and Corvine.

"Is that all you have to say?" Corvine demanded. "Gideon and I just risked our lives."

Zaganos stroked his beard. "Certain plants, mice, and spiders dwelling within my home would perhaps be grateful to you, if they could conceptualize the danger and your role in mitigating it."

"You're welcome, Brother Zaganos," said Gideon.

"I did not thank you."

"I'm sure you did. I remember it quite distinctly. Very gracious."

Zaganos shrugged. "As you wish."

"You can repay us," Gideon said, "by telling us if you detected any unnatural presence within the crowd."

"Aside from the miscreant from another plane?"

"Yes."

"No."

As they left the druid's home, boots sloshing in the rain, Corvine said to Gideon, "Thank you for intervening, because I was about to kick him."

"I don't claim to understand the man," Sebastian said, "but I've never known him to lie, or even exaggerate...Pardon my manners, Mistress Gale. A pleasure to see you again."

"Likewise," she said, more brightly. "It is nice to talk to someone who knows what manners are."

"I hope you're referring to Zaganos and not me," Gideon said.

Corvine frowned. "Of course I'm talking about Zaganos."

Sebastian asked, "What did the druid mean about a miscreant from another plane?"

"An ukobach devil," Gideon said. "You know the type?"

"I know who would send one," Sebastian said, and looked west through the gloom, beyond the river and beyond Andoran.

"Cheliax," Gideon said.

"We'd best speak with the admiral."

Chapter Nine

Nocturne in the Key of Fear

Gideon had never before been to the Admiralty Citadel. Its stones loomed over them as the bards walked the slick cobblestoned streets of Old Cassomir. Whether due to the influence of Brother Zaganos or just good luck, the storm had blown past with surprising speed, and with the sunset at their backs the structure was a sharp, shadowy mass rising against the pale eastern sky.

"I have the feeling," Gideon said to Corvine, "that this has been the worst date of your life."

"It's certainly getting up there."

"I've the feeling I should be careful my head stays on my neck," said Ozrif, looking at the edifice.

"This is the true heart of Cassomir, if you ask me," Corvine mused. "Maybe even the heart of the empire. The knights busy themselves squabbling with each other, the infantry's mostly encamped on the Qadiran border, but the navy's always growing, under Admiral Kasaba's eye."

"You may be right," Sebastian said approvingly. "I often despair of what I see in Taldor's military, but not when I'm here. I trust Kasaba. I wish we had ten more like her."

"She's part Keleshite, isn't she?" Leothric said.

"Don't mention that within the Admiralty walls," said Corvine.

"Why?" Ozrif said. "Is that something to be ashamed of?"

"I think, for her, it may be," Gideon said. "Or perhaps her ancestry simply brings a complexity to her role she'd rather avoid."

"Hm," said Ozrif.

"Leave speculation aside," Sebastian said as they neared the gate. "The questions will all belong to her."

Beyond the gate, a pair of guards escorted them into the building and through a maze of passageways, passing draftsmen's offices and records rooms, training halls and meeting chambers, up and up until they reached the offices of the admiral. Through a pair of oaken doors lay a circular chamber with guards at the cardinal directions, aides at the intermediate positions, and a vast wooden table in the middle, half-covered in maps and charts. Great windows looked south, offering a view of the harbor and the shipyards. Gideon could also see the home of Brother Zaganos.

Zaganos himself was at the table, looking disdainful, seated to the left of Admiral Kasaba. Kasaba wore her workaday uniform, looking as unlike a classic bombastic Taldan commander as the sun was unlike the moon. The hints of Qadiran ancestry in her face were the least of her distinctions; more prominent were the muscles and scars of a woman who'd never forgotten her years as a slave, and the iron gaze of a commander who could envision enemies beyond every horizon.

To her right sat Governor Bozbeyli, a man who seemed at first glance her polar opposite, stout, gray-bearded, richly robed, eternally holding forth on some subject or other (frequently himself.) A second look might reveal the captured Qadiran scimitar that was his closest companion, and a third appraisal might catch the cold-eyed gaze of a calculating mind looking right back.

His voice and his gaze currently fell upon Zaganos, who for his part seemed deeply immersed in studying the contours of the wooden table, oblivious to Bozbeyli's words of apology for the afternoon's disturbance.

A few other chairs held various worthies of Cassomir—the black-cloaked head of the merchants' guild, the sheriff in her leather armor, the golden-robed high priestess of Abadar—whose names Gideon could not recall. The closest he'd ever been to these personages was when he'd performed at Admiral Kasaba's birthday party.

Kasaba seemed more at ease now, he thought. Perhaps eldritch fogs and enraged lunatics suited her better than idle chitchat.

She seemed to confirm this when she fixed Sebastian with a sharp gaze, held up her hand to stop the governor mid-speech, and said, "Captain Tambour. We've already discussed your written report. This meeting is about action. Sit down, all of you."

Gideon couldn't imagine anyone but Kasaba silencing Bozbeyli as she had. But the governor, seemingly unruffled, made sure he got in a few words himself. "It's too bad your superior, Captain Coremont, is far out at sea. But I've seen your work firsthand, Captain Tambour, and I have faith in you." Uneasily, he added, "And I'm sure Zaganos can vouch for your associates."

Brother Zaganos scratched his nose, then went back to tracing a particularly interesting whorl of wood grain.

"Ah, yes." Kasaba frowned at the druid and steepled her fingers. "I'll get to the point. I confess we in authority didn't believe the reports of this fog until now." Here Kasaba nodded to Corvine. "Now we're making up for lost time. We've reviewed similar events in parts of Taldor and Andoran. They're concentrated along the River Sellen. Given what's occurred in Cassomir and Oppara, and the reports coming downriver, I conclude there's indeed a supernatural influence afflicting both nations. And in some unknown way it's associated with water. I strongly suspect that its ultimate origin is Cheliax."

"Suspect?" Bozbeyli broke in. "There was a devil in my city. Who else could be responsible?"

"I understand, Governor. You're probably right. But the ability to summon devils isn't limited to our Chelish friends, so I want proof. The fog attacks have mainly been on the Sellen. Perhaps Chelish agents have a base hidden in the Verduran Forest. Or upriver in the troubled lands of Galt or the River Kingdoms."

"Not likely there," countered Sebastian. "We have no reports of this blasted fog in those places. And the Verduran Forest's protected by the druids."

Zaganos looked up at that, stroked his chin, and said, "We give voice to what few can hear." The others waited for him to add something. Someone coughed and shifted nervously.

Sebastian continued. "Well. I'll admit, I'm suspicious of Andoran."

"Andoran's under attack too," objected Gideon. "In fact, maybe instead of accusing them, we should contact them."

Gideon remembered, even as he spoke, that as a member of Sebastian's team he was to answer direct questions only. Cold gazes scrutinized him.

Sebastian didn't stand on protocol, however. "Listen. Gull. I don't think that's a good idea. I'm not saying Andoran is responsible. But let's be blunt here. Andoran lacks the organization of an imperial state like Taldor or Cheliax. Their river borderland's an unruly place. You know this yourself from your experiences in Bellis."

Gideon frowned. He'd never mentioned Bellis to Sebastian.

Sebastian continued, "We simply can't discount the possibility of rogue Andoren elements, or Chelish agents who've taken advantage of Andoren weakness. Either way, this is turning into a military problem."

"What, you'd invade Andoran? When all signs point to Cheliax?"

Admiral Kasaba broke in. "You are Andoren yourself, are you not, Mister—Gull, is it? I admire your love of your home. Nor do I doubt your loyalty. Your actions at Zaganos's home speak volumes about your courage. However, the captain's concerns are valid. I haven't mentioned this before, but that rabble-rouser Savaric is in custody, and he claims to be an Andoren agent, with the job of stirring up trouble. He purports not to know where his diabolic accomplice came from. Now, maybe he's really a Chelish agent trying to throw us off track. But Andoren gold was in his pockets."

Gideon was startled. "I'm not always in agreement with my countrymen. But I'd be surprised if they'd use such tactics."

"They're fortunate to have your esteem. But leave that aside. If this enchanted fog's being controlled by an enemy—whatever enemy—then based on the pattern it's indeed reasonable they're up the Sellen, and I, too, suspect they operate from the Andoren side. We'll find out. If your heritage demands you stand aside, so be it. If not...it's time you kept silent."

Red-faced, Gideon nodded. His mind churned. Could Andoran be involved in these events? Sebastian's speculations worried him. There were indeed radicals in Andoran who assumed a more hostile stance toward their neighbors, but he never thought they'd be party to murder.

And how had Sebastian known about Bellis? Dominicus Rell might have told him. But Rell had said he'd keep the interrogation details to himself, and Gideon believed him. The Westport Guard? Yes, that made sense. They must have overheard him talking with his fellow bards in the cell, and given Sebastian a full report.

He would not underestimate his mentor again.

Kasaba turned to Sebastian. "We send a scouting expedition. One ship—yours. I know your orders were to follow up on incidents in Cassomir. Your trail now leads upriver. I can't command you to go, but if you wait for word from direct superiors..."

"No need. I'll go."

"I can spare some gold," said Bozbeyli, "to loosen tongues upriver."

"You'll be fully supplied," Kasaba said. "You can't know what you'll be facing."

"Both are appreciated."

There was a silence. Just as the eyes of the chamber had previously fixed upon him, Gideon now sensed them turning, like a village full of weather vanes, toward Brother Zaganos.

"Will the druids help?" asked Kasaba.

Zaganos didn't look up from the fascinating wood of the table. "Help? Look out the window at your fleet, built from corpses."

Kasaba's hand clenched, though her voice remained even. "That's not what I mean. The Isle of Arenway lies up the Sellen. This matter concerns you."

"Having brutalized the land for generations in pursuit of strength, Taldor asks the land for aid?"

"You're part of Taldor."

"Meaningless. We have the treaty. If you wish to plead, do so at the Isle."

"Which you could contact easily," Sebastian said, "and probably have."

"I will send word. What that word is, is my business alone."

"Enough," said the governor, quickly raising his palm. "Zaganos has given his answer. So be it. Unless there's anything more to add, make your preparations, Captain Tambour. I'll send my secretary to consult with your quartermaster."

"Shipwright Baler will supply Riposte within the hour," Kasaba said.

"We'll leave before daybreak," Sebastian said. "I thank you all for your faith. May I say, Admiral, Taldor is well-served by you."

"Taldor is best served by actions," Kasaba said, "not flattery. Dismissed."

As if to blunt the admiral's sharp words, the governor said, "Be careful on the Sellen. It will try to lull you into thinking it's a harmless, lazy sort of river. But it has its secrets."

"Be most wary of those you meet," Brother Zaganos added with sudden, surprising lucidity, hushing the gathering. "Human motives can be as hidden as shoals and bars beneath the surface of a river. Worse, loyalty and treachery are attendant in every activity. One might think of them as two tributaries to the same river. Take care you do not trust appearances."

As they left the office, Viridia said, "Well, that was a strange farewell."

∗ ∗ ∗

In the first gray hints of dawn, Riposte cast off from Cassomir's harbor and passed the flickering magical lighthouse called Treacherous Jack. Captain Tambour took no unnecessary risks, and rather than sailing into mouth of the Sellen, the vessel anchored and awaited the brightening of the day and the rising tide.

Even as the sun rose and the waters surged, the wind proved unfavorable, and Sebastian glowered and swore, caught between a risky passage and the probability of waiting for hours. He was rescued by an unexpected source.

"I can give you a blast of wind," said Leothric, and showed Sebastian his family heirloom, the magical fan of winds from far-off Osirion.

"No jokes, please," Leothric added.

The wind at its back, Riposte weighed anchor, hoisted sail, and proceeded into the river's maw.

After the gyrations of the Jagged Saw, the mouth of the Sellen was like a nap in a hammock. Yet Gideon noticed that in this circumstance Sebastian had called upon a river pilot from Cassomir. Perhaps Sebastian respected this passage more than that of the Porthmos. For all that the Sellen was the longer river, its mouth was smaller than the one leading to Taldor's capital.

Gideon had traveled by riverboat before, but not aboard a craft this large, nor this river. He was surprised by the restfulness of it. The river pilot in the crow's nest had his head bent like a vulture's and cast a gaze like a hawk's, peering for hidden sandbars and rocks. But unlike the roaring threats of the ocean, the river's dangers were sly and quiet. An unknowing man like Gideon could ignore the risks and enjoy the ripples of wind upon the smooth waters, the bright flash of fish in the shallows, the shadows of willows stretching out from the shore, the flight of birds shaking free of the branches to careen over the crow's nest and its brooding occupant.

He began strumming his harp without thinking, a trill, a chord, a slowly shaping melody emerging from imagination and memory like the river's bends emerged from the morning mist. He was so immersed, there at the bow, that he didn't notice Corvine standing beside him.

"If you like," she said, "I could build a harmony for that song."

He looked up. "Consorting with the enemy, Mistress Gale?"

"So you're planning to use this for Dreams on the Sellen?"

"Maybe. Probably. There's a long way to go."

"An exchange then, Mister Gull. I help you with this one, you help me on a number for Death in Cassomir."

Gideon nodded and strummed. For a little while, he was just a musician, sharing space with a collaborator he'd long admired. Funny how that word collaborator had a different ring to it in the music business than it did in the spy business.

Corvine began her warm-up exercises, breathing her way up and down the scale in a manner that put Gideon in mind of ghosts.

"Hey," said the gnome quartermaster, Grizzendell. "Stop that. That's bad luck, that."

"If I don't regularly warm up, I assure you it'll be bad luck for my voice."

"Can't be helped. Whistling's bad luck aboard ship. Calls up foul weather."

"That wasn't whistling. I was just getting my wind."

"Just as I said. Wind calls to wind. We'll get a storm, sure."

"Superstition!"

"You risk your life on the water for thirty years, you can tell me what's superstition."

"Grizzendell," put in Gideon. "Couldn't we relax the rules a bit? We're upriver after all, not at sea. The river has its own rules."

Grizzendell looked at Gideon as if caught out in a minor technicality. The gnome walked away, muttering, "No good'll come of this. No good at all."

"Thanks." Corvine patted his hand.

They strummed and sang. No one forced them to do other work, so he supposed the music was decent. Riposte made good time.

∗ ∗ ∗

The little Taldan community of Hangman's Harbor was like a dwelling for monkeys. The small wharf lay at the base of a granite precipice, and aside from a collection of riverside buildings on stilts, the houses crouched upon ledges, nestled within caves, or perched atop the cliff.

There was indeed a prominent noose, hanging high over the river from a plank extending from the mayor's house.

"Are they friendly?" asked Viridia.

"They love visitors," Gideon said, remembering performances. "Visitors bring money, and news, and the possibility someone will behave stupidly enough to be hanged. Watch out for trivial-seeming ordinances. And be very, very polite."

"Good advice," Sebastian said.

Riposte tied off, the Cassomiri river pilot took his leave, and Sebastian paid the harbormaster her silver and a golden tip besides. She became garrulous then, and informed the landing party, "Be on your guard, good gentlemen and ladies. Strange things have been happening. The mayor's worried and folk are jumpy."

"What strange things?" said Gideon.

"Bad luck to speak of it. Ask around."

Flat land was at a premium in Hangman's Harbor. Fishmongers and a tavern shared space with families hanging out their wash and elders playing chess.

"Excuse me!"

Gideon smiled and let a girl of perhaps six rush by. He pondered how much of the confidence of brash children comes from adults willing to indulge them, because those adults fondly remember being indulged as children themselves.

Yet the adult to whom the girl ran, a washerwoman with a care-lined face and a streak of gray in her brown hair, cast Gideon a suspicious look. She scolded the girl into one of the narrow houses wedged within the contours of the cliff.

"Shall we speak to the mayor?" Ozrif was asking Sebastian.

Sebastian looked up at the house with the noose. "No," he sighed, "I'll perform the official niceties." He departed for the steep stairway that switchbacked its way up the cliff.

"I see a tavern over there called The Dangling Bottle," Leothric said, pointing to a sign depicting a wine bottle hanging from a noose.

"They've made improvements," said Gideon. "Last time I was here they had an actual bottle and rope instead of a sign. Tell you what, I'm going to make a quick inquiry. I'll join you soon."

Gideon strolled to within a respectful distance of the washerwoman and stopped. Her back was turned, and she was busy hanging clothing onto pitons piercing the cliff.

Without looking at Gideon, she said, "Got no time to add customers."

"I have no laundry, madam," he said in his best Taldan accent. "I do have questions."

She turned. "Oh?"

"Have you seen anything strange in the recent past?"

"Well, well, well." She set her unhung laundry back into a basket. "Has the Grand Prince finally seen fit to answer my message?"

"What?"

"My message, I said. They don't breed you lords smart, do they?"

"I'm not a lord."

"Well, I'll keep it simple enough for a flunky. I sent a message to Oppara about the ghost fog."

"We're indeed investigating a fog, but not in response to your message."

"I sent it weeks ago! Bribed the imperial postman, even!"

"The Taldan bureaucracy," Gideon sighed, "is accused of many things. Efficiency is not one of them. Why not contact Cassomir?"

"Cassomir!" she spat. "I don't trust that lazy Bozbeyli or that foreign witch Kasaba."

"Well, we're here. What've you seen?"

The woman glanced to see if her daughter was about. "My story's no worse than anyone's..."

"Somehow I doubt that. I think you've suffered."

She narrowed her eyes. "Well, I have, whether you think so or not. I'm not complaining. My Zem went fishing past the Sellen mouth every day, until three years ago the storm got him. Some around here still claim I arranged it, punctured the boat or some damn thing. Pharasma take them. Zem wasn't a good man, as such. But he was the man I wanted, and I wouldn't have thrown him back."

"Go on."

"Not much to say about that. I raised Raiva myself and I know she'll go wild and leave one of these days. But she'll leave healthy and with some smarts, whether she thanks me or not. Well, a few weeks ago she calls me out before dawn and I ask her what's she been up to, and she says, never mind that, look at the river. And the river's all full of fog. I'd heard Nurl the fishmonger talk about a witchy fog creeping in the day before, but he wouldn't say much and I didn't believe him. He's the Galtan buzzard got Zem's spot in the fishmongers' corner, so I don't like him much. But seeing that fog, I knew Nurl wasn't lying."

"Was it perhaps an especially thick fog, greenish, almost like a curtain in which you could see images?"

"Yes. How'd you know?"

"I've seen it. I've seen things I didn't want to see, in that fog."

"You're telling me, mister. I saw my husband in that fog, like he'd never drowned." She closed her eyes, remembering. "Zem was reaching out to me. His coat dripped water and his eyes were cold, blaming me for not checking the shape of the boat that day. I took Raiva and fled up the big stairway, and when we came back Zem and the fog were gone."

"And that's all?"

"That's all, and good thing too, or I might have to move. You understand, if you've seen it. But go ask around—lots of people have seen the fog, and seen things they don't want to."

"I will."

"And you'll see what bad straights we're in. It's Galt, I tell you—somehow it's Galt ready to ruin us. You tell the Grand Prince, you make him send wizards, knights, paladins."

How about bards? Gideon thought but didn't say.

As his steps led him toward the Swinging Bottle, the girl Raiva materialized again at Gideon's feet, in a way that made him want to give her name to the Shadow School. "You should talk to Nurl," she said, in a way that made it clear she'd heard the whole exchange. "He may say things to you he won't say to Mother."

"All right. I will."

"Will you find out where the fog comes from? Is it Cheliax? I think it's Cheliax. Mom thinks it's Galt, but I think devils are more dangerous than guillotines. Don't you?"

"I think I'm glad neither are about."

At the fishmonger's corner, there was a rich smell of ice and aquatic guts, and various fish heads eyed Gideon accusingly. "Which of you is Nurl?" Gideon asked.

"I'm Nurl," a large, mustachioed man answered. "Who wants to know?" His accent was indeed Galtan.

"It's worth a gold piece if you take a break at the Swinging Bottle and tell me about the fog."

They entered the place, Gideon walking stiffly, not meeting the gazes of his friends. By this he meant to suggest he was not working closely with anyone, and the other bards took the hint. The gold piece was exchanged for many silvers, and once converted to alcohol, the silver loosed Nurl's tongue.

"It's as she said," said Nurl, "there was a feeling of seeing the past, things dreaded. And the sense of some entity within, watching."

Gideon leaned closer. "What did you sense? What did you see?"

Nurl shook his head. "No one has enough gold for that. But the fog's been back, many times. I've seen it three times myself, though the second and third encounters had me fleeing. One vision was enough."

"All right."

"One more thing, and this is free: You're going to hear lots of talk against foreigners—Galtans, Andorens, Chelaxians. But I think the real threat is druids."

"Druids?"

"Druids. Always looking down on us. Gnomes, too. And elves. Don't trust any of those woodsy folk. Not really human, are they?"

"Thanks for your time, Mister Nurl."

Joining his friends at their table (for now he didn't care what Nurl thought), Gideon asked, "What have you learned?"

"The Bellis Mead's quite good," Leothric said.

"We have several accounts," Viridia said. "Here." She passed him a journal within which the bards had quickly scribbled notes. He skimmed a couple of interviews.

There she was, my beloved Rilly, dead these five years of the pestilence. I saw her covered in boils and calling my name, worse than the day I fled the temple where the clerics tended her. I'm alive today, and I shouldn't be, and I saw that in her eyes and heard it in her voice. She said, 'Vors, come back, you said we'd share everything.' I don't want to talk anymore. Just don't you trust those Andorens.

I saw my old man, and those hands that slapped—slapped my mother, slapped my brother, slapped me, till the day I slapped him back with an axe. His head wasn't on quite right. He said he'd come for me, and he'd make me sorry. I felt like I was four years old again and him pressing my head down on the old stove, but I told him to go back to whatever devils or demons slapped him around nowadays. He went, too. Whatever foreign magic's making the dead come back, ma'am, give me an axe. I don't mind serving my time again. I'll send 'em back to Cheliax.

There were others, but the pattern was now familiar. Gideon scribbled his own interviews at the end of these accounts.

"There's a consistent xenophobia here," Leothric said quietly. "I hope we're leaving soon."

"For once you have your wish," came Sebastian's voice, and the bards were by now so tense they nearly jumped.

As they left the tavern, Gideon asked, "Why so quickly?"

Sebastian looked up the cliff. "The mayor's certain a secret cabal of wizards is responsible for the fog—and he's planning his roundups today. I declined to assist, and he was angry."

"But what if he's correct?" Corvine said.

"Something in his manner suggests a man in the grip of paranoia. I don't trust him. I trust the river."

As Quartermaster Grizzendell hauled a few boxes of rations on board, a dozen village constables descended the great stairway.

"Be prepared," Sebastian warned.

But the officials moved past Riposte's pier and seized someone in the fishmongers' corner.

"Cast off as soon as they're up the stairs," Sebastian ordered.

Riposte departed, but not before they saw Nurl dangling from the cliffside noose.

"He was no wizard!" Gideon said.

"I doubt he'll be the last victim of the madness," said Ozrif.

"Can't we help them?" Corvine asked Sebastian.

"We will help them," Sebastian said, looking steadily upriver, "them and their children, by ending whatever set this in motion. I'm certain all we'll discover in Hangman's Harbor is death."

As Riposte steered around the bend, Gideon saw the washerwoman jeering up at the dangling corpse. Owing to one of those tricks of sound that water can play, he heard her clearly. "Where are your airs now, Galtan?" she crowed.

Gideon thought he saw her daughter Raiva looking directly at him, as if to say, Do you see what's happening to us? Make it right.

∗ ∗ ∗

It was much the same in other settlements. In the Andoren villages the folk were mainly suspicious of Taldor. In the Taldan villages folk were increasingly suspicious of Andoran. After the third stop, Gideon and the others didn't bother bringing any gear besides coin and weapons. There seemed no reason to disguise themselves or do anything but listen while the good citizens ranted.

Never trust a snooty Taldan!
Uppity Andorens!
They'd chain the lot of us if they could. They hate us for our freedom.
They'd strangle us in our sleep. They envy our wealth.
Plotting invasion ...
I hear the Taldans have slave pens ready.
Rumor has it the Andorens're importing guillotines from Galt.
Imperialist swine!
Libertine pigs!

"If I didn't know better," Gideon said that second long day, "I'd say we were on the brink of war."

"What I don't know," Viridia said, "is what everyone has against pigs. My family raised pigs. Fine animals."

"Does anyone really care what a few flea-bitten villagers say?" Leothric said. "I've never even seen these places on maps."

"If the anger stays within a few backwaters," Sebastian said, frowning at the Sellen's muddy flow, "then no, it won't matter. But if it keeps spreading, fighting might break out, and governments might get drawn in. When the people are enraged, the leaders must respond. And not just in Andoran's democracy. Sometimes the tail drags the rat."

∗ ∗ ∗

It proved to be a surprisingly cheery afternoon, one to put the lie to talk of war. Having finished writing a report and swabbing the deck, Gideon settled down at the starboard corner of the stern to pluck some tunes. The sun sparkled in their wake like a windfall of diamonds.

Riposte had stopped at two little settlements, one Taldan, one Andoren, and neither reported anything more disturbing than controversy over the annual cross-border raft-fighting competition. (There were accusations that the Taldans had used a strength-enhancement elixir, and that the Andorens had rigged the Taldan raft to be exceedingly tippy.) Now the birds were chirping and the sun was out, and every vessel they met seemed engaged in honest business.

"I don't like it," Gideon heard Viridia say from all the way up at the bow. "Something bad's about to happen."

"This is a common problem among people who study drama," Ozrif answered her. "A sensation that any contentment's only setting the scene for some bloodcurdling tragedy. We bards all suffer from it. In truth, there's no more reason to believe happiness precedes woe than to believe that one card precedes another in a game of chance."

"What you say sounds reasonable, but it's beside the point. Because I know you believe in the perversity of the universe just as much as I do."

"Even if that were true, it wouldn't do to admit it. The universe might be listening."

"They really are a couple, aren't they?" Corvine said quietly, from where she scribbled more of her composition. "Or they should be."

"That's what I keep telling Ozrif," Leothric said, "but it just makes him mad."

"I think it's complicated," Gideon said, strumming.

"Some men and women," Corvine said, not looking up, "take considerable time to admit the depth of their feelings for one another."

"Oh?"

"If given the opportunity," Leothric sighed, "I would see the beauty in a woman's snores, the wonder in her toenail clippings, the glory of her scattered laundry."

"I can't tell, Leothric," Corvine said, "if you're the most deluded man I've ever met, or the most astute of—"

Corvine's words were cut off by a shout from Dymphna the lookout.

Although to port or starboard or sternward the day was clear, the river ahead was cloaked in thick fog.

The wispy mass was flecked with an eerie, self-luminous green. Within it, trees became crooked shadows, riverbanks became dark curtains, and the water became a gray, uncertain track. Strange suggestions of inky forms scuttled and flew.

"Slow!" Sebastian called, and the sails were lowered. "Drop anchor."

"I didn't see it!" called the lookout, still sounding shocked. She was the woman in black who had steered Riposte on departing Oppara, and Gideon thought her a trifle shy. "Until suddenly it was there!"

"Not your fault!" called Sebastian. "We're chasing something unnatural! Or were chasing..." he added in a lower voice.

They were face to face with their quarry, in a sense. Riposte lay just outside the unnatural zone of fog, held against the river current by the anchor chain.

The fog simply waited, like a squatting toad.

"So there it is," Gideon said, as he, Corvine, and Leothric joined Sebastian, Viridia, and Ozrif at the bow.

"I must admit," Sebastian said, "I hadn't considered this particular scenario. The obvious one. Now that I've found it, what do I do with it?"

"I always envisioned discovering some cackling wizard with a misty cauldron," Gideon said. "Or a fog-breathing dragon. Some definitive source."

"Maybe we should send in a boat," said Viridia. "Or a scouting party along the shore."

"I think we stay together," Sebastian mused. "Strength in numbers. We should learn what we can from this position. Any of you bards have a spell for extracting information?"

"I do," said Leothric. "I can attempt to sense the thoughts of any intelligent being within that fog."

"Mister Leothric, if you're willing..."

Leothric grunted and readied his dragon puppet and a copper piece. Chanting weird sounds that resembled a distorted version of natural speech, Leothric put the coin into the puppet's mouth. "Penny for your thoughts," he said, and when the puppet's mouth opened, the coin had vanished. Leothric frowned, concentrating. "I don't think I can sense anything..." he began. "Ah!"

"Ah?" Gideon said after a pause. "Ah what?"

"I—" Suddenly Leothric was quivering, his eyes fluttering back into his head.

"Leothric?" Gideon moved to see if the puppeteer needed help, but then he saw they had a bigger problem.

The fog, previously motionless, now rushed toward them like a veil in a dancer's hand.

They were engulfed almost immediately, and visibility was no better than that of the gray before dawn. All shapes within the fog were indistinct, including the ship, the banks, and Gideon's comrades.

"Well," he said. "It almost seems like ordinary weather—"

Leothric collapsed. Gideon kept him from hitting the deck.

All at once Leothric sprang back to life, eyes bulging. "Did you hear the singer?"

"Who?" Gideon asked, skin going cold.

"We heard nothing," said Corvine, watching Gideon's reaction.

"Strange," Leothric said. "I heard her so clearly—"

There came a screeching from amidships, and shouts of alarm.

"'Safety in numbers?'" Gideon murmured to Sebastian, once he understood what had occurred.

Seven of the crew had gone frother.

Chapter Ten

Requiem for Heroes and Fools

Gideon knew their names now: the halfling rigger known as the Maestro; the scarred elven rigger Tyndron; the peg-legged helmsman Favian; the one-eyed sailmaster Jarin; the barrel-chested rigger Brew; the cardsharp sailor called Quick; and, to Gideon's surprise, Dymphna, the shy lookout in black. They left their posts and walked to the mainmast, or else slid down it.

As the ship began to drift, Jarin commenced cutting at lines. Fog filled the mutineers' eyes, and wisps of it drifted from their mouths.

"This isn't good," Gideon said.

"They're more stricken than the ones in Cassomir," Corvine said. "Look at them. Less madness, more calm deliberation."

"Return to your posts!" Sebastian ordered them. "Oakstave, take the wheel," he told an unaffected crewman. "You lot—you're privateers in Taldor's service. Remember your duty!"

"Spoken like a tyrant," said Favian the helmsman.

"If it's tyranny you want—" Sebastian shouted.

"They're not in their right minds, Sebastian," Gideon said. "The fog has them."

"No, Gideon Gull," said the halfling called the Maestro, ascending the mainmast and laughing. "The fog's liberated us! Think of the fog not as mist, but as smoke." White vapors swirled from his mouth. "We're not mutineers, but fiery revolutionaries. We are the Smoke-Tongued!"

"Crew, put a stop to them!" Sebastian called.

Gideon already had ideas about that. These Smoke-Tongued were shielding Jarin and the Maestro while those two worked their mischief.

But they'd made the mistake of doing mischief with rope.

Enough line lay near the knot of Smoke-Tongued that when Gideon brought the tune of "Haul Away for Arcadia" to mind, his spell for manipulating rope was able to ensnare Jarin.

The sailmaster attempted to cut his bonds, but it would be slow going. Gideon wished the spell was effective at snagging more than one foe; but he'd have to trust to his companions.

The bards had indeed begun to respond, each in their own unique style. Corvine and Leothric joined Gideon in spellcasting, while Viridia and Ozrif took to the rigging to catch the Maestro. The rest of the crew rushed the Smoke-Tongued, or sought to control the ship as it lurched.

"Your sleeping spell!" Ozrif called to Viridia.

"He'd drop!" Viridia shouted back. "It could kill him!"

The Maestro merely laughed and began slashing at the mainsail's rigging.

Leothric had fewer compunctions. He'd dropped his puppet, but Gideon noticed the bard flapping his hand like a jabbering mouth.

A blast of magical sound hit the Maestro, and the halfling winced, dropping his knife.

The blade pierced the deck at Corvine's feet. She gave Leothric a withering look. Leothric shrugged.

Corvine sang her own incantation, and the most dangerous-looking of the Smoke-Tongued, barrel-chested Brew, blinked and put his hands to his head. Which was good, because he'd just been using those hands to throttle Quartermaster Grizzendell.

The fog faded from Brew's eyes and mouth.

"Erm..." he said, and then Grizzendell disabled him with a rather low and wicked kick.

At this point Gideon imagined the fight was going well, and that the Smoke-Tongued would soon be subdued.

The fog had other ideas.

Without his noticing, the nebulosity had grown thicker, and this became apparent when scenes of dread appeared beside every combatant still in his or her right mind.

At Gideon's shoulder there swam a shadowy rendition of him being thrown out of a former Taldan patron's home, his belongings flung after him. Poorer Taldans jeered as he crawled along the gutter, too drunken to stand. A rather quieter Taldan made off with Gideon's pack. Gideon had never before considered the scene with such clarity, for the whole episode remained a blur of shame in his mind.

He flinched away, saving himself from becoming transfixed. Others were not as prepared. Adebeyo was seeing himself driven away by spears and thrown rocks from his community in far Garund. Grizzendell was seeing himself as a Bleachling, the pale sort of gnome who's forgotten how to enjoy life. Asta saw one of the dragonlike creatures called linnorms devouring her family.

Sebastian, at least, was ignoring his own specters—what looked to be his father setting fire to a castle, while Sebastian's elven mother, young Sebastian at her side, pleading with him to stop.

Gideon wanted to comfort them all.

And then he realized how he could.

He kindled within him that breed of magic unique to bards, felt it crackle out through his lips as he began to sing.

Our Taldan rats beat Qadiran rats!
Our Taldan rats are big as cats ...

At first the song did nothing. The Smoke-Tongued rushed their fog-distracted opponents, knocking many over. Several ran to the helm, where Oakstave was trying to steer while confounded by images of woe.

Gideon sang on.

They eat sharks and whales and wolves and bats ...

"Eh?" said Grizzendell, shaking his head and looking away from his pale mirror image. "That's 'The Rat Song'...this is no time for 'The Rat Song'!"

"No!" Corvine said. "Gideon's right. We need to break the fog's grip! Sing, bards! If you know the song, sing!"

Captain Tambour himself took up the challenge, singing of how Taldor's rats were better than Andoran's rats, or Galt's.

The ridiculous song went on for many a stanza, with Taldor's ship rats challenging all comers, and Taldor's shanty composers challenging the limits of rhymes for "rats." The crew took heart and resumed battle, even as the Smoke-Tongued shouted back calls for liberty and freedom, sounding like perverse caricatures of Andorens.

Corvine, not knowing the Rat Song, cast what Gideon recognized as a spell of loathing, something she used at times to dispatch unwanted suitors.

Up in the rigging, the Maestro suddenly looked up at Ozrif and said, "Get away from me! No! You disgust me!"

"What?" said Ozrif, pausing in the midst of "The Rat Song." "What did I do?"

"Just catch him!" said Viridia, between lines about how Taldan rats beat Katapesh's rats. Ozrif leapt onto the mainmast. Hissing, the Maestro abandoned it.

Even as Gideon believed the tide was turning, he heard a lurch as Riposte scraped something hard on the river bottom. The Smoke-Tongued redoubled their efforts, perhaps sensing that this was their final opportunity.

Suddenly the Smoke-Tongued named Tyndron loomed right in front of Gideon with a cutlass.

Gideon's voice faltered. The scarred elf jabbed and flourished with a contemptuous style, demonstrating just how badly Gideon was outmatched. Gideon dove past the sailor, drawing his dagger as he rolled back to his feet, seeking some advantage.

Dimly, he wondered what drove an elf from the paradises they made for themselves in such lands as green Kyonin, and what wanderlust or sorrow kept them away. A very old snatch of song came to him, and he gasped it out.

All the stars will fall
And all the land will gray
Before Iadara welcomes us
Unto its breast to stay...

"Iadara," whispered Tyndron, the fog growing thinner in his eyes.

"We're headed that way now," Gideon said. "Perhaps..."

"Iadara cast my family out!" Tyndron roared, mist leaping with his spittle. "After all our work, the newcomers cast us out!"

"Ah—"

Tyndron screamed as a sonic spell cast by Leothric slammed into his ears. Sebastian appeared, and whacked the swordsman across the back of the head with the flat of a cutlass.

The elf went down.

"Thank you, gentlemen," Gideon said.

"Well, you seemed to be losing your disputation," Leothric said. Sebastian was already moving on. The bards nodded to each other and did likewise.

Gideon ran into the Maestro as the halfling hit the deck, desperate to escape the loathsome Ozrif, who was following him, half-seriously demanding, "What is it now? I'm amusing! I'm delightful at parties! I do birthdays and charge reasonable rates!"

"Get away from me!" squealed the halfling.

Gideon tripped him. He'd a feeling he'd never catch the Maestro under normal circumstances, but now he grappled the halfling until Ozrif could get the rigger secured with a line. The Maestro hissed and bit.

"That's an effective spell," Ozrif muttered.

"Corvine's wrought considerable amusement from it."

By now the fight was won, and the remaining Smoke-Tongued were unconscious or bound. Corvine and Ozrif used healing magic where they could, and Lunette the carpenter proved skilled at patching up wounds as well.

Riposte was still in danger, however. The fog continued to taunt them with images of dread, and Grizzendell shouted they were taking on water.

"Rowers!" Sebastian called. There were mounts belowdecks allowing oars to maneuver Riposte at need, though Gideon knew it would be awkward work.

As the rowing crew—those who weren't Smoke-Tongued—raced belowdecks, Sebastian spoke to Adebeyo.

"We lost Oakstave," the first mate said, looking grim.

Sebastian scowled. "A good man. A good deep-water sailor. Wish we could give him to the open ocean rather than the river mud. But let's be about it, and may the Sellen at last bequeath his bones to the sea. Krypt, you're now second mate."

A weathered old Taldan, looking as though he were two voyages past the point where saner men retired, simply nodded.

Sebastian turned to the captured or unconscious Smoke-Tongued. Angling Tyndron's head away with his boot, Sebastian raised his cutlass, hand shaking.

Looking at his mentor's face, Gideon realized what the man meant to do. "Sebastian, you can't kill them! They couldn't control themselves."

"Stand aside, Gull! This is a warship, not an Andoren town hall. Mutiny cannot go unpunished."

"Sebastian!" Gideon grabbed the corsair's arm.

"I..." Sebastian shook his head and stepped back. "No, you're right. This was not voluntary. I wonder if the fog is affecting me, too." He lowered the blade. "Lock them in irons, Adebeyo. We'll let them go later, if they're in their right minds."

∗ ∗ ∗

No more of the crew became possessed, and the rowers were successful in their work. They emerged from the fog into a blistered-looking sunset.

As if surrendering for the moment, the mists behind Riposte began to fragment. Whorls and wisps drifted away and faded like so many worms seeking shadow.

"Just like that, it's gone," Gideon said.

"But the harm remains," Corvine said.

"It only seems gone," Sebastian said. "Whoever's behind this has done more than attack my country. They've wounded my ship. I'll find them. I'll chase them into the Abyss if need be."

"Such oaths are unwise, Sebastian," said Corvine. "I think it's sufficient to swear to chase them upriver."

"I'm no longer sure," Sebastian said with a faraway look, "how far this river truly goes."

Adebeyo called up from belowdecks, "The compromised crew look like themselves again, Captain. No fog in their eyes. The ones who can talk can't recall what took place."

Sebastian nodded. "Treat them well, Adebeyo. But keep them there for now."

Looking to ensure that the fog was truly gone, Sebastian had them drop anchor, and as Grizzendell supervised the repairs within the leaking compartment, Sebastian sent Lunette over the side to check the damage to the scraped hull. When she returned, dripping and shivering, she seemed paler than usual.

"What did you find, carpenter?"

"The harm to the ship isn't so bad," she said, gratefully accepting a blanket Leothric handed her. "It's what I found in addition that worries me."

"What's that?"

"A sigil, Captain."

"A what?"

"A mystic symbol, glowing like some self-luminous slime. It's written all across the bottom of the ship."

Sebastian frowned. "Can you draw it for us?"

"It was difficult to make out all at once, but I'll try." Provided with the flip side of a chart and a quill, Lunette began sketching. She had an accurate hand, and the contours of the thing were clear as they swept this way and that.

"Never seen anything like it," Sebastian said. "Anyone else?"

"I think it's druidic," Corvine said.

"You're sure?"

"Difficult to be sure about anything to do with druids. But that's my best guess."

"We see marks like that here and there in Andoran, too," Gideon said. "Especially close to the woodlands. I'm not sure what this one means, but it's definitely connected with the druids."

"Brother Zaganos," Viridia said.

"Yes, I suspect you're right," Sebastian said, looking troubled.

"He did say he'd send word," Ozrif said. "Perhaps we misinterpreted what that meant."

"Yes," Corvine said, "but was it a good word?"

"I suspect it was," Gideon said. "Consider that the Sellen has its dangers, and we're beyond the region Sebastian's crew is familiar with. Yet we've had no trouble with river-creatures."

"Plenty of other trouble," muttered Leothric.

"Leothric, when you cast your mind-detecting spell into the fog, you spoke of a singer. What did you mean?"

"I...I don't truly know. It was like a dream, a voice within a nightmare, singing, mocking."

"Did you hear any words? Any message?"

"There were words, but they seemed far away. I couldn't make them out. Just the beauty. And the mockery."

"Let's return to matters more concrete," Sebastian said. "The symbol. Gideon, you're suggesting it says, 'Hands off?'"

"It's only a guess. There may be many old powers and presences in this river."

Corvine asked, "What if it says, 'Don't feast upon the crew until the new year?'"

"Or 'This is my lunch, go find your own,'" added Viridia.

Gideon shrugged.

"We'll leave the mark in place," Sebastian said. "Though I don't like mysteries on my ship, even benign ones. We'll inquire at the Wildwood Lodge. For now...We make our repairs and continue by day."

∗ ∗ ∗

In the morning they held a wake.

The Smoke-Tongued still had only dim recollections of what had occurred, and some bore resentment in their eyes as they were unshackled. Ozrif told Gideon that a sterner captain would have whipped the defiant crew, compulsion or no compulsion. This made Gideon glad he was never a sailor.

Any resentment soon faded away in the business of praising dead Oakstave. As was usual at such events, Gideon regretted not knowing the man better. In the crew's recollections, Oakstave was becoming something of a saint among sailors—a foul-mouthed, violent sort of saint, to be sure, but one loyal to his shipmates, and resolute at his station until the end. His comrades swore to hunt down the fog-makers responsible for his end.

But as if in mockery of their loss, the next few villages provided little information. Their most recent fog manifestations—doom fog, bane fog, nightmare mist, fright cloud, as various villagers had it—were weeks in the past. Riposte learned nothing new.

They'd come now to the region where the Verduran Forest dominated. The trees grew taller and thicker. The final Taldan village before the deep forest was Solscrene, a small settlement rising from a craggy little island. Riposte stopped for victuals and tales and found plenty of both. They heard stories of fog attacks, and stories also of the terrible nature of Andorens, Galtans, druids, and gnomes.

But no one gave them a genuine lead to follow.

"The pattern's consistent," Gideon told Sebastian as the crew cast off. "They know the fog affects their minds, but the hatreds and fears persist anyway."

"Hm. From here on the settlements will all be Andoren. Their side of the river's untouched by the Wildwood Treaty. I wonder if the pattern will be different for them."

∗ ∗ ∗

Judging by the villages of Rippleden and Whiterush, the effects were worse.

The two tiny Andoren settlements, with their cheery houses, thatched roofs, and gregarious people, looked nearly identical apart from the southern village's situation in a region of still shallows and the northern village's perch in an area of gurgling rapids.

But the inhabitants agreed on exactly two things. First, that there was a dangerous fog about; and, second, that they were far superior to their nearest neighbors.

"So these Whiterushers," Gideon asked in Rippleden, "they're vicious brutes?"

"Can't never trust a man born near rapids," sneered an old woman. "All that roarin'. Ruins their heads. Probably they conjured up that fog themselves."

"And the Rippledens," Corvine asked a few hours later in Whiterush, "thieves and scoundrels, I take it?"

"You have that right!" jeered an old man. "Stagnant water breeds stagnant souls. Mark me, that fog will turn out to be their witchery."

"So much for Andoren solidarity," Sebastian said as they left Whiterush and its rapids behind. The traverse had been tricky, requiring the help of Leothric's fan of winds, and the captain was in a foul mood.

Gideon's spirits were little better. "I haven't exactly seen universal love from the Taldans."

"Taldans don't claim to be sweeter and kinder to each other."

Corvine intervened. "It's often the case that people alike in almost everything will come to blows about how to wear their hats."

Ozrif nodded. "The nastiest infighting I ever saw in Katapesh was between two priestesses of Sarenrae the Dawnflower, one who supported Qadiran expansion, and one who didn't."

"Yet another reason to keep both branches of that cult outlawed in Taldor," Sebastian said.

Gideon noticed that the black-garbed sailor named Dymphna lowered her eyes at that. He changed the subject. "I have to admit, Andorens sometimes claim an idealism they can't live up to. It's one reason I left. I breathe easier in Taldor."

"That surprises me," Corvine said.

Sebastian laughed. "Gideon merely has good taste! All right then, onward. I want to make up time lost in the rapids."

It was the Night of the Pale, when the dead were said to walk, and although Sebastian officially discouraged observance of that peculiar holiday aboard Riposte, many of the crew muttered prayers and made signs against evil. The bright moon was only a few days past full, and the stars shone like freshly polished jewels, and Sebastian had them press on through early evening. Even the Andorens had no settlements nearby. The region was high-banked and thickly wooded. Eventually the moon set and even Sebastian conceded there was no reason to risk passing onward in the darkness.

They were anchoring for the night when Zethril, the elven bosun, caught a glimpse of lights.

"A village?" Sebastian called, peering ahead. "None is listed in our charts."

"Not a village, I think," Zethril called back after ascending the rigging. "It's in the water. A ship, I think. What say you, Grizzendell? Crallak?"

"I think you're right," answered the gnome.

"Not seein' it," said Crallak the half-orc. "But I trust your eyes, gents."

Gideon noticed Zethril did not consult his fellow elf Tyndron, the remaining crew member with keen eyes for darkness. Tyndron volunteered nothing.

"It's in some kind of trouble," Zethril said, returning to the deck. "Lantern-lights moving around in a hurry." He shared a troubled look with the captain. "This is unexpected."

Sebastian grimaced, studying the sky. The stars blazed, but that counted for little on the river.

"Get us to that ship," he called to Adebeyo. "Grizzendell, take the helm. I want the elves on lookout to port and starboard. Bards, to the bow."

When they'd gathered by the figurehead with the dagger in her teeth, Sebastian said, "Anyone who can light our way, do it now, if you would."

Gideon was about to offer, when Corvine raised a small envelope and said, "I'll handle it." Reaching the bow, she hummed a few bars of "Daybreak at Mount Antios," incanted a bizarre formula, and removed a dead firefly from the envelope. She stretched and tapped Riposte's figurehead on the nose. Light filled the river to a distance of twenty feet.

They approached the other ship.

It was a sailed cargo vessel, and although smaller than Riposte, it was likewise suited, albeit awkwardly, for ocean as well as inland travel.

But it would do no more voyaging. The ship was wrecked, leaning upon a bank and embraced by the piercing branches of trees. Gideon knew legends of trees that walked, and it almost seemed an angry grove had claimed this ship. But he suspected it was something else, for an unnaturally thick fog surrounded the vessel, making eerie red blurs of the torches waved erratically by the figures on board.

"It's a fight," he said. "They must be afflicted by the fog, just as we were."

"I see it," Sebastian said. "Get us alongside!"

"We might wreck, too," his gnome quartermaster objected. "It's an inauspicious night for battle—"

"Nothing about the Night of the Pale, Grizzendell. Not now."

"I'm just saying, Captain, better we send the boat."

"No time. But we can deploy the corvus. And you know how I normally discourage grappling the enemy's rigging and swinging aboard?"

"Aye. No fun, you are."

"It's too risky against determined defense, but this is different. Our job is to quell a mob. Swarm that ship however you can."

"Aye, aye!"

"Bards!" Sebastian called.

"We're ready to fight," said Leothric.

"I want you to perform."

"What?" Gideon said.

"You've never fought a boarding action. And you know well what effect this fog may have upon my crew. I observed that song-magic had some effect on the Smoke-Tongued." Sebastian leaned closer to Gideon. "Watch well those who were afflicted before. If the fog claims them again, cry out, 'Ware! Ware!' and I'll be alerted."

Gideon nodded, and Sebastian turned away to order the deployment of the corvus.

This device turned out to be simply a boarding ramp with a steel spike on the underside, shaped like a beak. As Riposte came alongside the derelict, with the light from Corvine's spell illuminating the deck, the corvus slammed down with a jolt.

A force of Riposte's sailors charged across, calling out their desire to help. Meanwhile the Maestro, the elves, and other daredevils employed grappling hooks and swung onto the beleaguered ship's rigging, just as if they belonged in an opera.

In the shadows and fog, there were answering cries of hope.

"Allies!" a woman's voice called like bright steel. "Allies are here! Rally, my knights!" Her accent was Andoren.

It seemed criminal, somehow, not to directly help. But the Seasick Troubadours, now fortified with the voice of Corvine Gale, rose to the occasion. They knew "The Rat Song" now. They also sang "The Qadiran's Merry Widow," and Admiral Kasaba's birthday song, and the Taldan national anthem. Ozrif, Viridia, and Leothric weren't the strongest of singers, but Ozrif also juggled daggers, Viridia danced, and Leothric used puppets to mime the action of songs. He was particularly animated during the ditty "Ocean God's Chest."

So they quaffed their elixirs to breathe in the sea
And they weighted their ankles to drop fathoms three...

Even with the lanterns and the figurehead's light it was hard to discern what was occurring aboard the wreck. There was considerable running about and screaming. As near as Gideon could tell, a small group of people, some armored, were attempting to hold off a larger group of fog-possessed people, and had been losing when Riposte arrived.

Matters were clearly desperate. Perhaps the fog was stronger this time, for Sebastian's privateers seemed unable to quell the attackers with anything but violence. Gideon felt a sorrow at this, but there was little he could do.

And Crumb spied a treasure box, stout and tight-latched
And it looked quite peculiar, with two lines attached...

"Something's wrong," Corvine said, leaving off her singing. "Our group's being pushed back."

It was true. Gideon saw the privateers and the derelict's defenders start a fighting retreat back to the corvus.

"Performance isn't going to be enough," said Ozrif, daggers twirling around him.

"All right," Gideon said. "Corvine is our finest spellcaster—"

"Also our best singer."

"Less flirting, more action," said Viridia.

"Who's flirting?" said Ozrif.

"Corvine, guard the corvus," Gideon said, talking over him.

"With pleasure."

"Ozrif—you guard Corvine."

"Why not me?" said Viridia.

"We need to keep singing, and I want a female voice for balance. Leothric..."

Leothric, without having to be told, had kept puppeteering and singing throughout. Gideon patted him on the shoulder and pointed toward the corvus. Gideon picked up the thread of "Ocean God's Chest" as Leothric ran.

And now a voice rumbled from just overhead
"Drop my locket, you knaves, or you'll soon be dead!"

Now the boarding party and those they'd rescued backed up onto the corvus, the warriors and privateers swinging blades and shouting oaths, and Corvine and Leothric casting their disenchantments and sonic blasts.

They cut loose their ballast and swam for the air
As giant green hands sought to keep them down there.

Certain of the possessed regained their wits, and others fell. But more kept coming, and those who were freed swiftly became possessed once more. Now Gideon could see that the warriors from the other ship wore the blue-and-white livery of Andoran's military. He wanted to join the fray, but he and Viridia had to continue the performance if they could.

Now take my advice and consider ye blessed
That ye've never set foot on the Ocean God's—

Before he and Viridia could finish, the fog-maddened figures overwhelmed the group upon the corvus and shoved aboard. Gideon and Viridia ran to the aid of their friends, for Ozrif was suddenly flanked, and Corvine and Leothric were left vulnerable.

Gideon noted there were several Leothrics now, so he left the illusion-guarded puppeteer for the moment and joined Corvine, even as Viridia assisted Ozrif. Gideon found himself blocking the approach of an Andoren man whose eyes and breath dribbled fog.

"Die!" the man screeched. "All who oppose the new revolution will die!" Then the Smoke-Tongued lost his rhetoric and chose to rely on his molars.

Gideon found himself wrestling with a lunatic, the man's teeth digging into his throat. Even now he didn't want to kill what was (probably) his innocent countryman. He dropped his dagger, choosing instead to remember the lessons of the Master of Steel and Sinew.

To know pain thoroughly, to feel it in all its jabs and waves, is to come to recognize it as a kind of sense all its own. It will become your servant, instead of you its. We'll begin with this tiny flame ...

Gideon had not much liked the Novice's Course in Pain. And for all his simulations, the Master hadn't included the sensation of having a deranged combatant try to bite one's neck off. But the lessons proved useful this night. He was able to drop, roll, knee, and kick.

If overwhelmed in an unarmed brawl, your best defense is to drop and kick. Dropping makes you a less exposed target. And if you have any notion that kicking is undignified for a man, Gull, drop it and kick it away now.

Kicking caused the Smoke-Tongued to break the bite, though Gideon felt blood dribble down his neck. The man teetered on the edge of the ship, and Gideon considered offering a hand to him, only to see Corvine step forward and stab the possessed man in the chest with Gideon's dropped dagger.

The force of the blow took the man overboard. He splashed and sank.

Gideon and Corvine shared a long look.

The moment was interrupted by a bellow from Leothric. The puppeteer stood alone upon the corvus, confronting the bulk of the enemy.

"No!" he shouted. "This is my ship! You shall not take her! These people are under the protection of Leothric, son of Vandric! You are dismissed!"

Leothric wielded no weapon, but his puppet of Sir Gothmoor brandished the magical fan of winds. With a keen sense of drama, and an overhead wave, he unleashed it.

An enraged pack of the fog-possessed fell upon Leothric, popping his illusory duplicates into nothingness even as the force of a gale exploded across the river bend, blasting its way onto the opposing ship.

The fog shattered. It tore apart into small quivering pieces, writhing serpentine toward the waters. Even so, some unnatural liveliness within it tried to fight back, and one of the tendrils lashed at Leothric as the bard fell beneath his attackers.

"No!" Gideon cried. With Corvine, Ozrif, and Viridia beside him, he leapt among the attackers. Daggerless, he fought with foot and fist and elbow, the growl of the Lion Blades in his throat.

The bulk of the fog was gone, but many of the frothers continued to fight, the last wisps of the mist reluctant to abandon their hosts. All around him, people screamed and stabbed, yet Gideon fought only to reach Leothric.

He was the first to make it through the press. As soon as he grabbed the fallen bard, his hands were covered in blood.

"Healer!" Gideon cried.

"Too late, I think..." gasped Leothric, finding some will within him to speak. "Should have tried fan earlier. Gideon, the fog...it has a mind..."

"Shut up, man." Erastil damn it, Gideon thought. Why hadn't he bothered to learn a healing spell?

Leothric turned toward Gideon, a puppeteer forcing the last performance from his body. "I sensed herthoughts, Gideon...don't trust..."

"What? What are you saying?"

But Leothric could answer no more.

The last of the fog dispersed, and Sebastian held up his hand to spare the last two combatants, Andoren sailors who were crouching and blinking.

Lunette, the carpenter who was also ship's surgeon, reached Gideon. All she could do was shake her head and close Leothric's eyes.

Gideon lowered his head.

"He's a hero," said a woman's voice at his side. Gideon looked up to see a woman in a bloodied blue-and-white uniform of Andoran, a commander by the look of it. "He'll be accorded the full honors of my country."

And although Andoran was Gideon's country too, all he could answer was, "He was a bard. That was enough for him."

Chapter Eleven

Anthem for Andoran

The grim half-hour that followed, in which losses were tallied and the derelict ransacked for supplies, would become a blur in Gideon's recollection, obscured in the crimson blaze that was his memory of the battle.

Of the possessed Andorens, only the two had survived. Their names were Hammerton and Briar, the merchantman Hawkslight's accountant and cook, and Gideon gathered the two middle-aged men were a couple. Well, he was glad they had each other, for they'd lost everything else. Their armored countrymen were Golden Legionaries of the Eagle Knights, and under other circumstances having them aboard would have brought Gideon confidence. But there were only four.

Their leader bore a shield but otherwise wasn't armored. This surprised Gideon, as in his limited experience with warriors, greater status meant better armor, better weapons, better horses, and in all ways better odds of survival. But her white shirt and breeches, black spatterdashes at the feet, and lace doublet at the neck, were typical of any Andoren warrior. Only the insignia on her blue waistcoat announced her as a commander, and only the eagle figurine around her neck betrayed her as a member of the Golden Legion.

Or rather, that and the bloody blade she still gripped, with its pommel like a golden raptor with outstretched wings.

"No arguments, Kester," she was telling a subordinate. "The provisions belong to our rescuers now, Taldan or no. Our ship is done."

As an Andoren who'd lived long among Taldans, Gideon was ashamed to find himself thinking of the commander's visage as a commoner's face. There was a young-old look to her that implied long hours of work outdoors, rather than indoor leisure broken by the occasional battle or hunt. In the firelight he saw fierce blue eyes beneath a bundled-up head of honey-brown hair. There was a hint of freckles about her face, and lines about her mouth that suggested a woman who grinned frequently, though there were no smiles now. Rather, there was a set to her jaw that implied no one—not bard, mariner, king, or god—ought to get in her way.

"Our ship's finished," she repeated, "but our mission isn't." She noticed Gideon. "You. You're Andoren, aren't you?"

"I'll not deny it."

"I must confer with the captain."

Gideon nodded. "This way."

By the prow, Sebastian was standing with crossed arms beside a trio of piled bodies, listening to Adebeyo report casualties. "We lost Brew, Quick, and the Maestro," the Mwangi first mate said grimly, "and I think we were lucky not to lose more. Zethril, Jarin, Asta, and Krypt were wounded. Lunette, Corvine, and Ozrif are tending to them."

"Why must it always be this way?" Sebastian said.

"Sir?"

"Forgive me, Adebeyo. A moment of weakness." Sebastian studied the fallen. "None of them turned. Even the ones that were Smoke-Tongued before."

"None."

"I was wrong to doubt them."

As he led the Andoren commander to the bow, Gideon looked upon Brew, the cheery man of the mountain town of Dalaston who'd been Riposte's master of explosives and potions, coffee and moonshine. He studied Quick, now dead, reputed to have been a mercenary from the town of Tribulation, who'd tended the ship's ballista and crossbows with the calm of a man who'd left a more personal history of violence behind him. Gideon could hardly comprehend the unmoving halfling they'd called the Maestro, who'd treated the rigging like the upper reaches of a circus tent, and who'd dazzle his small audience no more.

"Wrap them in sailcloth," said Sebastian. "We'll send them to the river once we're clear of the shallows. They were good men. May the Sellen sweep them to the sea they loved."

"Won't you say words," said the Andoren commander, "for their lives and souls?"

Sebastian glared. "Did I not?"

"Those were words for yourself and your first mate, not for all your crew."

"There's nothing I can say to bring them back."

The Andoren nodded. "And you feel responsible. I understand. I've been there."

"You don't know me."

"You think if you speak words for the crew it will go wrong, because of the guilt. Let me. I've buried people before."

Sebastian was silent for a time. "Very well. Say what you would say, Mistress—"

"Commander."

"Commander—?"

"Hannison. Merrigail Hannison."

Sebastian raised his voice. "Commander Hannison will speak on behalf of our comrades and hers."

All attention turned to her; she didn't hesitate. Some enchantment upon her figurine glowed and suffused her face with a fiery light.

"Taldans and Andorens, brought together in battle! We are strangers to each other, but alas not strangers to death. We have little time to mourn, but mourn we must. Each of our dead had a story of courage, from the helmsman of our ship who struggled to keep her intact, to the man of your vessel who banished the vapors that stalked us."

She raised the bloody sword glinting above her head.

"Taldans, though most of us have fallen, I'm forever grateful for your rescue. The determination of we Andorens who yet live will be redoubled. Tomorrow begins the new year—a time for new oaths and quests. Mine is to make certain that our comrades and yours won't have died in vain."

She waved her sword as if in martial benediction over the slain.

"And to our fallen, I swear on the wings of Talmandor, I will avenge you. I will defeat whatever power lies behind this fog. Your sacrifices will have saved many men, women, and children in Taldor and Andoran." She paused. "My knights and I will now sing for our fellow Andorens, but I welcome anyone to join us."

Gideon found himself joining the chorus of the old patriotic Andoren hymn "I Will Wander My Land," even as Sebastian looked withdrawn and grim.

From the mountains of the Five Kings
To the southern margin's strand
To the Andoshen's beginnings
All the gods have blessed our land.
I will wander it forever
From Triela to Aspo Bay
I will honor freedom's splendor
I will wander because I may.

To his surprise, Corvine joined in as well.

∗ ∗ ∗

After the funeral, the crew went about the work of making Riposte ready to continue its voyage. Gideon lowered his head. Weeks ago, he'd never have imagined his vexing roommate or a pack of privateers would give him cause to mourn. Why had Leothric chosen that moment to become heroic? It didn't suit him.

Nor did death.

Thanks to Commander Hannison, at least he could grieve. He watched her cleansing her sword with a bucket of river water, grateful to her...

I sensed herthoughts, Gideon...don't trust...

Gideon shivered. Who had Leothric warned him of? Had the puppeteer sensed the same cruel voice that haunted Gideon, his muse, his Desdimira from the ghost ship? Or was there someone more corporeal to fear? Should he mistrust Hannison?

As Riposte cast off with its depleted crew, someone touched his shoulder.

It was Corvine, holding up the fan of wood and papyrus. "I retrieved it."

"We can't say for certain he'd want you to have it," Ozrif said. "But perhaps you can carry it until you can return it to his family."

Viridia said, "I don't care if he was a Lion Blade or not, he died as one of us. Whatever that's worth."

Gideon accepted the fan. "Thank you. All of you. He was a most annoying roommate. He was a better traveling companion. And I think in the end he was my friend. I wish I'd reciprocated better. I'll guard his family's heirloom, and face their blame."

"It's not your fault," Corvine said.

"Gideon, his own family approved sending him off," Viridia said. "We can't know everything about him. But didn't you see something happier about him, on this voyage, in between all the complaints? Something braver?"

Gideon said, "He was going to proposition you, I think."

"Really?" Viridia said.

"Really?" Ozrif echoed.

"Well, I wouldn't have put it past him," Corvine said. "I'll take the puppets, if no one minds. I'll try my hand at Leothric's art."

"I think he'd like that," Gideon said.

It had seemed ghoulish but necessary to take the fan, but to know the puppets were with someone who might use them was a small warmth on a cold river.

The cold persisted for many hours, until dawn found them far from the dead ship and the fallen. Gideon had suffered a wheeling dark experience he was reluctant to call sleep, and awoke to an argument at the bow. Grizzendell passed Gideon a biscuit and grunted in that general direction as if encouraging Gideon to butt in.

Gideon immediately found the discussion by the reflected sunlight glinting off Commander Hannison's shield. For a moment, Gideon wondered why the shield was unadorned. Andorens were rarely shy about their nationality. But Sebastian's voice cut through his musing.

"Cassomir's harbor didn't report any Eagle Knight vessel named Hawkslight."

"Indeed! But I think you'll find the patrol logs record a merchantman by that name."

"A covert mission?"

"How I wish. Had a ship of the Gray Corsairs been available, things might be different now. No, our only concessions to stealth were blank shields and chartering a merchantman. A good, patriotic crew, but no warriors. But we had to investigate this fog."

"What do you know of it?"

"Not enough. I might ask the same of you." Hannison turned her head as Gideon approached. "Or one of these bards you travel with. Unusual passengers, I might say."

"The fog makes the business of a theatrical troupe difficult," Gideon said.

"Theatrical troupe?"

Sebastian, with a glint of gratitude, sketched one of their agreed-upon covers. "We're traveling north as a goodwill gesture toward Egede upon the Lake of Mists and Veils, which has appealed for help with barbarian pirates. In Cassomir we picked up a band of players to help entertain soldiers on leave from the front in the demon war."

Gideon put in, "We go by the name of the Seasick Troubadours—"

"Nonsense," came a voice.

Corvine stepped up, arms crossed. She glared at Gideon, and then Sebastian, before facing Hannison. "These gentlemen lie to you, Commander Hannison. They should know better. They're all agents of the Grand Prince."

"Ah," said Hannison. "Lion Blades. Much becomes clear."

"Well, to be precise," Gideon said, "I'm a Lion Blade in training..."

"Enough, Gideon." Sebastian stared at Corvine. "I expected better of you. You've compromised Taldor's security."

"I don't think so," Corvine said. "I think the damned fog is compromising Taldor's security, and I'm tired of us skating around the problem. Leothric's dead. I've decided, posthumously, that I liked him. And I liked your speech, Commander. Better than I liked Sebastian's."

"I didn't give a—"

"Exactly."

Gideon sighed. "The cards are on the table, Sebastian. No more bluffing. What Corvine says is true, ma'am. We are investigating the same fog."

"You don't know what cards I have, Gull," Sebastian said, before bowing stiffly to the Eagle Knight. "Nor what gambles I have to make. But you're indeed speaking to one of the Prince's Lion Blades. So. Am I right the fog's attacked Almas itself?"

"Your information's correct. Some victims merely rampaged, frothing at the mouth. Others ranted of a 'new revolution.' Our government doesn't like the sound of that. And our archives suggest this fog may have attacked before, years ago. Perhaps it's a beast that's slumbered and has reawakened."

Sebastian gave Gideon a hard glance, saying, "I wonder, given the rhetoric we ourselves heard from the Smoke-Tongued, if someone from Andoran isn't at work. Someone dissatisfied with the course of your experiment in Common Rule."

"If they're dissatisfied, they can vote," Hannison said.

"Perhaps they find voting inefficient."

"Be that as it may, Captain Tambour, I offer an alliance. My four Eagle Knights, and two sailors, joined to your Lion Blades and privateers."

"I have my doubts."

Hannison smiled. "I'm not proposing marriage, Captain. We may suddenly part ways. But if nothing else, both our commands need the morale boost an alliance can provide."

"Hell," Gideon said. "Sebastian—Captain—she's right. I'm not just saying that because I'm Andoren."

"Are you sure, Gull?"

I sensed herthoughts, Gideon ...

Silencing his own doubts, Gideon said, "It's because she's right. The fog has attacked before, at Bellis."

Hannison widened her eyes. 'You've researched this?"

"I was there." Gideon nodded to Sebastian. "I think we're losing time, Captain. Adding the Commander's force gains us a little. I think we need all we can get."

... don't trust...

"Very well," Sebastian said. "I've come to trust your instincts. And you seem to have a sense about this fog, that we may have to rely upon. But I'm afraid the Andorens are getting your cabin. You bards will bunk with the crew."

"Thank you for your hospitality," said Hannison.

"You'll need a place to confer privately." Sebastian smiled wearily. "And frankly, I need a way to isolate you."

That earned him a smile back. "I take your point. The paper-shufflers in Almas and Oppara will be happy we took precautions."

"Ha. No doubt."

∗ ∗ ∗

The banks of the Sellen slid by, and Gideon watched them go.

He heard footsteps and saw the Eagle Knight commander at his side.

"May I join you?" she asked.

"It's a free country," Gideon replied.

"On one bank, at least." The commander's smile made it a joke. "I have to say, I'm surprised to find an Andoren among the Lion Blades. I imagine there's quite a story there.

Gideon shrugged, and the commander nodded.

"Fair enough. I wonder, though, if you'd be willing to tell me a different story. " Her voice softened. "About Bellis. And the fog."

"Commander—"

"Merrigail, please. You're not in my chain of command, and I'm no Taldan noblewoman."

Gideon sighed, then told the general outlines of his story once more. Perhaps he should have been more cautious, but Corvine's rebuke of his clumsy attempt at subterfuge still stung, and as he'd discovered in the jail cell, it felt good to have a sympathetic listener. Or a listener good at appearing sympathetic, anyway.

"Your archives," he added once he'd finished. "The records of the previous investigation. Did they give any clues?"

She shook her head. "I'm sorry, Gideon. The investigating knights never found any trace of the fog, or any clues as to its origins." Steel returned to her voice. "This time, I swear to you, it will be different."

She took her leave and strode up the deck toward where her second-in-command Kester was staring ahead at the waters. She passed Sebastian, who was headed toward Gideon. "You have good people with you," she told him. "I'm glad we're working together."

Sebastian looked a little startled. "I, too." He bowed a little, then continued on and reached Gideon. "She's most...memorable," he said, voice low. "Self-possessed. Someone with a sword in her hand and no doubt in her mind."

"Are you in love, Sebastian?"

Gideon was joking, but something must have struck home. Sebastian went silent for a moment. "I think her second-in-command already fancies her, if you want the truth. And I have no time for such things. Only my duties, and my ship."

He sighed and looked around at Riposte. "My ship. There was a time, Gideon, when my whole ambition was to command such a vessel. To have the freedom to roam. Yet there's little freedom anywhere, it seems. Only duties and old ghosts."

"It might seem different on the ocean."

"True. And the feeling may be worse because we're back in the territory of my childhood." Sebastian scratched his chin and pointed into the deep woods, toward the northeast. "Some days' travel up the Verduran Fork, there's a stone castle on a cliff overlooking the river. There my ancestors dwelled. Before the Wildwood Treaty, the druids made arrangements with various parties to allow settlement, and my family was one such. We were a proud clan of bards and wizards, and Mistwatch was the jewel in our crown. But we dwindled, and my father was the last to maintain the castle. Since the treaty, no logging or farming's been allowed on such sites, so the castle was good only for retreats. I remember long summers there, wandering the woods, while my father conducted his wizardly studies. My elven mother taught me something of woodcraft. I learned to swim, and to hunt. Part of me is always back there."

"Do you never have time to return?"

Sebastian regarded the waters. "Oh, once in a while. But the place raises uncomfortable memories. Madness took my father, you see, when his researches did not go as planned. He set a fire that claimed both him and the castle."

Gideon remembered a scene sketched in shadow, within the foul fog. "I'm sorry. Your mother?"

"She's gone too. I...don't want to discuss it. At any rate, I could refurbish the castle, but why? My work's aboard Riposte."

"You're defined by your work, aren't you? Like Merrigail."

Sebastian smirked. "And you're not?"

Gideon chuckled. "Part of me remains a simple streetside harpist. You can never take that out of me."

"Why?" At Gideon's confused glance, Sebastian continued. "What I mean is, why a streetside harpist? As I understand it, you're from a well-off family, back in Andoran."

"They had definite ideas about my future." Gideon shook his head, looking at the Andoren shore pass by. "We say we love freedom in Andoran, but sometimes it seems we want to be 'free' only to oppress each other in a thousand petty ways."

"I've heard you share such criticisms of Andoran now and then. I admit it always surprises me."

"Well, I love my home, but there's a reason I left it for Taldor. Being around Andorens again...I don't know. The self-certainty can grate a little."

"It has a certain charm, now and then." Gideon caught Sebastian's sideways glance toward the Eagle Knight commander. "Like a brash youngster out to make a mark on the world."

"You didn't grow up with it," Gideon retorted. "'We know best! We're the future! We know how everyone should live their lives!' Just like my family knew I was destined for something better than music. You know, it troubles me..."

"What?"

"The frothers on the Andoren ship. They were more completely controlled than the afflicted Taldans we've seen. The ones in Cassomir, or your crew."

"Well, my crew's only partly Taldan—"

"You know what I mean. You saw them on Hawkslight. How they just kept coming, raving, rending..."

"Perhaps the fog was simply stronger there."

"Or maybe my people are more susceptible."

"How could that be?"

"Something you said at the Admiralty. How the Andoren border was uncontrolled. I wonder if lack of control goes beyond just borders. We love our freedom, and hate all outside control. But what if we've also rejected self-control while we're at it?"

"You've never gone frother, Gideon. Even with your experience at Bellis."

"I'd meant to ask you about that," Gideon said. "You clearly knew about that long ago, without my telling you. How?"

"It's my business to know things. As your sponsor for the Shadow School, I had a responsibility to learn everything I could about your background before recommending you for service. Even with your fog encounter as a child, losing your own brother, you didn't let it break your spirit. It must have been hard for you."

"Part of me is always back there." Gideon looked northward along the river.

"Part of me is always at Mistwatch, watching the ashes after Father's fire."

"Why did he do it?"

"It's best if I don't say. Suffice it that he raised forces he couldn't master. Without him...my mother grew strange. She was always a troubled one. Sometimes that goes along with great musicians, and she was a singer beyond compare. Without him, her spirit darkened. She took her own life."

"Good Erastil, Sebastian, I'm sorry."

Sebastian shrugged. "I wasn't strong enough to protect what I loved. So now I protect Taldor instead."

"No child can be expected to replace a void like that." Gideon shook his head. "When my brother died, my parents expected me to be his replacement somehow. Heir to the winery. But wine's not what sings in my blood."

"Well, we may be broken people, Gideon, but at least we're ourselves."

"Self-possessed? Like a certain Eagle Knight?"

"Enough with the matchmaking." Sebastian waved him off and went to check on the sails.

That night, at Gideon's suggestion, the group sang as they hadn't since Leothric's death. Viridia sang a ballad of the plains in the fallen bard's honor.

Horse and rider, sword and shield
All are gone to the green field
Man and woman, lad and lass
All are vanished into grass
Good and evil, right and wrong
Go to join the old green song
All that's light and all that's stain—
Rustling blades upon the plain.

Many others joined in, mostly with Taldan songs, but a few from Andoran. Sebastian encouraged it all.

"I shall retire," Merrigail said at last to Sebastian, but there was a faint smile on her face.

"May I assist you?" Sebastian asked.

"I'll be fine on my own, thank you." She paused. "But I do appreciate your courtesy, sir."

"Before you go, Commander," said Corvine, "let's sing something in your honor." And to Gideon's shock, she began to sing an Andoren military anthem.

Raise up the eagle! Bear it to the fight!
Common Rule forever, a beacon in the night!
We shall never bow to kings,
Never kiss their golden rings;
Raise up the eagle and fly unto the fight!

"I don't know the rest," Corvine admitted.

"I thank you," said Merrigail, with a hushed voice and a bow. Then she departed.

"A surprising song from a Taldan," Viridia said to Corvine.

"I like the tune," Corvine said, a little embarrassed. "Perhaps I'll adapt it."

Gideon looked to Sebastian, but the captain was silent, looking up at the murky gibbous moon.

Chapter Twelve

Wildwood Chant

Snow was falling over the Sellen the next day, when from the crow's nest the Andoren sailor Hammerton called out, "I see it!"

Even as he spoke, Riposte slipped around the riverbend and entered the great confluence of the Sellen and the Verduran Fork, the vast Isle of Arenway rising within.

It loomed in the snowfall, just as in old descriptions: a rocky promontory miles wide, its cove-studded cliffs ranging from heights of a few feet to a few hundred. Above this jagged gray majesty swarmed the trees—spindly pines, twisted oaks, green-draped willows, short trees and tall, spidery and straight. Beneath the trees lay verdant grass sprawling everywhere, even to the edges of the cliffs. Spires of rock reared above the woods and meadows, and low clouds weaved amid them.

Clouds, but not only clouds.

"Smoke!" called out Hammerton from his perch.

Gazes flocked to him and followed his outstretched arm. Smoke did indeed billow from around the island's curve, on its northwest side.

"The fort," Sebastian said. "Haste! Haste for landfall!"

"The fog?" Gideon said.

"Perhaps. Or perhaps river pirates have become bold."

As they rounded the island and came upon the River Guard pier, they beheld the fort.

Unlike the rest of the Imperial Navy, the Taldan River Guard concerned itself almost entirely with combating piracy, ensuring that the Sellen remained safe for trade. As a result, its fleet consisted primarily of small, fast ships able to track brigands to the tributaries and backwaters where they hid. With most of its strength distributed along hundreds of miles of river, the fort was deceptively small, little more than a walled harbor and resupply station, with barracks for soldiers.

It was also on fire. Men and women in Taldan livery ran bucket brigade, and seemed to be winning the battle against the several small blazes. Bodies lay upon the earth, slashed and pierced. A few of the soldiers turned and rushed the pier as Riposte hove into view, and Sebastian bade the weaponmaster aim crossbows at them until they proved themselves unarmed.

"We're not the traitors!" called one. "They've gone inland."

"What traitors? Explain yourselves."

"The fog, sir!" said another. "Foul mists enveloped the fort before dawn. Most of the Guard went mad—rampaging, burning. Even our own ships."

"When they'd had their fill of killing our own," said the first guard, "they talked of punishing the druids."

"Punishing them for what?" Gideon called.

"Better to ask what they weren't accusing the druids of, sir," said another. "Human sacrifice. Kidnapping children."

"Aiding river pirates," said a third. "Sending monsters against travelers."

"Giving Cassomir weak wood," said the first guard. "Plotting to have gnomes rule over us."

"Gnomes?" said Gideon.

"Some say they're too friendly with the druids. And everyone knows they're not quite natural. I..."

The man glanced over toward the smoking fortress and the score of bodies there. One was a gnome guard with his throat cut, staring blankly up at the sky.

"We have to warn the druids," Gideon said. "Corvine, can you call a bird with your magic and get it to deliver a message?"

Corvine shook her head. "It doesn't work like that. I can send them to you and Sebastian in Oppara because I've been there—I can give them a mental image. I've never seen the druids' lodge.

"They may already be aware," Merrigail said. "And they may be quite capable of handling this themselves."

"We can't assume that," Gideon said. "No matter what cosmic might you possess, scores of fighters with sharp pointy implements should give you pause."

"We've no means of signaling them," said Sebastian, "except by following the same path as the guards."

"When did they leave?" Gideon asked the survivors.

"Minutes ago, sir," said one.

"Then we still have a chance," Viridia said. "Aren't we Lion Blades trained to overcome obstacles? We can take a longer path but still outrun the guards with all their gear."

"We're not Lion Blades yet," Gideon observed.

"We can do it," Ozrif said.

"You go," Corvine said to Ozrif, Viridia, and Gideon. "Running was never my forte. I'll attempt to catch up."

"I and my knights will accompany Corvine," Merrigail said.

"Thank you," Sebastian said, squeezing the Eagle Knight's shoulder. She stared at his hand, but did not object. He pulled it back swiftly. "I'll help the people here. Good luck."

∗ ∗ ∗

They ran.

At first the three bards sprinted, the new snow powdery under their feet, their bodies eager for action after so many days of restriction aboard ship. Beside the river fort was a narrow area of cultivated land for feeding the guards, and the maddened warriors had already passed into the woods, an eager murder of crows squawking over their path. There was nothing to inhibit the trio from running as hard and fast as possible.

Then they reached the wall of trees.

Whether from nature or the guidance of the druids, the forest reared up in a sudden line, with no hint of cutting or burning to explain it. Branches scratched the bards, roots tripped them, fallen trunks required scrambling. Their pace slowed, and it was difficult to catch a glimpse of the sky. The snowfall came only here and there, in pillars of white motes. From time to time the crows' voices apprised them of the guards' location, and it was clear the Shadow School students were only just keeping pace.

As they paused for breath upon a vast stump beside a titanic toppled trunk, Gideon gasped, "I suppose...neither of you...took the wilderness class?"

"I'm...afraid not," said Ozrif.

Viridia shook her head. "Nope...and I'm a...plains girl."

Gideon crouched. He could see their breath turning to vapor, coiling here and there in the chilly air like a miniature version of their foe. "I grew up around woods, but it's been a while." He tried listening for the crows, and heard them to the left and perhaps a bit ahead. "I think we have to risk paralleling the road. If we can get ahead of guards even a little, we can use it ourselves. Then we have a chance."

"Lead on," Viridia said. "You're the closest thing to a woodsman we have."

"Then we're in trouble." But Gideon wasted no time leaping from the stump.

He growled, the other two quietly matching him. Painfully, their speed increased.

The brown swath of the road now appeared in flashes of sunlight. Not far behind, they saw the shine of armor and weapons; yet at times the sunlight was muted, the road blurred by white wisps.

And now Gideon had a choice. The forest ahead grew rocky, and to dash around the rugged terrain would guarantee the bards would fall behind. Yet the alternative was to rush onto the road now, in sight of the frothers, or Smoke-Tongued, or whatever they were.

He paused long enough to point out the problem to the others. "Ready to run?"

"Of course," Viridia said.

"Life's a series of calamities...with laughter between," Ozrif said.

Gideon nodded and sprinted into the light.

"Druids!" came the screech. "Get them!"

"Bards!" Ozrif could not help shouting back. "Bards! Does no one care about accuracy in these benighted times!"

"Shut up and run, Ozrif!" Viridia shouted.

"You're beautiful when you're disgusted!"

"You have no idea how beautiful I'm about to be!"

An arrow hit the rocks to their left. Another hit the dirt to their right. Gideon's answer to the other two was to run as hard as he ever had in his life.

More arrows swished, though no one was hit. They crested a rise and ran pell-mell through a small gorge, which mercifully bent leftward and out of view. But the fog-maddened fighters' cries echoed among the rocks.

The bards were silent. They had no breath to spare.

Viridia at last had the proper venue to demonstrate her power as a runner, and she pulled ahead as they entered a new region. The land opened up before her, and its beauty was almost mocking. Green fields seemed to splash upon rocky valleys at either hand, and vast trees resembled orange-and-green pillars for the bright blue ceiling of sky. There was no sign of the Wildwood Lodge as yet, no fortress or building or even a tent.

Behind them, fog billowed down the crags like a polluted flood. Dark figures marched within. They possessed remarkable speed for armored men.

"Not sure we'll make it," Viridia called back.

"Look there," said Ozrif.

Gideon looked, and noted a ring of stone menhirs rising in a grove far to the left. The standing stones gave the impression of two vast granite hands rising with fingers poised to clasp the sky. A trace of smoke coiled through one of the gaps.

Another choice. They had no idea how far ahead the lodge lay. Perhaps there were druids among those stones. But if Gideon led the others that way, they'd never outpace the guards again.

"Let's go." Gideon darted off the road.

The bards reached the circle of ten great stones, and saw a single blue-robed old woman within, stirring the embers of a fire. The skin and offal of a rabbit burned within it. As she poked at the carcass, the woman hummed a low chant in a mysterious language.

She ceased. Without looking up, she said, "Many things that flee have crossed my path this morning. One brought me food. What will you bring?"

Gideon whispered to the others, "Perhaps just one of us should talk. You two can keep watch. I have a little experience talking to druids."

"You mean, you talked to Zaganos once or twice," Viridia said.

"I did say 'a little.'"

"Never mind," said Ozrif. "Let's watch out for our lunatic friends, shall we?"

Gideon stepped closer to the druid. "What do I bring? I bring knowledge."

There was a dry chuckle that Gideon at first mistook for the popping of the fire. "What knowledge could you bring a druid, boy? What knowledge that is not seen in entrails or written in ash, foretold by clouds, whispered by woods? What knowledge do you have that they do not?"

"Knowledge of the wickedness of humanity."

"You have my attention."

Gideon stepped beside the fire and lowered himself to his knees. "I am Gideon Gull, a bard of...Oppara."

The old woman nodded. She looked far too ancient to be out in the wilderness alone. Her eyes seemed hidden by wrinkles, what little hair remained on her head was like silver strings on a dulcimer, and her back humped like the hills beyond. "I bear both the name Estergraethe and the role of reading portents, though my burdens number far more than these. I hear you, Gideon Gull, bard of Oppara and other places you have not named."

"I've come to warn you. The river fort's been corrupted by an evil power. Most of the guards have been possessed. They're coming to kill your people."

Gideon thought he glimpsed some of the sardonic disdain he'd seen in Brother Zaganos.

"I had noted their advance beyond the bounds set for them. I wondered why they sought destruction. Now I know. Understanding is, in most respects, better than ignorance. I thank you for this. Is there more?"

"I fear you may not have quite grasped the 'coming to kill you' concept..."

"On the contrary. I understand killing very well. I have shared the gray horror of the cricket caught by the tongue of the frog, and I have known the red delight of the eagle grasping a fish. There are tiny things dying all around us, Gideon Gull, in the air, in the earth, in you and me. And tiny things always being born. If I die today, I will nourish many growing things, and it may in truth be a victory for life. But I do not think I will die today."

"They are many, and the evil force that compels them is strong."

"I already know all that I need to know about each of them. What all their yearning and striving and devotion and courage and despair at last come to. One word." She looked Gideon in the eye. "Soil."

And at the word, Gideon knew this was no joke, nor bravado. The druids would annihilate the attackers.

"I would've thought," he ventured, "that you who wield such power would disperse the fog that clouds their minds. Or else defeat its human puppets and spare the innocent."

"That seems considerable effort simply to blunt an attack. There are simpler methods. Lightning, for instance."

"You have no mercy?"

"Mercy is seeing one's self in a foe's eyes and knowing pity. We have no pity, least of all for ourselves. We do not seek others' deaths, but we understand that limits are part of every pattern. It seems more death today is necessary for the strength of the pattern we call 'Wildwood Lodge.' So be it."

"What if the Wildwood Treaty fell as a result?"

"Would it?"

"I think it a likely outcome."

"This seems an unfortunate event for Taldor. Not so much for us."

Gideon got to his feet. "I'm wasting my time."

"On the contrary, I am enjoying our conversation very much. It's intriguing to have a young, fast-moving, unrooted point of view upon which to test one's insights. I fear I'm not making much sense to you."

"I think I understand you well enough. You see the world as full of preservers and despoilers. It means nothing to you if a bunch of despoilers are slaughtered. Even if these people have names, and families, and dreams."

"You are not entirely incorrect. Yet I am not entirely unsympathetic."

"If so, then do something! I came here to warn your colleagues, but now I realize my true purpose is to save the Taldans. Tell the druids to spare them."

Estergraethe shook her head. "Even if I do, they will not."

"Gideon!" called Viridia, as she stepped into the circle. "They're ignoring us. Passing us by."

"We have to follow them," Gideon said. "The druids will destroy them. We need to make the soldiers stop."

"There must be a hundred," Ozrif said, joining them.

"Then we need to try very hard."

"Wait," Estergraethe said, holding up a hand. "I will not do what you ask, but there is something I can do for you nonetheless."

Mist filled the spaces between the menhirs—not the eerie, green-hued stuff of the fog that made men mad, but rather a calm, silent thing of simple vapor and innocent chill.

"Step through," she said, pointing at a space between two standing stones. "There."

Gideon looked at the others, cracked his knuckles, then walked into the mist.

He emerged into a sunlit snowfall upon a crest in the road. Ahead he could see the distant crags he'd so recently passed through, now many miles away. Behind, and downslope, lay the Wildwood Lodge.

It was no normal building. Dozens of caves dotted a rocky hill beside a sheer cliff. Below the cliff, a narrow, fjord-like inlet wound out of sight, no doubt making its way back to the island's coast and the river proper. Balconies of exquisite woodwork, the still-living branches contorted into symbols and faces and wild beasts, adorned the cave openings. From the top of the hill rose a snow-covered stone temple that seemed more discovered than built, although its doors were of fine cedar.

Twin rows of redwood trees converged upon the place, their trunks increasing in height until, like a pair of sentinels, the last two flanked the stone hill, soaring hundreds of feet. Spiral stairways of wicker and rope rose around the trunks, and here and there amid the snow-spattered branches Gideon could glimpse walkways and platforms.

Birds screeched in their thousands beyond the Lodge, vast constellations of them whirling in and out of view through the snowfall; the rocky cliff itself must be a rookery.

Yet although this avian life was much in abundance, no druid was anywhere to be seen.

Somewhere in Gideon's reverie, Ozrif and Viridia had appeared; how, he could not say. "We've been given a small advantage," he told them. "We've been brought many miles ahead, to where we can speak to the druids."

"Gideon," Viridia said quietly touching his shoulder. "It's a smaller advantage than you think."

He turned around. He realized he'd been fooled by a curve in the road into thinking the guards were far beyond.

Fog oozed around the bend. The mad ones followed. They were only minutes away. The sun was high within a blue rift in a cloudy sky. Moments ago it had been late morning.

Gideon swore.

"Estergraethe's sent us through both space and time," he said. "We're at the Lodge, but too late to prevent the druids from slaughtering these fighters."

"But not too late to prevent the fighters from slaughtering us," Viridia said.

The crows that had chased the fog dropped from the sky, mocking the bards in their eager anticipation of meat.

Chapter Thirteen

Blood Pastorale

The situation's impossible," Gideon said. "I don't want to seek shelter with the druids. Or face a hundred frothers."

"So, how do we make it possible?" Viridia answered.

"Hide," Ozrif said.

He gestured toward a tumble of boulders offering concealing nooks and crannies. They scrambled between the rocks, and from there watched the fog-maddened guards approach amid the vapors that engulfed them like the silk around a clutch of spider eggs.

"We all see it, don't we?" said Viridia.

"Perhaps repeated exposure makes us sensitive to it," Ozrif said. "Or perhaps it grows brazen."

"I think we'll have one chance to break the spell," Gideon said. "As they pass this way, I'll use Leothric's magical fan."

"And if that isn't enough?" Viridia said.

"As soon as I've used the fan, you and Ozrif had best employ your bardic talents to the fullest. Coax, cajole, scare them away from the lodge."

"It's possible the druids won't be as bloodthirsty as you imagine," Ozrif said. "We've seen no response from...Ah."

Gideon turned toward the strange fortress.

The druids had come.

Three aged, robed figures slowly ascended the path to set themselves against the approach of a small army. Somehow Gideon knew the odds were against the army.

The druid in the center was robed in gray to match the wild mane of her hair. Short of girth, she carried a crooked staff a head taller than herself. Something in her golden skin and fierce gaze recalled tales of distant islands; a necklace of sharks' teeth rattled around her neck. To her right walked a companion robed all in white, the cloth covered in golden silhouettes of beetles, bats, raccoons, ravens, snakes, starfish, and more—a treasure-house of wild creatures. This druid was a dark-skinned man of Garund, and in place of a staff he carried a unique spear worked with runes and sigils of many lands, gleaming with a silver tip. The third druid was an elven woman cloaked in unadorned black. Her ivory countenance seemed as severe as stone, and she bore nothing to aid her steps; rather, she clutched an iron dagger. As snowflakes fell upon her blade, she held it to her tongue.

Now the River Guard saw the druids. Jeers and screeches cut the air. Archers, their aim little marred by their insanity, fired upon the trio.

The druid in gray gestured, and a whistling wind disturbed the air, making snowflakes churn. As the arrows hit the barrier of wind they were buffeted upward, eventually falling to the ground or clattering against the stones. Whatever defense the druid had invoked, Gideon was grateful for the boulders' cover.

The volleys of arrows fell nearly as fast as the snow. The three druids still did not move.

The druid in gray raised her crooked staff and whispered something as if to herself; but the world heard and answered, and the day darkened. A vast black storm cloud rumbled into existence as if it had slipped unseen out of a crack in the sky. While it whirled over the whole area, its center was above the River Guard.

The druid in white sighed and likewise lifted his spear, croaking out mysterious words. In response, something vast and lumbering began to emerge from behind the rocks. Though still unseen, its motion made reverberations to rival the growing thunder of the cloud.

The druid in black smiled and raised her dagger, whispering a question. The answer came in the form of a raucous swaying within a nearby stand of trees, as a hulking, rocky shape lurched up from the earth and emerged into the light, flexing its limbs.

"Stop!" Gideon said, emerging from his hiding place before he'd thought the matter through. "They're being compelled! They don't deserve this!"

The druids seemed unsurprised by his appearance. "'Deserve' is irrelevant," said the one in gray.

Thunder exploded beneath the dark cloud, though there was no lightning. The guards halted. Some fell, and many cradled their heads, or else shook with sudden convulsions.

Gideon stood before the druid in gray. "I beg you, find another way!"

"What other way is there, Gideon Gull?"

Now the thing rumbling from behind lurched into sight. It was a snake, but no snake had any business being so huge. Tall as an Opparan house and long as a Taldan prince's procession, its mouth could have swallowed a bison without even unhinging its jaw. It rippled with green and black and yellow patterning upon its glinting scales, its body pulsing with muscle. It ignored the druids and the bards, slithering like a living flood toward the guards within the fog.

Ozrif, too, confronted the druids. "I can't believe that you, who wield such powerful magic, can't dispel these warriors' madness!"

The druid in white shrugged. "Can't is not an issue. This is simpler. Let the island be fed."

It seemed unaccountable that the vast rocky figure emerging from the trees could be more disturbing than the slithering monster, but in a way it was. At least the other thing was in some bizarre sense an animal. But even though the lurching composite of rock and dirt vaguely humanoid, it was far from natural. Deep down, Gideon realized, he was just a little animal who needed some rational order to his world. This violation of his assumptions terrified him. The land itself should not go hunting.

Betraying no eagerness, the creature thundered its way like an avalanche toward the River Guard.

"You're monsters!" Viridia told the druids.

"All things are monsters," said the druid in black.

The guards would be pulped. And yet they did not retreat, for nothing in the druids' assault had the effect of dispersing the unnatural fog. And the fog, like the druids, cared nothing for the lives advancing like pawns into this conflict.

Could this state of affairs really be an accident? Gideon wondered. Ozrif was right; surely a more subtle expression of power could end the threat and spare lives. Why didn't the druids choose to do so?

Now at last rain fell from the storm cloud, cutting through the snow—but it was no normal rain, for as it touched the guards, they shrieked in pain.

What other way is there, Gideon Gull?

"A test," Gideon snarled. "You're testing us, somehow. A sick, arrogant—"

"Are you looking for words that will end this?" asked the druid in gray, the dry mockery of her tone now evident.

"No."

He turned and ran forward through the curtain of winds, beyond the safety of the druids' influence.

Gideon could hear his friends calling his name, but he didn't look back. He didn't want them following. He couldn't be certain at what range Leothric's magical fan would be effective, but he was sure he needed to get closer.

How much closer would likely depend on Gideon's nerves. Not nerves of steel. Harp strings, more like. High-strung harp strings at that...

Amazingly, someone was still shooting arrows, and one landed right between his legs, nearly ending his line if not his life. Now, however, the storm transformed again, sending a half-dozen crimson lightning bolts into the midst of the doomed guards, and the bowshots ceased.

Gideon could not cease, however, even as he found himself on a path that would converge with the slithering monster on the one hand and the hulking rock-thing on the other. Closer, closer, ragged footfalls on snow...

He skidded to his knees, raised his arm, and swung the fan.

Wind roared between the paths of the monsters, into the face of the fog.

And the fog peeled and shredded, tore away in wraithlike ragged strips, and the front ranks of the River Guard had their pains redoubled by the freedom of their minds and the awareness of their doom.

"Run!" Gideon screamed, desperate to be heard over thunder and monsters and wind. "Get away from here! They'll kill you all!"

Some did indeed try to run, even as the druid-summoned things commenced to devour and crush. But they'd never make it past the ranks behind them, still enveloped in a fog larger and more resilient than the one that had claimed Hawkslight.

Gideon charged forward once again, now in range of the huge serpent and the rocky monstrosity, but needing to reach the back ranks as he swung.

Again a concussion swept the air. The nearer guards stumbled. More of the fog ripped apart, coiling away in a manner that put Gideon in mind of a clutch of snakes.

But that wasn't all that came apart. The ancient fan of Osirion, pushed perhaps beyond the requirements of its long-lost makers, tore itself into a clump of tattered papyrus and wood.

Gideon tossed it aside, for he had his own troubles. He'd drawn the attention of the earthen horror, and it thundered near. Perversely, the mushrooms sprouting on its "head" reminded Gideon of a smiling face.

He couldn't think of a single spell that would help him. His dagger would be about as useful as a butter knife against a cliff. He stepped backward, slipping on the snow and falling hard. The thing advanced.

Yet there was a change in the air. Rain fell, and it was not the burning rain of before but a more wholesome variety that obscured vision and whipped around with sudden surges of wind. The fog was coming further undone, and the River Guard was in full rout now.

"Ha!" called an Andoren voice. "Run, Taldans, run! Let the steel of Andoran protect you!"

"Commander Hannison is insane!" said a voice beside him.

"They're all insane, Ozrif," said another, "all the Andorens. Come on, Gideon, move!"

Gideon let Viridia help him up, and together the Shadow School students backed away from the creature of elemental earth. Soon it lost interest and turned back toward the greater concentration of humans.

But the Guard was fleeing fast. Though dozens lay dead, the majority of the warriors were escaping. Some had the presence of mind to protect their comrades' retreat, and with this handful stood the Eagle Knights, along with Corvine and a few of Riposte's crew.

"We can't abandon them," Gideon said.

"I knew you'd say that," Viridia said. "But let's get out from between these monsters."

"I suggest we flank the snake," said Ozrif. "It at least might be a natural creature. If you squint. We're more likely to find a weak point."

They circled the monstrosity, which took considerable time and breath. By the time they came around the other side, it was making lunges against the ragtag gang that opposed it.

"We have to distract it." Gideon commenced drawing imaginary swirling, spiraling patterns in the air, muttering words to his hypnotic spell.

The beast ignored him.

"Hey!" he yelled, throwing a rock.

The beast turned toward him.

"Hi," he said. It had extremely large, sharp fangs, and quite a deep gullet. The sight was rather hypnotic in its own right—

"Gideon!" yelled Corvine. "Run, you fool!"

"Ah!" Gideon managed, even as Viridia dragged him sideways. Ozrif had a different idea.

"A little juggling enhancer." Ozrif drew a dagger. "I've yet to try it in combat..."

Meanwhile Corvine gestured toward the snake, mimicking Leothric's favorite spell. There was an explosion of sound, and the monster jerked its head around in her and Merrigail's direction.

Ozrif murmured to his dagger, juggled it once, caught it, and threw.

It bounced off the beast's scales, yet rather than fall to the earth, it flew back toward Ozrif like a boomerang.

However, this was not the only thing headed for Ozrif. The monster lurched anew toward the juggler, presenting its magnificent fangs.

"No!" Viridia yelled and ran toward Ozrif. Gideon, for his part, saw the earthen monstrosity nearing Corvine and shouted a warning, running hopelessly in her direction.

The snake's fangs, each as large as a two-handed sword, plunged down upon Ozrif—

And swung away. Like a dog hearing a whistle inaudible to humans, the thing appeared to recognize a signal. Rumbling and hissing, it began writhing its way back through the boulder-strewn landscape southward and into the woods beyond.

The rock-thing likewise ceased its attack, though rather than depart it simply collapsed upon the ground, becoming a pile of boulders and soil.

The dark cloud dispersed overhead, and the rain and wind ceased. Snow fell almost shyly in the aftermath.

Gideon ran up to Corvine and embraced her. "Glad you could make it," he said.

"Well. It wouldn't do for you to hog all the material."

They shivered there in each other's arms. Gideon had heard that surviving a brush with death was an ecstatic feeling, but he'd cause to question that now. Perhaps when a mouse fought another mouse, it was so. Today these mice had survived owls, and there was no joy in it, only the receding darkness of raw terror.

Or so it was for him. Merrigail seemed less affected. "It seems I've been deprived of a good fight."

"We caught up as quickly as we could," said Adebeyo. "Some of us insisted on joining the knights." He nodded toward four of Riposte's crew: the northlander Asta, the grim elven warrior Tyndron, the black-garbed sailor Dymphna, and the jovial half-orc Crallak.

"We're obliged to you all," said a Taldan in officer's livery, blinking through the snowflakes. "Though I wish more of us had escaped this...madness. That fog—"

"An evil force," Gideon said. "It's sent many to their destruction."

The Taldan nodded.

Ozrif and Corvine began casting what healing they could for the Guard, though this was akin to offering a thirsty man a thimble of water. Luckily there were other healers among them.

"If I may make a suggestion, Lieutenant," Merrigail said, "I'd leave the vicinity of the Wildwood Lodge immediately. There are Taldan representatives with me, and we'll speak to the druids."

"My captain will explain what he can, and assist you how he may," said Adebeyo.

"I concur," the Taldan lieutenant said. "I don't like these druids...Where are they?"

The druids in gray, black, and white had vanished, as had the vast serpent-thing, and any trace of their power save the remnants of the rock-thing. And the corpses.

"Bastards," Gideon said. "They won't even face us?"

"They have a sense of theater," Ozrif said as he returned to Viridia's side. "I'll give them that." Viridia leaned against Ozrif, looking pained.

"I'll give them a lot more, when I have the chance," Corvine said, rejoining them as well.

"Remember what you've seen," Merrigail cautioned, "and the danger we're in simply by being here."

Even so, it was perhaps another half-hour before they took their leave of the River Guard. Viridia needed to rest, not because she'd suffered direct injury, but because she'd pulled a muscle in her leg while running to Ozrif's side. The juggler was mortified, and busied himself with massaging her foot. For Viridia, this seemed to take some of the sting out the event.

This did mean that Gideon and Corvine had more work to do, for they could not stand aside while the Taldans saw to their dead. Even shocked by the druids' display of power, the guards didn't wish to abandon their comrades to Arenway's scavengers. But Gideon urged them not to bury the fallen but to bear them away in litters. With scores of people working, it was possible to construct the litters in a reasonable span, even when Merrigail cautioned them to use only fallen branches.

Gideon expected a new assault, either from the fog or the island itself, at any time. He was pleasantly surprised when the Taldans commenced their return without incident. As he and his companions walked—or limped—toward the druids' stronghold, he threw suspicious glances upon the wreckage of the earthen monster, whose mushrooms quivered in the breeze.

By now the snowfall had ceased and the sky had cleared, as if Arenway denied the violence of recent events. As the group descended the road's eastern slope, no one waited for them at the Lodge's entrance.

"A warning?" Corvine said. "A dare?"

"We have no choice but to enter," Gideon said. "We've been tested, I'm sure, and are still being tested."

They stepped inside. A rough-hewn chamber lay beyond the archway, lit by veins of glowing crystal within the rock.

No druids awaited them. Instead, staring up with unnervingly aware gazes were a raccoon, a frog, a gecko, and a sparrow. Less clearly aware, but waiting along with the others, were a grasshopper, a spider, and a centipede.

"Well," said Gideon. "Hello."

The sparrow darted up to one of Gideon's boots, pecked at it, then flitted to one of Corvine's boots and pecked there, too. Then it fluttered to one of seven passages leading into the dark.

"Seven paths," said Ozrif. "Seven animals. Well, I'm willing to go where this sparrow leads."

As he stepped forward, the raccoon tapped Ozrif's toes, patted Viridia's leg, and gestured toward a different passage.

"Seven animals," Viridia said, "seven passages, but fourteen of us. We're being split up."

"I don't like this," Merrigail said. "How could the druids have arranged just the right number of tunnels?" Even as she spoke, the grasshopper flew to her shoulder. "Eh?" she said, and it flew onto her comrade Kester's head. From there it flew into the darkness of a third tunnel. "There's a method to it," Merrigail said. "The pairs make sense."

"An eagle would've made more sense," muttered Kester.

Two more knights were paired by the centipede, and the last knight, along with the taciturn sailor Dymphna, was selected by the frog. Tyndron and Crallak were chosen by the gecko, and the spider picked Asta and Adebeyo.

"I think we've little choice but to accept the druids' hospitality," Adebeyo said.

"I hate hospitality," said Ozrif. "I much prefer contracts. With a contract, you know where you stand. With hospitality, you might find you're now obliged to send yearly gifts, or fight a duel, or marry the host's daughter."

"Let's be about it," Adebeyo said. "But let's not tarry, either. The captain's waiting for us."

Gideon took Corvine's hand. She nodded, and they followed the sparrow into a tunnel that switchbacked up and up. Light from the threads of crystal gave way to sunlight from small fissures in the rock. They emerged upon a wicker stairway winding its way up one of the great redwood trees beside the vast rock, and they could see no end to it. Far below they saw waves in the inlet next to the cliff.

"Alone at last," Gideon said.

"You, me, and an audience of a dozen druids, I'll wager."

"All right, as close to alone as I'm ever likely to get." He leaned closer, and seeing in her face that he was not unwelcome, kissed her.

After a time, they pulled apart. "Were my parents alive," Corvine said, "they'd ask you your intentions, Mister Gull."

She smiled as she said it. He recalled that her parents had perished by drowning when she was a girl. And yet she was willing to travel aboard ship, for the sake of her people.

"When we were first...entangled," he said, "before the Shadow School and all, we were rather less chaste."

She closed her eyes. "I remember."

"But it's more serious now. It means more."

"I think you're right."

"I think even this sparrow may be too much of an audience, and this setting too open. I think what I'd like is to bring you to my home in Carpenden, and let you meet my family, and consider if you'd want them as your own."

"Too fast, Gull! Too fast!"

"You asked my intentions."

"I didn't exactly ask, and I didn't exactly expect an answer."

"Ah."

"I'm not displeased you were ready to give one," she said, more gently.

"For a moment there, I feared perhaps there was someone else in your thoughts."

"Jealousy doesn't become you."

"That doesn't quite sound like a denial."

She pursed her lips. "It may be that someone isn't quite the man I thought he was, and it may be that someone else is more than I'd hoped."

"You do keep a man off balance."

"One does what one can." She considered the sky. "You spoke of your home. You haven't been there in a long time."

"I've been angry at my home."

"The winery, or Andoran?"

"Both, in a way. And I'm not certain I'd be welcome."

The sparrow chirped.

Corvine looked out at the water. "I'm certain. Come on, Gideon. Let's see what's wanted of us."

They followed the sparrow up, as the cold wind bit and they huddled close.

"It would be funny if the stairway ended in a trapdoor," Gideon said.

"No, it wouldn't."

They spotted Ozrif and Viridia climbing a similar stairway, more slowly, on the redwood tree opposite. The couples waved at each other, but their calls couldn't carry across the gulf. Snow blown from branches slapped their faces and encouraged them to look down. Although Gideon was trained to negotiate rooftops, this was a rather higher vantage. He doubted they would stay in one piece if they fell now.

They ascended into the branches.

It was a different world up there. The wind ebbed; snow melted in drips and slow crumbles. Pathways of wood and wicker twisted among the radiating branches and along the trunk, and here and there were hanging chambers of uncertain function. Gideon saw one stashed with books, another with goblets, a third with boxes of herbs. There were still no druids to be seen, although all around they heard the cries of birds. At the sparrow's direction they ascended past a platform ringed with fighting staves set into nooks, another with braziers still smoking from some ceremony whose participants were nowhere to be seen, and a third with a sigil drawn onto its planks with resin and gold dust.

"The sigil," Corvine said, "it's—"

"The same as beneath the ship."

The sparrow landed upon this platform, which hung by ropes from a quartet of stout branches. Here tree limbs blocked almost all sight. It was as if they stood in a green-walled room, where a cluster of irregularly shaped windows were fringed with snow-brushed needles.

As they looked, Gideon realized something odd about the view. "It's daytime out there..." he nodded in one direction.

"But nighttime over here."

"And here we look out upon a mountain..."

"And there an ocean."

"I see another tree through here, but it belongs in some southern jungle."

"And look down here. Stunted trees upon a frozen plain."

Gideon frowned. "Always more questions. What is this place? What does the symbol mean?" He looked for the sparrow as if expecting answers, but even the sparrow had gone.

A voice said, "It means 'Watch.'"

It was Estergraethe. She looked just as Gideon had left her. She bore an earthenware cup in either hand. Something steaming and smelling of grass, and possibly pickles, was in there. She handed a cup to each of them.

"This is for drinking, yes?" Gideon said. "All right, here goes." He chugged it down. The world seemed to spin, leap, spin once again, and finally settle down. His nostrils snorted like a bellows.

"If you like," said Estergraethe. "However, most of the effect can be gained by simply breathing the vapors."

"Oh." He felt twitchy, but more rested and alert than he had in days.

Corvine sniffed, and sipped. She made a face. "Thank you."

"This is Estergraethe," Gideon said, and coughed.

"I'm Corvine Gale."

Estergraethe said, "I know," and sat cross-legged at the center of the pattern.

"Should we sit as well?"

"That is up to you. I prefer comfort, but you are separate organisms, as much as anything can be separate, and I do not care to make too many assumptions."

"Why are we here?" said Gideon, sitting. Corvine joined him.

"You of the nations have an idea of hospitality. We of the Lodge have an idea of aptness. These ideas form a confluence at the present time."

"Why did those three druids test us?"

"'Test' is your notion."

"But there's something more going on, isn't there?"

"Something is hunting you."

"We're hunting the fog," said Corvine, frowning into the vapors of her cup.

"You're certain?" Estergraethe asked.

"What other interpretation is there?"

"I observe that your fog provokes mania. Your inquisitiveness about it is a kind of mania."

"So we should stop?" Gideon asked. "Let it come to us?"

"What has chasing it brought you?"

"Loss," Corvine said. "But someone must investigate."

"That's your nature."

"Here now," Gideon said. "I thank you for your hospitality. Truly. But you can't just act all wise and remote and never give us a direct answer. You're involved. Brother Zaganos painted this symbol on our ship, didn't he? Or he made it happen. Why?"

"I am not Zaganos," Estergraethe said. "I suspect he meant for various entities to watch your ship."

"Entities?" Corvine said.

"Creatures of the river. There is more to every piece of this world than you are aware."

"Creatures that speak to him?" Gideon said.

"Perhaps. Perhaps not. You will have to ask him. In any case, I will let you be."

"Excuse me?" Corvine said. "That's all? You brought us here to say nothing?"

"We brought several pairs of you to places where you might enjoy companionship, for it seems to us you need it as much as food. Some pairs are more companionable than others, of course. Some will fight. Some will share secrets. Some will mate. We chose as best we could. This seems to me a good place for you, Corvine of Cassomir and Gideon of Oppara and elsewhere. Enjoy."

The druid walked past the dumbfounded Gideon.

"No," said Corvine, rising.

"What?" said the druid.

"You heard me," Corvine said, crossing her arms. "People have died. We've all fought. You yourselves placed us in danger. We've been traveling and traveling, and all we've done is catalog and treat symptoms of a disease. We need to fight the cause!" She waved her arm to take in the chamber. "This place can spy distant vistas, no? Use it to seek the source of the fog."

Estergraethe frowned. "Do you truly think we never thought to do this? When Zaganos reported your troubles, we did investigate, out of curiosity. When we scried for the source, it was hidden from us."

"Surely beings of your power..." Gideon began, and was again interrupted. It was like talking through a storm.

"Oh, we could exert ourselves and find this threat. This seems unwarranted, however. As it's mainly a danger to the nations, the nations should have the ability to cope."

"So that's it. You want to know if Taldor and Andoran can deal with the fog on their own."

"There are always ants," Estergraethe said. "What is not always the same are the particular colonies, or their spread. We would regret the loss of ant-kind in its entirety. But we will not go out of our way to guard this colony or that."

"This ant asks your help," Corvine said. "Scry for us. Today you've seen the fog for yourself. That will surely help you in the attempt."

Estergraethe smiled. "Why should I help a particular ant, if I balk at aiding a particular colony?"

"Because you were once an ant."

Estergraethe slowly nodded. "A human, rather. I was once rather like you, Corvine of Cassomir, a hundred years and a winter's day ago. Very well. This one thing."

Estergraethe closed her eyes. She murmured peculiar syllables. To Gideon's mind, it sounded like the chirping of a sparrow.

All the openings in the boughs blurred and swirled with new images: fog on the river; fog on the wharf; fog in an alley, in the woods, coiling over rooftop and road. A man bellowed silently, waving an unseen flag. Two boys swung sticks against each other. Two girls regarded each other with crossed arms and icy stares, a third girl crying between them. A woman prayed before an unseen altar before drawing a dagger with a murderous grin.

Corvine looked from image to image. "There. What's that?"

There was a granite cliff face upon the river. Waters swirled beneath it, caught in a back-current that resembled soup swirling in a cauldron.

Gideon squinted. There was something different about this scene. Something that called to him. "Does that rock formation seem familiar to you?"

"No," said Corvine. "Estergraethe, you're a century old. Have you ever seen this?"

The druid slowly nodded. "I rarely leave the island, but this reminds me of a spot along the Verduran Fork, some ways upstream from here. But it also calls to mind a place north of Bellis..."

Something changed within the scene. Gideon saw fog reaching up from the churn, for all the world resembling a feminine hand with dainty, cloud-like joints.

"What is that?" Corvine said.

"My Desdimira," Gideon said, his throat try. "My muse."

Don't trust ...

All the visions went white. Estergraethe opened her eyes. "Interesting. In some way unknown to me, the fog cloaked itself more deeply. It is more potent than I imagined."

Corvine cocked an eyebrow. "Enough to worry the druids?"

"No." Estergraethe smiled faintly. "I'm still uncertain as to which river we saw, the Sellen or the Verduran Fork. It was too brief a glimpse. I will not attempt this again."

"It would make sense if the location was Bellis," Gideon said. "Everything points there."

"You may ask your captain. He is coming for you."

The white had faded from some of the openings. Through one Gideon saw Sebastian and Grizzendell ascending the winding wicker stairway. Through another, he saw Riposte now at anchor in the cove below the lodge. And now he could see the Mistress of Stillness and Motion, standing within Headmaster Xeritian's office and scratching her chin. In a nearby gap, the agitator Savaric lay facedown in a prison cell, a Qadiran dagger beside him, a dark red pool beneath.

Distantly, Gideon could hear the voice of Sebastian calling from far below. Gull! Gale!

"Each of you has had respite. It is time for our dynamic tranquility to return. You must take your unbalanced psyches away from here."

"Respite?" Gideon said. "But we spent it talking to you. He looked at Corvine nonplussed. "We might have...I mean..."

"Come along, Gideon," Corvine said, with a sigh and an eye-roll.

"Druids," Gideon muttered.

"Men," Corvine said.

Estergraethe didn't follow as they descended the wicker stairway toward the captain, who approached with the quartermaster puffing alongside.

"There you are," Sebastian said. "I have it on good authority from the druids that we should be leaving. I'm inclined to believe them. The River Guard has given us provisions and a few reinforcements."

"How did you get here so quickly?" Gideon asked.

Sebastian looked puzzled. "Quickly? You've been gone half a day. When the River Guard returned without you, we brought the ship around."

Gideon looked up at the sun and saw that it was true. "Druids," he said again, and shook his head.

"The druids gave us a direction, Captain," Corvine said, and filled him in.

Grizzendell, between ragged breaths, said, "At last. I'm tired of wild fog chases. Also, stairs. But which way?"

"I think Mister Gull's correct," Sebastian said. "There are no reports of trouble on the Verduran Fork. Bellis, however...Gideon, it may be that what you confronted as a child has reawakened. Are you ready to confront it? Whatever the truth reveals?"

Gideon looked across the way and noticed Ozrif and Viridia descending their own redwood, waving, laughing, leaning against each other, and laughing some more.

Corvine patted him on the shoulder. "We'll have our respite someday. Perhaps in Bellis."

"Druids," he muttered a final time, looking beyond Ozrif and Viridia to the snow-covered ground where so many fog-possessed guards had fallen.

Then: "I'm ready."

Chapter Fourteen

Fugue for Lost Souls

Riposte was a subdued ship as it traveled beyond the Isle. The heart of the Verduran Forest now lay to starboard, and the crew felt watched by trees and brambles, stalked by sounds of owls and wolves, mocked by fireflies and frog croaks. And although tiny settlements still appeared on the Andoren side of the river, these seemed more tentative, less at ease in their surroundings. The emissaries of the Shadow School agreed they wouldn't question any more villagers, but make best speed to Bellis, and Gideon was just as glad not to touch shore. The druid encounter had left him uneasy about these lands.

Those who'd entered the Lodge were reluctant to speak of their experiences.

"Don't expect a report from me," Merrigail said. "A lot of druidic nonsense." She turned to Kester. "That's your opinion, too."

"Yes, ma'am," said Kester with a grim look.

"I have nothing to say either," said Ozrif with a smile. Viridia squeezed his hand.

"But you are not-saying it quite loudly," Corvine said, not unkindly. "Viridia, did the druids not mend your leg?"

Viridia frowned. "No. Our raccoon friend said something about natural recovery, but personally, I think he was just lazy. I didn't press the matter. It's not like a battle injury."

"It's an injury," said Gideon, "and it happened in battle."

"You know what I mean. It's mostly fine now, except when I try to jump. Then there's excruciating pain."

"I'll apply magic tomorrow," Ozrif said.

Silence fell upon the group; all the talk of Arenway left them spent. Work occupied them for a time, and in late afternoon Gideon and Corvine took a break at the bow. They were too tired and preoccupied to speak, but it was pleasant to be weary beside each other.

The sound of splashing made them look up. "What's that in the water?" Corvine said.

"It's a woman!" Gideon said.

"Help!" cried the woman, her accent Andoren. She was beautiful, but pale and shivering as she clutched a fragment of hull. It was as though a ship had shattered in a storm—the sort of storm that should never occur on a river.

"Hang on!" Gideon yelled. "Help's coming!" To Corvine he said, "She's drifting past. I'll jump down." He stood upon the edge. "You alert the crew."

"Oh, help, help! Are there no men in this age?"

"I'm coming!" Gideon cried; and the brave smile the castaway threw him made him feel strong and proud. A small quiet voice within him wondered at his own reaction—but he hesitated only long enough to grab a line before leaping.

Corvine was shouting something, and it sounded angry. That was not his problem, however. He swam to the woman, the cold water snatching away his heat. "Take my hand."

Her grip was like a rockfall. He squeaked and flailed.

"I haven't fed in too many days."

"We have...plenty of food...on board..."

"I can't go to your ship, delicious man. The druid-sign won't allow it. But since you've come to me..."

Gideon was still entranced by her beauty, and if it weren't for Corvine's furious voice, he might never have broken the spell. But he knew Corvine's rage was on his own behalf, and it helped him resist.

"What are you singing, man?" the woman—if indeed she was a woman—asked sweetly.

"'Haul away for Arcadia,'" Gideon said, and completed the spell.

The line in his other hand snaked out and snared the pale woman.

He jerked free of her grip and swam to the ship. As if this were a signal, crossbow bolts shot from overhead. Several hit the woman, who hissed and dove. Someone threw Gideon a fresh line, and he ascended.

Corvine met him as he came aboard, and as he reached out to her, she slapped him.

"Idiot! Come see what you were trying to save."

Down in the water floated a nauseating thing that looked something like a horse-headed humanoid with slime-covered, transparent skin revealing unmoving organs, bones, and viscera. Its snout ended in long, cruel teeth.

Grizzendell and Lunette were there, armed with crossbows. "A kelpie," Corvine said. "Anyone who desires women is particularly vulnerable to their enchantments."

"They can also look like horses," Grizzendell said. "Some people desire a good mount." He paused. "It's possible that didn't sound quite the way I intended."

"I thank you for your aim," said Gideon, shivering. "And your good sense," he told Corvine.

"Remember that," Corvine said. "Come on, let's get you warm clothes."

Belowdecks, with a curtain drawn for privacy, Corvine helped him undress. Her gruff manner suggested no interest in intimacy as such. And yet she took care in making certain he was all right.

"Corvine—"

"Just—let me be angry. It's easier if I just let the feeling run its course. You didn't mean to almost die. Stupidly. Without us understanding what we are to each other."

"I have no intention of dying. Or letting you die."

"You almost killed me right there, you know."

"You'd be all right." Gideon hesitated a breath, before putting on a change of clothes and wringing out his wet shirt and breeches, holding them out an open porthole and letting the water drip.

"That's not for you to say. It's an odd enough life, the life of music, but when you add the magic of the bards...There are few who can understand, Gideon. Few who can share the life." She paused. "I was married once. Briefly."

Having nearly died, there was little that could have shocked Gideon then; but that did the trick.

"You've never mentioned it."

"I feared your reaction."

"I have no idea what my reaction is. Did he die? What happened?"

"He didn't die. He put me aside because I never got pregnant. As far as I know he's still in Old Sehir, with a wife who's obligingly providing new farm hands."

"What an idiot!"

She shrugged; but her gaze was hard. "What's done is done. But if I was to be a discarded woman, I thought, I might as well give up respectability entirely, and take up a new life in Cassomir."

"Why tell me this now?"

"I don't know. Except that death is all around, and I might never get to say it. And perhaps—just perhaps—you should know I'll likely never have children. Did you never wonder about that, when we behaved so, ah, ferociously in bed, years ago?"

"I confess it wasn't on my mind."

"Men."

"Yes, I suppose so. Forgive me."

"For this, yes. If you get yourself killed, no."

Then they were silent, as the river churned outside the portholes. There was too much they might say, too much they'd already said.

"It doesn't matter to me," he told her.

"That may be true. Now. But Later is a large, unknown country."

"When I reach Later, I'll be the same man who had to march through Now. So. You're right about death being near. So I ask you to share something else with me."

She stared. "We talked about this before. It's not that I don't want to, but it doesn't seem right, just here and now."

Gideon laughed. "Life is short. But that isn't what I meant. You're more skilled in magic than I. I've focused on spells that could help a performance, not on spells that could keep me alive. Will you teach me?"

"Oh."

"I can't always rely on having friends with good sense. Or friends with crossbows."

She nodded. "I'll teach you. As for the rest..."

"If it doesn't seem right, it doesn't seem right. I can wait."

"You may have become a trifle wiser. It is more serious now. You've changed."

He smirked. "Now I'm not a lost fish you can easily throw back?"

"That's a cold way to look at it."

"I apologize. Thanks to you I feel warm again."

"Let's talk spells."

They sat upon neighboring hammocks, and Corvine revealed how she'd been emulating Leothric's spell of sonic violence. Gradually, Gideon learned the trick too. It turned out it normally required a musical instrument to cast, but Leothric had managed with puppetry. Gideon guiltily admitted to himself that Leothric may have been cleverer than they ever gave him credit for.

Afterward, he was on deck practicing late at night, long after most of the crew had turned in, leaving a night's watch guiding Riposte in the half-moon's light. His shipmates' snickering assumptions as to his and Corvine's activities were thankfully done. Ozrif, perhaps partly out of mercy toward Gideon, deflected some of the ribbing by asking Corvine for help with the spell for summoning a messenger beast. Gideon was grateful. Although he didn't exactly mind having a romantic reputation, the jokes quickly wore thin.

He was considering different mnemonic devices for the spell, wondering what songs of violence might serve as his access point, when he saw something moving along the riverbank to the northeast.

He peered, and as clouds parted overhead, he sucked in his breath.

An insectile monster padded at the edge of the shore. Not on the landward edge, but upon the water itself. It put Gideon in mind of both a humanoid and a beetle, but its span was enough to match a great boar.

Something colder than the frosty air took hold, and his mind surveyed the magical formulae of the spell Corvine had taught, letting him shape sound to blast the entity out of the water...

He stopped. There'd been too much death, and he didn't truly know if the creature represented friend or foe—or simply a hallucination on his part.

"What are you?" he murmured.

As if in response to his words, the thing seemed to skitter into the undergrowth. However, the moon was at that moment obscured by clouds, so it was hard to be certain.

It occurred to him later that the entity, if it had truly existed, might have been outside the spell's range. Even so, it felt good to stand in the icy dark, knowing he had chosen mercy.

Even if it was the mercy of the mad.

∗ ∗ ∗

Riposte was perhaps a day or two from Bellis when it came upon a vessel drifting on the river. It was a keelboat bearing a checkerboard flag in red and blue, twin shining swords upon two of the blue diamonds.

"A Mendevian ship," said Sebastian. "Crusaders."

Hundreds of miles up the Sellen, Gideon recalled, after one passed the Verduran Forest and the blood-spattered land of Galt, leaving behind the lands of dwarves and elves, one at last came to the Lake of Mists and Veils, and on its shores, besieged Mendev. Since the death of the god Aroden and the calamities that followed, hordes of demons had invaded the world, and for now Mendev was their chief target. It took a steady stream of crusaders, recruited by many and varied goodly faiths, to keep Mendev alive. This vessel was a reminder that for all Gideon's preoccupation with matters of Taldor and Andoran, there was a wider world out there, with its own problems.

But it was more than that. The keelboat drifted, no sign of people on board, and no sign of any trouble. The day was cold but bright, and there was no fog, eldritch or natural.

"I don't like this," Sebastian said.

"Nor I," said Merrigail.

"I'm going to board her. Grizzendell, Tyndron, you're with me."

"Why would you take this risk, Sebastian?" asked Merrigail.

"Honest curiosity. This seems a problem of a different nature than those we've encountered thus far. It might be refreshing."

"Kester and I will join you."

"That hardly seems necessary."

She gripped his arm. "I insist."

When Sebastian was silent, staring at her hand, Gideon coughed and said, "I think a couple of us bards ought to come too."

"What is this, a session of the Senate?" Sebastian chuckled. "Very well, you and Ozrif will join us."

"Is there some reason the female bards are excluded?" Viridia asked.

Sebastian sighed. "Luck of the draw, Viridia. You still have a limp. Corvine's valuable but not truly under my command. And there's not much room in the dinghy."

Before long the boarding party ascended a weighted line thrown from the ship's boat. Riposte held off a respectable distance, crossbows and ballista ready.

The keelboat had a long open deck with a blocky two-level cabin sternward, and three pairs of oars in the bow. It could be operated by minimal crew and carry several passengers.

No such crew or passengers were apparent.

"Hello the ship!" called Sebastian. "We are of Taldor."

"And Andoran!" called Merrigail.

"And Katapesh!" said Ozrif. To the glares of the leaders, he said, "Well, one does retain a dash of pride—"

The cabin's lower door burst open.

The suddenness of the attack, and the ferocity of the attackers, left even the veterans of Riposte's journey flat-footed. Emaciated Mendevians scrambled onto the deck in torn rags of clothing, bloodstains upon their skin, screeching.

They were upon the stony-faced Kester before he could do more than swing his sword in that direction, and they overbore him, knocking him toward the water.

Merrigail was at his side immediately, but she was hard-pressed herself. The crazed Mendevians had swords and daggers of their own.

From several of the frothers, singing in perfect unison, came the eerie sound of a lullaby.

Moon and stars are gathered bright
At the coming of the night.
Woodland creatures rest their eyes
'Neath the glory of the skies.
Baby yawns and yearns to sleep
Like the beasts of forest deep.
Baby rest and sleep away
All the worries of the day.
Shiny dreams will visit soon
Gathered by the stars and moon.

The song was more unnerving than the screeches.

"Back!" Sebastian cried as if slapped, a cutlass out and swinging fast. Grizzendell was howling some sort of maniacal gnome war cry. Or perhaps just howling.

Gideon's own course seemed clear. He pulled out his harp and readied Leothric's spell, then dove into the midst of the madfolk and released the wave of sound.

Perhaps half of the enemy sank to their knees, hands over their ears.

The other half turned, looking ready to eat fresh bard.

It was enough to turn the tide, however, especially when Ozrif began incanting, blowing a blast of river sand upon the Mendevians. Four of them toppled over, asleep.

Ozrif grinned. "I've been studying magic, too, with Viridia..."

"Less gloating, more fighting!"

Gideon grappled with a Mendevian woman who tried to cut his throat with a dagger. He wrestled her against Kester, nearly toppling them all overboard. But now Kester had found his wind. With the flat of his sword, he knocked the Mendevian unconscious.

"Thanks," Gideon gasped, then looked up to find the battle won.

The party from Riposte busied themselves binding the Mendevians. Luckily, no one had been killed on either side, although Sebastian had taken a nasty cut on the arm, and two of the Mendevians had suffered similarly deep wounds.

There were ten prisoners, which surprised Gideon; in the rush they'd appeared more like twenty.

"They seemed like frothers, yet there's no fog."

"I agree," Merrigail said. She looked toward Sebastian, but he was peering into the river, preoccupied with his thoughts. Merrigail knelt beside the woman who'd tried to kill Gideon, and whose garb suggested she was captain. "Kester, bring water."

"As you wish, ma'am."

Merrigail splashed the captain's face with the water and said, "Captain! Captain! Give account of your ship!"

"I—I...what am I doing here?"

Sebastian came over and knelt beside her. "What's the last you remember?"

The Mendevian captain shook. "We were headed downriver to pick up more crusaders in Cassomir. The fog..."

"An unnatural fog?" Gideon said. "With tints of green?"

"Yes...we hid inside the cabin. Prayers...I have training as a priestess...but the fog got in eventually. There were fourteen of us...every so often we would...Don't want to think..."

"The fog is gone now."

"You're certain? I—I see it all the time...inside my eyes..."

"It's marked them," Ozrif said, and the juggler's usual jocularity was gone. "It still lives inside their minds."

"This shouldn't be," Sebastian said. "Even if someone intended it as a weapon, isn't this too much?" After a long look into the dark woods he added, "Nothing this hateful ought to exist."

"Perhaps the druids could help them," Merrigail said. "Some of us could steer the ship back to Arenway."

"The druids have little interest in us."

"The river fort, then. Your Guard will surely assist. I'll send a knight. Kester—"

"I'll go, ma'am," the knight said.

"You're certain? It may not be easy."

"I think it's for the best. Ma'am."

"One's not enough," Sebastian said. "I urge you to take at least two of your knights. I'll send two of the guards the fort loaned us..."

Ozrif tugged Gideon aside. "Gideon. I'll go too."

"What?"

"I'll need your help to cool Viridia's anger."

"But—Viridia—I thought—"

"Oh, I'm delighted to be her companion. But on the Isle we talked of many things. Neither of us wishes to be bound to the other. And the Isle fascinated me. I would welcome the chance to visit it again."

"I confess, Ozrif, I've never understood you and Viridia."

"No couple is truly explicable from the outside, friend. This much I've learned."

"It's not just that. Your business is your business." Gideon looked north, upriver. "But I feel unequal to what lies ahead."

Ozrif nodded. "Bellis is the site of your great nightmare." He looked around the keelboat. "Just as my great nightmare, my family's destruction by the Taldan navy, came aboard a ship. Perhaps that's why I can't abandon these people. There's a saying I heard from Headmaster Xeritian: Calm outside, storm inside; storm outside, calm inside. Sometimes we cannot find our inner strength without a challenge. Sometimes the lack of a challenge will drive us to madness."

"Like much of what Xeritian said, I don't understand. And I'm afraid I'm feeling storm outside, storm inside. Inadequate to the task at hand. I lack your calm competence."

"Well. There's an odd thing about juggling, from the juggler's perspective. What impresses the crowd may not be quite as impressive to the performer. To manipulate three flaming torches is indeed fine to watch, but it may not be as technically challenging as tossing six ordinary clubs. I wonder sometimes if the most proficient heroes of the art of living aren't in fact doing the equivalent of juggling a dozen prosaic objects."

Merrigail and Sebastian were now arguing about something, Gideon couldn't be sure what.

Ozrif went on, "As long as I've known you, you've been juggling many things."

"I'll go on doing so," Gideon said. "Our hometown priest of Erastil sometimes said what's demanded of us is not so much that we triumph but that we show up. Well, I can promise that much. I hope we'll meet again."

∗ ∗ ∗

In the end, Ozrif went with the sailors named Favian and Krypt, the Eagle Knights Kester and Windcroft, and a few of the River Guards loaned by the fort. Gideon was surprised Merrigail would let her second-in-command go, but Sebastian had urged her to send an even stronger force, and there was no chance she herself would leave Riposte.

I sensed her thoughts ...don't trust ...

No, a foolish stray notion. There was no sense mistrusting every female aboard. It made as much sense to mistrust Corvine, or Viridia.

Viridia, for her part, surprised Gideon. She was by no means pleased to see Ozrif go, but her reaction was much as Ozrif's. "If this is how he copes with his past, by saving a ship, when his family died on a ship...that's his business, and I hope it helps him. But if I never see him again, I'll kill him."

"I'm not certain that makes sense," Gideon said.

"There are ways."

Sebastian looked distant, watching the keelboat depart, and Ozrif waving.

"You all right?" Gideon asked.

"It's nothing. The lullaby the frothers sang...my mother used to sing it."

"It's an unusual tune. Elven? It must take you back."

"It does."

Into the silence that followed, Corvine said, "On to Bellis then?"

"To Bellis," Sebastian murmured. "With a depleted crew." More quietly he added, so only Gideon could hear, "Depleted because of my mistakes."

Together they watched the Mendevian ship depart.

Chapter Fifteen

Rhapsody in Mist

A sickle moon rose high as Riposte neared Bellis. The dark shapes of snow-covered trees rose all around like misshapen frost giants. Bellis's many beehives would be dormant in this cold.

Sebastian was about to drop anchor, for the bright moonlight of their early voyaging had gone, and he was reluctant to proceed in the dark. Then they saw light.

And wished they hadn't. A tangle of red blazes flared upriver; the clouds above that spot glowed a hazy orange.

"Damn it," Gideon muttered.

"What's happened?" Viridia asked.

"The fog?" Corvine said.

"Bellis is ablaze," Sebastian said.

"We must keep going and help them," Merrigail said.

Sebastian's voice was tense. "And if my ship hits a hazard?"

"A fire like that could leap the Sellen, and burn the forest on the other side. Do you not have an obligation under the Wildwood Treaty?"

"I honestly don't know. Even if I asked a druid, I don't think I'd know." Sebastian shook his head. "But there's something unarguable about you, Commander Hannison. If you insist, I'll take you there."

She hesitated. "Thank you, Captain Tambour."

"Don't thank me, Merrigail. Not for this. I don't know exactly what will happen, but I doubt you'll like it."

It was over an hour before they drew near the town. By then they were already hearing the screams.

As they approached the docks, they saw the town lit with fires in two dozen places, the fury of the blazes blurred and blotched from a thick foggy haze that hung everywhere. Shrieks and shouts and bellowed threats accompanied shadowy figures who darted here and there, never in sight for long. Gideon thought most of the figures looked human, but their aspect and energy recalled wild beasts. The wharf was abandoned.

"I think we'll learn little by landing," Sebastian said, with a hopeless note to his voice. "Best to stay offshore and wait for morning. By then the chaos may have ceased and we can question the inhabitants in safety."

"Safety!" said Merrigail. "Questioning! These are my people, Tambour. Even if you Taldans choose to lurk offshore, I swore an oath to help them. Take us to the docks, or we'll swim."

Sebastian smiled faintly. "I think your knights would find that difficult while wearing armor."

"They're Eagle Knights, sir. Armor is optional. Honor is not."

"No doubt. We'll bring you to the docks, brave lady. When you can, I suggest you make your way north. That's where the rock formation lies, that the druids scried. We'll meet you there in the morning and investigate it together."

"Thank you."

Sebastian barked his orders, then gravely added, "Once again, I'm not certain you should thank me, Merrigail. Sanity no longer holds sway on this voyage."

"I'm where I'm needed, Sebastian. That's all I ever asked for." She hesitated, then stepped close and gripped his shoulder. "I might prefer an honest fight with slavers, with a...good companion by my side. But destiny gave me this. I'm content."

Sebastian studied her face a long moment, then put his hand upon hers. "Forgive me for saying so, but I fear we'll not meet again. Not like this. This privateer and spy has found it an honor, woman of Andoran."

She nodded. "You worry too much, man of Taldor. But this knight is grateful to have known you."

"How I wish I might hear you say that again."

"You've lost faith, Sebastian."

"I've seen too much to have ever had it."

Gideon cleared his throat. "Sebastian. If they're going, I will as well."

"And I," said Corvine.

Sebastian closed his eyes. "I could command you not to, but I sense that would be useless. Let me make one futile attempt. Gideon, you've seen this community go mad once before. Think what it cost you then."

"You know that's exactly why I must go now."

"I regret saying this, but I believe you were right: that your people, the Andorens, who have cast off tradition for freedom, are more susceptible to the fog."

Merrigail smiled sadly and stepped away from Sebastian.

"And more than that," Sebastian said to Gideon, his eyes following the Eagle Knight. "You've felt that the fog's linked to you. That a voice calls to you from within it."

"How do you know all this?" Gideon asked.

"As I've said before, it's my business to know. In any case, we've never seen the fog so concentrated as here. What may happen to you in there, away from help?"

"I'll be with him," Corvine said. She took Gideon's hand.

He squeezed back. "I have to do this, Sebastian."

"Well. Perhaps this is how it must be. We make our choices, set out on our road, never realizing the bridge is collapsing behind us. Choice becomes destiny...I suppose you're going as well, Viridia?"

Viridia shook her head. "Poor Sebastian. Someone must heed his warnings! More seriously, Gideon, my leg hasn't quite recovered. If it were merely fire and fog and frothers, I might be tempted. But with this limp, I'll stay with the ship."

"We'll see you soon," Gideon said, hoping it was true.

As Riposte pulled alongside a pier, the riggers Crallak and Tyndron, with the bosun Zethril, scrambled overboard carrying lines. They tied off while Weaponmaster Kendrigan had the crossbows trained on the waterfront. Gideon noted again that the two elves, Tyndron and Zethril, avoided communicating as much as possible. Nothing menaced the crew, though the shrieks from within the fog continued without pause. Sebastian lowered the ramp and directed the sailors Asta and Dymphna to guard the approach to the ship.

Merrigail led the little party of knights and bards toward the town. The abandoned pier was slippery from the snowfall. "I spotted a chapel to Shelyn a short distance south of here," Gideon said. "It looked undamaged. Perhaps they're able to resist the fog."

"If so," Merrigail said, "that's not where we're needed."

A pox on all knights, Gideon thought, and anyone else who won't look before leaping. "This is a town of thousands," he said. "We could be overwhelmed by a mob. Best to gather information first."

Gideon could sense Merrigail's struggle to be diplomatic. "That's a reasonable conclusion for a spy. As I told Sebastian, however, I have a duty. You may investigate the chapel if you wish. I suggest you look for us on the north side. We'll help whom we can, then withdraw to the rock formation."

Gideon looked at Corvine, who said, "I'll stick with you, Gideon. Good luck, Merrigail."

Merrigail nodded and led her knights upslope, into the streets and the fog. Gideon and Corvine turned south.

"You look troubled," Corvine said.

"Sebastian often seems to know more than I've shared," Gideon said. "And more than that, he didn't try very hard to keep us aboard. I think he's afraid for us, but there's something else. I wonder if in some way he actually wants us to encounter the fog..."

"You're starting to see hidden agendas everywhere."

"Well, it is my job. Will be my job..."

The path crossed a stream via a stone bridge. Between bards and bridge lay a vaporous veil, laced with a dim green glow.

"It's only a little bit of evil fog..." Gideon said, as they plunged in.

His skin felt clammy, and he heard a voice in his mind. It was the same presence whose touch he'd felt on the Rhapsodic College's roof, and it sang in the voice of doomed Desdimira from Wanderloss, the opera from which the ghost ship had taken its shape. The tune was somehow familiar, but he couldn't place it.

Frost and fate are gathered here
At the turning of the year
Bones of creatures scattered there
Never more to rend and tear
Lovers' ashes fed the trees
Hear them sighing on the breeze
Darling, come and learn their fate
Let us share both love and hate
Ever will you warm the lost
Gathered here by fate and frost.

"No thanks," Gideon muttered.

"What was that?" Corvine asked.

"Talking to myself," Gideon said. "I'll explain later."

"No," she said. "I mean, what was that noise?"

From a fog-shrouded street, dozens of dark shapes rushed toward them.

The bards sprinted across the stone bridge, and the figures dashed after, yowling.

"There's another bridge," Gideon said. "Maybe we can make a stand..."

"Too many..."

They hurtled over the second bridge, their footfalls pounding against its wood, and reached a little peninsula that might have been lovely in the spring, but which was now filled with sinister, red-lit shadows. Gideon saw a thorny rose garden to his right, a gazebo to his left. Nothing leapt out at them, however. Sheltered by leafless trees, a simple stone structure rose ahead. The two great doors of carven wood displayed capering satyrs and laughing nymphs. The doors were slightly parted, and a woman's face peeked out. She possessed a complex bundle of dark hair, a lean and pale visage, and a robe of swirling colors.

She also carried a crossbow.

"State your business!"

"We're seeking shelter—"

"We arrived on a ship—"

"Well, for Shelyn's sake, get your butts in here. There are madmen about."

Gideon and Corvine rushed inside; they helped the priestess shut and brace the doors.

Soon there came a pounding and creaking as many bodies slammed against the barrier.

Eventually the screeches outside ebbed and the banging ceased.

Gideon and Corvine looked around. They found themselves in a sanctuary lit by a single hooded lantern. Gideon discerned a wounded halfling lying upon a pew. And he could hardly miss the human-sized stone statue of the love goddess herself, her silver eyes kind, her outstretched arm sheltering a white stone songbird plumed with multihued tail-feathers. Behind the statue cowered a mother and three children.

"I've driven off two attacks," the priestess said, setting down the crossbow, "and while Shelyn is generous, she doesn't grant me endless spells. Likewise, not every visitor's a frother. So I have to risk opening the doors and asking questions." She squinted at Gideon and Corvine. "Now, you two are new to me. And I think I would remember you. You have the troublemaker look."

"Well, thanks," said Gideon. "Yes, we've just arrived, as my companion said."

"You're Taldan," Corvine said to the priestess, recognizing the accent.

"Well, so are you. The name's Albercroft. I emigrated years ago, became a citizen even. The priesthood sometimes encourages us to travel. Love knows no boundaries and all that. But I also love Andoran. Fitting in, though, that's something else. I don't think they've ever really accepted me."

"That's all in your head," said the halfling on the pew.

"You've been good to Bellis," said the mother huddled with her children. "Sometimes your manner seems strange, but that's no matter."

Albercroft grunted. "Perhaps I imagine more trouble than's truly there. But today...today I've heard the most horrible things. Did you know we Taldans drink the blood of children? That half of us are possessed by demons? That we conspire with the druids and burn Andorens inside great effigies of wicker?"

Gideon said, "The fog takes what festers in people's minds and magnifies it. Please forgive the people of Bellis, Mistress Albercroft." As I struggle to forgive them myself.

"You here to fight this thing?"

"We came with a group of Eagle Knights," Corvine said.

"Hope you've got a hundred," Albercroft said.

"Well..." Gideon said. "Three."

"When did this begin?" Corvine said.

"Around sunset. The fog rose like a giant octopus from the river. Hundreds of tendrils, like fingers or tentacles. Some of the tentacles had snarling faces on the ends. Not everyone could see it, but whether they saw it or not, it got into people's heads. Folk went mad."

"There were more and more of them," said the mother. "My friends and neighbors. One of them—you know him, priestess, Tovoy the cooper—today he was waving the Andoren flag around, and if people wouldn't kiss the ground beneath, he'd club them with it. 'I love my country,' I said, 'but I won't worship the flag like it was an idol.' He said I was a traitor and that he'd kill my kids. And Widow Nelyn, my best friend! She said if my husband was a real Andoren he wouldn't be off in Almas on business. Almas! Talking about the capital like it was a foreign land! They were going mad." The woman looked to her children, and up at the statue of Shelyn. "I know if I'd just lied and pretended to go along, they wouldn't have burned our home. I don't know why I had to be stubborn. I don't know why they turned and I didn't..."

"Some are tougher-willed than others," said the priestess. "Just as some are quicker, or brighter, or stronger. It's just not as obvious a gift. You have it, and I'm glad of that."

"So it's a gift?" the mother demanded, her voice starting to break. "To be hated? To be called a traitor, and a freak, and worse? To have my children threatened? Better to be one of the herd!" She shook her head. "I don't understand. I've never seen people act like this."

The halfling chuckled. "Never? I grew up in Cheliax. It's not an accident I came here, to Andoran, and as far away from the Chelish border as possible. We're not loved there, we small folk. They call us 'slips,' and being enslaved is hardly the worst fate for those of us trapped in that devil-loving place. I know in my gut what hate is. It's power. If you get your people to hate, you can get them to do anything, accept anything. There's just one catch: once you've unleashed the beast, you have to feed it meat."

"You've never spoken of this," said the priestess.

"I wanted to leave it all behind. That's why I stowed away in a crate one day. For once, being short had its perks! But it looks like it's all come round to follow me. Mark my words, good investigators, if that's what you really are. This fog is the work of Cheliax. Only they understand hate so well."

"Have you seen anything?" Gideon asked. "Anything that would link this business to Cheliax?"

"No," the halfling admitted. The priestess and the mother shook their heads.

"I—" began the oldest child, a girl of perhaps thirteen.

"Hush," said her mother.

"Mother, please, I saw—"

"You're always imagining things."

Gideon cleared his throat. "Even imagined things might be relevant," he said, "given the magical nature of these events."

"Very well," said the mother.

Having gotten permission, the girl became silent.

Gently, Corvine said, "What can you tell us?" She smiled a little. "You see things others miss, don't you? I can tell."

Corvine had, through mannerisms Gideon couldn't quite articulate, assumed the mantle of the wise young-grownup woman, the friend who knows things your mother doesn't want you to know—the confidante, the woman you'll become someday, sooner than you think.

The girl was charmed. So was Gideon.

"It's the new barbershop," the girl said. "The one with the man from Absalom. Mister Waxbill."

"Mister Waxbill is just a nice old man," the mother said. "After what you just heard about hate, you accuse someone because he's from a distant land?"

"I'm not saying it because of who he is," insisted the girl. "I'm saying it because of what I saw. I don't even know if Mister Waxbill's part of it."

"Please go on," said Corvine.

"A few times I've seen these men go down the storm cellar at Waxbill's. Foreigners. They'd carry lots of things down there, and not come up with much."

"What sort of things?"

"Barrels. But funny barrels. Made of metal, they were. The deliveries were at night, but Jel Splitrock and I, we snuck up to watch 'em once."

"That boy's a bad influence," the mother said.

"The Splitrocks didn't burn down our home, now, did they?" the daughter demanded. "And we heard one of 'em say something, something that didn't make sense at the time. 'Time to test it on a real target.' That was two days ago."

"I think," Corvine said gently, "this might be worth following up on."

"I agree," Gideon said.

"Can you think of anything else?" Corvine said.

The girl shook her head.

"How about anything more about Jel Splitrock?" the mother asked.

The girl shook her head, perhaps more emphatically.

"I can't go with you to Waxbill's," the priestess of Shelyn said. "But I know the way. Best place for a Taldan-style hairdo in a hundred miles. I hope Mister Waxbill's not involved, but it's perhaps a place to start." She thought for a moment. "And I have in my possession two potions, that might fortify you in time of need."

Soon, Gideon and Corvine stood at a back entrance to the chapel, nodding at Albercroft's directions. Each of them carried a stoppered glass vial of some viscous green fluid that glinted with purple flecks. Gideon vowed he wouldn't drink the stuff except on death's door.

Albercroft nudged open the back entrance as if death's door was already where they were. It creaked. "Good luck."

They sped through the trees, waded a stream, and soon were back within the fog. They crept between buildings, avoiding close passage to the fires, ducking for cover when angry groups passed by, picking their way toward the barber's shop.

"Stop whistling," Corvine said as they entered the town's main street.

"I'm not whistling, you're whistling."

"No I'm not, you're—"

From across the street someone tweeted loudly. A shadowy shape commenced a rendition of the Andoren national anthem.

"He's not half bad," Gideon remarked. "You know, it's a difficult—"

"Shut up and run, Gideon!"

The shadowy shape, still whistling, was joined by perhaps twenty others.

The bards ran for cover. Finding little, they ducked into an alley.

"Rooftops," Gideon whispered. "Mobs never think of rooftops."

"Are you sure?"

"No." But he began climbing a townhouse, and offered her a hand up.

It seemed mobs were indeed unacquainted with the third dimension. Shapes rushed around the house, screaming incoherent threats.

"I'm trying to decide," Gideon murmured, "if it's physically possible to do everything the frothers want of us."

"Can you just be quiet, Gideon? Not everyone responds to danger with endless chatter, you know."

"Silence won't keep our spirits up."

"Try me."

"I'd rather talk than look all cool and superior. At least talking's honest."

"You think I act superior?"

"Since when does a Taldan woman not?"

"I'll stop acting superior around Andoren men when they bother to wash and shave."

He felt his chin. It was a touch scraggly. "You try shaving aboard a ship!"

"I hope that barber's not a Chelish agent, because you could use his services. Also, a bath."

"Wonderful! Our lives are in danger and all you care about is appearances!"

"I care about my nose. I'm surprised you haven't attracted all the frothers in a mile."

"I'm surprised you're not frothing yourself!"

"Are we shouting?"

Gideon stopped with his mouth half-open. Corvine stared at him, then looked all around.

Their immediate vicinity was entirely silent.

Then, from somewhere near:

"Torches! Torches! Burn them! Burn them!"

"The fog—" Gideon said.

"It got to us, didn't it?"

"We need to run." Gideon looked around, caught a distant glimpse of a white pole with a ribbon of red paint swirling in a helix around it. "The barber's—it looks intact. Maybe if he's involved..."

"Then it's safe from the frothers? Worth a try. But how do we get there?"

"I'm trained to blend in, but I don't think it will work this time." He looked up. "Over the rooftops? Will you trust me? If I promise to bathe?"

"Gladly."

He led her into a run, and together they leapt onto a nearby townhouse, slipping for a moment in the snow but regaining their footing.

"Five more jumps," he whispered in her ear.

"Not exactly a romantic thing to tell me. I don't know—"

"You can do this. Your body is a key, Corvine. Apply your muscles at the right moment, in the right combination, and you can unlock a city. Come on!"

"I love you. And I hate you."

"Whichever, do it on the next roof."

Many times Gideon had grumbled to Viridia or Ozrif about training sessions in the Scar Chamber. Now he realized the faculty had gone far too easy on them. They'd given the students too much light, too wide a platform, too narrow a gap, too stable a target. When I run the Shadow School, there will be artificial snow. And trees with low branches. And weird little weathervanes. And loose shingles. And birds too stupid to fly off until your face is in their way. And pointy little toy dragons that some kid threw up here somehow and completely forgot about just so an agent of Taldor could trip on one and die. I might or might not include frothing hordes of madmen—no, bring on the madmen. Because if nothing else, future Lion Blades should suffer along with me.

He paused. When I run the Shadow School?

They had made it. They were on the roof of the barber's shop, which was good because the roof of the place they'd started from was engulfed in red-illuminated smoke.

"I'm never doing this again," Corvine said.

"We're not quite done. We need an open window. Ah."

They entered a bachelor's shadowed living quarters, and nearly screamed when they tripped over the bachelor.

∗ ∗ ∗

Gideon rolled the man over. On the young side of elderly, the frail fellow had been stabbed in half a dozen places.

"Is this Waxbill?" Corvine said. "How long's he been dead?"

"I don't think he is." Gideon didn't trust his eyes or ears under these conditions, but he remembered the lessons of the Master of Steel and Sinew and felt for a pulse. He found one, faint.

Corvine murmured an incantation and put her hand on Waxbill's chest. A faint glow rose from her palm, and slowly faded.

"I don't know how much that helped," she said.

Gideon considered a moment, then pulled out Albercroft's vial. He poured the weird liquid down the man's throat.

"Are you certain you want to use the potion?"

"I'm not certain I could have made myself drink it."

Now Waxbill was coughing. Gideon took a moment to look around the room. He had a brief impression of disturbing details: a horned statue bearing a scroll, a mirror whose frame extruded fangs, a wall map of Bellis with pins emphasizing dozens of locations.

Corvine was looking over something else. "Gideon, he hasn't just been stabbed. He's been burned."

"Burned...how?"

"Devil..." the man said, and the word turned into another series of coughs. "Ukobach. Backstabbers..."

"Did an ukobach betray you?" Gideon asked.

"Don't blame them. They are what they are. I blame my colleagues."

"Who are your colleagues?" Corvine asked.

"Who're you? Who sent you?"

Corvine looked to Gideon as if to say, You're the secret agent here.

And yet perhaps it was time to show a card. "We're with Taldor."

"Ah...Well...I may work for Cheliax...but there are some things I won't do...you hear me?"

"What won't you do?"

"I won't...wipe out a town...with the damned fog."

"Who would?" Corvine asked. "Who did this to you?"

"You really don't know? You're Taldan government, then."

"What else would we be?"

"Never mind...You want to stop this thing?"

"Yes," said Gideon.

"Then you need to kill Karcuna, and his ukobach...they must be out there now...probably by the statue of Alysande...I...so tired." Waxbill closed his eyes.

"Is he...?" Gideon said.

"I think he's out of danger, Gideon, but it was a near thing. We should get him help."

"He infiltrated my country, and meant us no good. Even if he balked at the scale of harm, he's got blood on his hands."

"Let the gods judge him. We have our own work to do."

"Yes."

They descended a stairway and entered the barber's shop. Lit only by the town's fires, the place looked like a chamber of horrors. Gideon thought of trusting his neck to the blade of an enemy agent, and scratched at his chin. It occurred to him that for all of his patriotic anger, from an Andoren perspective he too was a foreign agent. Life was a strange thing.

They peered out the shop door and spotted a bronze statue in the distance. It portrayed a woman on horseback, blade extended.

"I've never liked statues," Corvine said. "Every statue in Death in Cassomir animates and tries to kill people."

"I don't have statues in Dreams on the Sellen. Rock monsters, though ...after Arenway there'll be rock monsters."

"I think I'll add a burning town."

"Me too."

They exited and crept up to the statue. Fortunately the frothers were elsewhere. They saw that the illumination came not entirely from distant fires. There was a flaming brass cone clutched by a diminutive red figure sitting between the bronze horse's front hooves. Another figure, this one in black, stood before the statue with crossed arms. He looked a trifle familiar.

"The ukobach," Gideon said, "with his devil's blowhorn."

"And somebody with him."

"I think they're talking."

"Let's listen."

With fog all around, and darkness, and the sounds of shouts, screams, and breaking glass, sneaking up behind the statue proved quite possible.

"You're being too merciful, Karcuna," came the voice of the devil they'd heard in Cassomir. "Let me burn the headquarters, and Waxbill with it. Your men put the bog strider in the basement; it can burn too. No loose ends."

"You're just worried about the Eagle Knights," came the answer. Gideon recognized it as belonging to the Chelaxian he'd dubbed Scarsmile.

"Why shouldn't I be?" replied the ukobach. "Stubborn, incorruptible, dangerous—"

"And only a few," said Karcuna-who-was-Scarsmile. "The others will handle them."

"And that ship?"

"You know the ship isn't a worry."

"I don't trust that captain. He's a half-elf. They have mercurial tempers."

Karcuna was silent. Then: "Are you trying to use that bullhorn on me?"

"Never! That's for directing the mobs supplied by our friends with their delightful fog." The devil laughed. "How they mocked me in Phlegethon for trading my infernal fire poker for one of these. But the mortal world is changing. Inciting mobs to arson is so much more rewarding than doing it yourself."

Karcuna thought a moment longer. "Burn the place."

Gideon nodded to Corvine, readying his harp. She did the same.

"Make sure Waxbill and the bog strider are inside," the Chelaxian was saying, "I don't—"

Gideon and Corvine rushed to opposite sides of the devil, and thus flanking him, blasted away with their spells of sound.

Both the devil and the scarred man staggered.

"The ukobach!" Gideon said. "It'll get away—"

"Got it—"

It was an ugly scene, and Gideon couldn't be proud of it. He and Corvine dropped their harps, drew their daggers, and jabbed and slashed with desperate energy. Before their flurry of attacks, the ukobach fell, dropping the fiery bullhorn. As the devil gasped its last rattling breath, the horn disintegrated with a flash, leaving only cinders and ash behind.

"Damn," Gideon said. He'd been hoping to recover the bullhorn and somehow use it against the frothers. But ukobach fire pokers were said to perish when their owners died, and so it was with this. "Back to whatever fires spawned it—"

"You, too," said Karcuna.

The Chelaxian had regained his wits, and Gideon and Corvine now paid a price for ignoring him. Magical vapors flowed around the bards, a noxious cloud smelling of rotten eggs. Gideon felt violently ill, and began retching. Corvine fared no better.

"I recognize you, Andoren," Karcuna said. "From Oppara. You've followed me all this way? Congratulations. You've caught up with death at last."

"I think not!"

Through watery eyes and vapors, Gideon saw Merrigail Hannison in her uniform, sword raised. In the firelight she looked like an angel of vengeance.

Karcuna staggered back from her blow, but he was not yet done, and began incanting in a furious voice.

Gideon and Corvine weren't done either. Gideon couldn't concentrate to cast a spell or fight, but he could still get in the way. Corvine clearly thought likewise.

Karcuna flexed his fingers, and what resembled a small lightning stroke flashed across the air. Corvine ducked, but it hit both Gideon and Merrigail. Gideon staggered, his hair standing on end, his breath exploding from his body, every nerve feeling as though it were on fire.

Merrigail had dodged much of the blast. When she rose, uniform rent and smoking, she only seemed angrier.

"Fools!" shouted the wizard. "It is not just me. I have men—"

"Not anymore!" Merrigail roared back. "Thanks to my comrades' sacrifice! I swear they won't die in vain."

Before her wrath Karcuna called out, "Mercy!"

"Mercy is for the gods! This is justice for Bellis!"

The Chelaxian's end was not a pretty one.

Merrigail hauled Gideon up by one arm. Grateful as he was, Gideon was ready to ask for mercy, too.

Corvine leaned against him, still nauseated. Gideon, for his part, found that having magical lightning coruscating through him, while not a pleasant experience, took his mind off his stomach pain.

"The other knights?" he asked. "Jandor? Drayper?"

Merrigail stared at Bellis's fires. Her words were clipped. "Drayper went mad with battle fury. The mob got him. Jandor fought two Chelish wizards and won. He died of his wounds. I'm glad I found you. What have you learned?"

"We need to return to the barbershop."

"The barbershop?" She sounded doubtful, but she followed.

They discovered the groaning Waxbill, who'd recovered enough to sit up against a wall. From his mumbled explanations, they found their way to the basement.

There were many empty metal barrels. Amid them rose a shadowy shape bound to a chair. Merrigail's eagle figurine glowed and illuminated the prisoner.

A nightmare sat before them.

It was an insectile monster with elements of humanoid and beetle, four long limbs supporting a vaguely centaur-like body. Its exoskeleton was the color of oiled cedar, but its scent was of river-mud, algae, and fish. Vast green multifaceted eyes looked unblinkingly back at him, as Gideon recognized the sort of creature that once sheltered him as a boy.

"Uh—" he said.

The bog strider was more articulate.

"Greetings, Gideon Gull."

Chapter Sixteen

Traitor's Waltz

The bog strider's mouth possessed huge mandibles, a fact all the more noticeable with Gideon gaping at the entity's words.

"You know me?"

There was a delicate clicking trill accompanying the bog strider's speech. "We have known of you since the fog first afflicted this place. Since the mind within it first touched you. Will you free me?"

Gideon had a number of questions of his own. He picked one. "Will you eat me?"

"I do not intend to. Do you wish it?"

"No."

"Then we are in accord. I have answered your question. You have not answered my own. Will you free me?"

Gideon took his dagger and began slicing at the ropes that bound the bog strider. Corvine did likewise, while Merrigail guarded the stairs.

Freed, the bog strider flexed its limbs. It chittered deep within its throat. Gideon hoped that was a happy sound. It said, "We should leave this landwalker hive."

"Where do you want us to go?" Corvine asked, visibly trying to control her revulsion.

"To Tok-Tshka. A place of safety."

"A place of your people?" Gideon asked.

"Yes."

"I can't abandon Bellis," Merrigail said.

Gideon couldn't stop staring. There had been horror that terrible night in Bellis long ago, but he knew also that the bog strider by the river had indeed protected him, had even tried to soothe him with its clicks and chitters. He forced himself to breathe evenly. "What did you mean, 'the mind within the fog'?"

"The seer-queen has said you are a good spirit, Gideon Gull, even though you are linked to the fog. But I will not speak in this place of dry stones. I will speak in Tok-Tshka."

Gideon nodded. "Corvine, Merrigail—I think I have to go. To...Tok-Tshka. We'd better take Waxbill back to the ship."

"I won't leave Bellis," Merrigail repeated, "but returning to Sebastian seems wise. I recommend you gather any documents you can find in this place, as evidence."

"You're thinking like a Lion Blade, Commander."

"No need to insult me, Mister Gull." But she smiled a little.

Upstairs, Waxbill had gotten to his feet. He'd begun gathering satchels, which made the job of securing evidence much easier. He complained, but not loudly, when Merrigail flung him over her shoulder.

"Remind me never to arm-wrestle her," Gideon said to Corvine as they made their way back to the ship. They moved cautiously, and most of the time they couldn't even see the bog strider skittering through the darkness and the fog. But some of the fires had gone out, and there were fewer shouts and screams. The fog seemed thinner. Perhaps the worst was over.

Gideon relaxed, seeing Riposte ahead at last. "There it is! We're...oh no."

The fog had billowed up beside the ship and disgorged a sight Gideon had previously suspected was an artifact of his own madness.

"Demonwake."

The ghost ship nosed out of the fog, dwarfing Riposte, its gargoyle prow bearing down upon the figurehead of the mermaid with the dagger in her teeth. The flag of a horned skull and crossbones flapped above the tattered sails and the skeletal captain and crew. With them stood the maiden Desdimira, the only spirit with the seeming of flesh, though the flesh was pale, and glowed.

"Do you see it?" he asked the others. "The ghost ship?"

"No..." Corvine said. "I see a second Riposte, as if in a dark mirror. Not a mermaid at her prow but a sea witch. Not privateers on her deck, but Chelish wizards. And a twin of Captain Tambour whose face is burned, and who wears a cape of fog. At his side stands a spectral elven woman who rather resembles him."

Waxbill chuckled. "None of you sees what's really there."

"What's really there, man?" said Merrigail. "I see nothing but shadows."

"The future."

"He rants," said Merrigail. "Whatever's there, it's trouble. Quickly!"

They hurried toward the pier. Gideon no longer saw the bog strider behind him, but he did have the uncomfortable sense that many other shapes were converging on the wharf.

But he had no time to look. Riposte cast off in what seemed a desperate bid to evade the monstrous vessel, whatever it truly was.

Gideon knew the act was desperate because Sebastian had abandoned four crew members on the dock—the sailors Asta and Dymphna, plus the Andoren sailors Hammerton and Briar. As Gideon, Corvine, and Merrigail arrived, Asta whirled upon them and said, "Madness! The captain sets us all to guard the wharf, then that draug-ship appears and he leaves us here. In the middle of a fight!"

"Perhaps he believes himself doomed," Hammerton said.

"He might be right," muttered Briar. "I swear, that's the accursed Night Terror—"

"Where're your eyes, love?" Hammerton asked him. "That's the bleedin' Wanderloss, right out of the opera."

"Whatever she is," Dymphna said, "she's firing a siege engine!"

The ghost ship—which to Gideon's gaze was still clearly Demonwake, Captain Crookwing grinning skeletally in his swooshing black cape—was now indeed employing a shipboard weapon, one resembling a steel dragon head. And firing was an apt word, for a gout of burning liquid spewed onto Riposte, setting sails and deck ablaze.

"A firedrake!" Merrigail gasped.

Riposte replied with ballista and crossbows. Gideon heard Sebastian bellowing commands. But if the response had an effect upon the enemy, Gideon couldn't see it. Meanwhile, the foe employed a second siege engine, this one a catapult launching what seemed a pile of bones.

Where the bones hit Riposte, a half-dozen skeletal warriors sprang into being, like puppets pulled up on their strings. Leothric would have appreciated the effect.

Through fire and bone and steel, Gideon saw the ghostly Desdimira smiling at him, and heard the familiar voice in his mind.

Ever will you warm the lost
Gathered here by fate and frost.

For a long, strange moment, it seemed to Gideon that Captain Crookwing also stared at him, raising a skeletal finger to point his direction. When Desdimira turned her head to look at him, Crookwing swiftly lowered his hand.

"Doomed," said Waxbill upon Merrigail's shoulder. "We're all doomed..."

"You feel like swimming?" said Merrigail. "No? Then be silent."

Waxbill shut up; Merrigail set him down upon the pier and withdrew her sword. Maybe holding a weapon made her feel better.

"There must be something we can do," Gideon said.

Dymphna knelt in prayer. He heard her utter the word Dawnflower, and understood now some of her furtiveness, if she were truly a devotee of Sarenrae, whose worship was forbidden in Taldor. He appreciated the thought, and made the sign of the antlers on his own chest.

But he didn't believe in waiting for the heavens.

"Spells? Our sound attack was effective earlier."

"Gideon," Corvine said, looking toward the wharf, "I think you may need your spells for something else."

When he turned around he almost envied the crew of Riposte.

Hundreds of Bellis's citizens had gathered on the wharf, muttering and yelling, frothing and clawing at the air. Some force seemed to have leashed them together, waiting, as if at some signal they would charge like racehorses toward their victims on the pier.

Just then, the barrage from the ghost ship stopped.

Gideon looked over his shoulder to see the skeleton-troops aboard Riposte frozen at attention. Fires still burned, but the firedrake had ceased to spew.

"Gideon!" called Sebastian's voice. "Are you all right?"

"Yes! Something's made the fog stop!"

He saw Sebastian at Riposte's railing, Viridia beside him. Nearby, Adebeyo and Grizzendell were directing the squelching of fires and the smashing of skeletons.

"I may have something to do with it!" Sebastian said. "I have certain powers I'm not authorized to reveal. But we stand on a knife-edge, Gideon!"

"You don't say!"

"I need you now—with Corvine's help, but especially you—to sway that mob! Before the fog regains strength."

"What about you?"

"Don't worry about us, Gideon!" Viridia called. "We'll board that ship if we have to! But if we fall, you have to carry on."

"What am I supposed to tell Ozrif?"

"Tell him I'll always be looking out for him, Gideon."

"There's no time for this!" said Sebastian. "Gideon, you must use your voice. Not just your bardic voice, but your Andoren voice. Find your love for this country, for I know it's still there. Let it light your words. Sway the people of Bellis. Tell them you'll take command, and that they needn't fear abandonment in this emergency. Taldor will take care of them!"

"What?!" Merrigail said.

"You understand me, Gideon. You said it yourself: Andorens love freedom, hating outside control. But they've also rejected self-control. Thus the fog finds them easy prey. You saw it on Hawkslight and you've seen it here in Bellis. You're one of them, but you're different. You've been tempered by the mother civilization. You can take control. I've already sent word to forces up the Verduran Fork. They'll join with the River Guard to secure order here in Bellis."

"No!" Merrigail yelled. "You speak of invasion!"

"A temporary measure, Commander! Or would you prefer your people suffer and die?"

"Cheliax offered us the same choice, years ago! You know our answer."

Viridia shouted, "And now Cheliax may be attacking again, Merrigail. Taldor is a friend! Don't turn away a friend's help!"

"Perhaps they're right, Merrigail," Corvine said gently. "Things are out of control here. And we've seen that a bardic voice can sway things. If Gideon is trusted by both Taldans and Andorens..."

Waxbill was chuckling.

"It's too neat." Merrigail looked directly at Gideon. "Too tidy. Don't you see? Or perhaps you do. Perhaps you've always been leading us to this point."

Ghost-images and remembered voices seemed to swirl around Gideon, and not just because of the fog. He thought he glimpsed the bog strider, out of sight amid the bushes by the wharf.

We have known of you since the fog first afflicted this place ...Since her voice touched you ...

I sensed herthoughts, Gideon ...don't trust ...

You really don't know ...you're Taldan government, then ...

Human motives can be as hidden as shoals and bars beneath the surface of a river ...Take care you do not trust appearances ...

And a twin of Captain Tambour whose face is covered in scars, and who wears a cape formed of fog. At his side stands a spectral elven woman who rather resembles him ...

The lullaby the frothers sang. My mother used to sing it ...

It's my business to know things ...your fog encounter as a child, losing your own brother ...

I wasn't strong enough to protect what I loved. So now I protect Taldor instead ...

"I've always known you have great potential, Gideon!" Sebastian was saying. "This is your moment! The fates of Taldor and Andoran ride on your shoulders! Your voice can make history!"

"But not because of me!" Gideon shouted back. "Not because of me at all! Because of the fog. Because I've always been linked to the fog. That's why you recruited me. That's why you've taken me here. You're the puppetmaster."

Sebastian was silent. Viridia stared at him.

"But it's more than that," Gideon went on, following the river of intuition to its end. "Somehow this is your doing, and your family's! You know too much about what happened in my childhood. You hinted it was your Lion Blade resources that gave you that information. But you learned it from someone close to you. You recognized the frothers' lullaby."

Gideon heard it in his memory, as he had aboard the Mendevian ship.

Moon and stars are gathered bright
At the coming of the night.

"But the voice that haunts me, the voice of the fog—it sings the same tune." He recalled the voice he'd heard near the stone bridge in Bellis:

Frost and fate are gathered here
At the turning of the year.

"I know a lot of tunes, Sebastian. I've never heard that one anywhere but on the crusader ship—and from the fog. Your mother sang it to you, you said. The voice I hear in my head—it's her, isn't it?"

It wouldn't have held up in an Andoren court. It was all supposition, intuition. But Gideon could tell his words struck deep.

"Is this true, Sebastian?" Corvine demanded.

"It's true," Merrigail said. "Gideon speaks true. I see it in the captain's face—"

"It didn't have to be this way." Sebastian's voice had lost its fire, gone winter-bleak. "Events kept spiraling out of control. Xeritian's meddling. Gideon's investigation. Merrigail. The fog itself, always yanking the leash like a mad dog. Killing my crew and driving us to this confrontation. I tried to keep you on board..."

"Oh, Sebastian," Corvine said.

"If things had gone by the original plan, I could have involved Gideon at the right time, when everything was ready. He'd have been forced to see the logic of it. Everyone would have. But it seems only I can save Taldor. So be it."

"Sebastian!" Gideon called. "Whatever it is you've gotten yourself into, you can turn away from it. You have friends."

"Friends?" Sebastian's laugh was bitter. "Do you think the Lion Blades will forgive this little unauthorized operation? Dominicus Rell? No, there's only one way forward."

"No," Viridia said.

"I swear," said Sebastian, an icy pride entering his voice, "I swear on my mother's grave that I'll restore Taldor's future. With or without any of you."

"The future," chuckled Waxbill, sitting cross-legged upon the dock, laughing at fog and flame.

"Captain?" First Mate Adebeyo was saying. The crew was beginning to gather around Sebastian.

"Gideon! I've told you the truth. This is your last chance. If you don't sway the mob, it will tear you apart!"

There was silence on the Sellen, save for the crackling flames.

Then a voice rose up.

From the Falls of Norgortha
To the Aspodells' bright spires
To the surf by Augustana
Let our freedom light its fires.

The voice was Corvine's.

The crowd released a long sigh, and wavered upon their feet, as something in the patriotic Andoren song reminded them who they were.

A new voice joined Corvine's from the deck of Riposte—Viridia's.

From the silent woods of Darkmoon
To the bells of Oregent
Hear the song of our free union
And let no more knees be bent.

The crowd began to waver and disperse, as if awakening from a dream. The two Taldan women continued singing, and now Merrigail, tears in her eyes, joined them, and Gideon too.

From the mountains of the Five Kings
To the southern margin's strand
To the Andoshen's beginnings
All the gods have blessed our land.

The Eagle Knight's voice was rough, but Gideon thought he heard in Merrigail's tones both love of country and perhaps the sorrow of loving unwisely. It was a combination worthy of a bard. Those of Riposte's crew on the pier began humming, though they did not share the words.

I will wander it forever
From Triela to Aspo Bay
I will honor freedom's splendor
I will wander because I may.

The people of Bellis wandered from the wharf in a daze, the song on their lips. There was still froth, still muttering, still a sense of violence ready to break free. But for now it was quiescent.

"There's your union between Taldor and Andoran!" Gideon called out, and his words were for more than Sebastian's ears. "A union of peace and good cheer!"

"Captain Tambour," called out Adebeyo, his voice sad but resolute. "It's my duty to arrest you on the charge of treason. Mister Grizzendell, shackle the captain."

"I have a higher duty, Adebeyo—all of you!" Sebastian's voice had recovered some of its earlier fire. "Taldor is doomed to decline, unless someone makes a bold stroke. Join me, and instead of privateers, history will judge you heroes!"

There was silence from Sebastian's crew.

Adebeyo said, "May the gods have mercy on you, sir. You're under arrest. Mister Grizzendell—"

"And on us all." Sebastian bowed his head, looking the model of proud acquiescence.

Thus the violence that followed took his crew by surprise.

With a snarl, he drew his cutlass, in the process knocking Viridia overboard. He slashed at Adebeyo, who reeled backward, and jabbed at Grizzendell, who'd tried and failed to rescue Viridia, and now dangled at the edge himself.

The peg-legged sailor Favian bravely rushed Sebastian, only to be cut down by Bosun Zethril.

Beside Gideon, Tyndron growled in rage.

As the melee commenced, the ghost ship resumed battle, spreading fire all over Riposte, launching skeletons among the demoralized crew.

Gideon couldn't use the sound-blast spell, for it might strike down those aboard Riposte who were loyal to Taldor—as opposed to Sebastian's vision for Taldor. But it occurred to him the spell for manipulating rope operated at an absurdly long range.

"Haul Away for Arcadia" on his mind, he ordered a line to trip Sebastian.

It worked, to a degree. Sebastian failed to run Adebeyo through. Zethril was forced to defend the captain rather than finish off Grizzendell.

"Zethril!" Corvine yelled, and Gideon recognized her spell for banishing hostile magic.

The elf looked up, startled, then laughed and cut down the one-eyed sailor Jarin, who'd attempted a running tackle.

"He has no enchantment upon him, that one," said Tyndron, his hand trembling upon his sword's hilt. "Zethril's been a bad sort from the beginning."

"Viridia!" Merrigail reminded them. "Her leg was injured. She might drown!"

"I'll help her," Gideon said, and dove in.

It was perhaps a foolish gesture, but Gideon's emotions churned crazily within him. Storm outside, storm inside. He'd lost enough friends already; Viridia would not be another one.

In the end, he was almost the one who needed rescuing. A blazing mast fell nearby. He dove underwater and emerged to see Riposte entirely ablaze, its remaining sails shooting flames high up into the night. Gideon's body shivered from the river even as his face stung from the blaze.

Sebastian Tambour now perched upon Demonwake, or what Gideon's eyes still insisted was the ghost ship. He saw nothing of Captain Crookwing, but Zethril stood beside Sebastian.

So did the image of Desdimira.

"And so it ends!" Sebastian called to the shore. "I expect no forgiveness. Farewell!"

Demonwake was devoured by the bank of greenish fog.

"Viridia!" Gideon searched frantically and didn't see her. But he did notice Quartermaster Grizzendell woozily gripping the burning mast beside him. He got hold of the gnome and began kicking toward the pier. "Viridia!"

"I have her," came a chirping voice.

Gideon looked to his right and saw the bog strider walking upon the water, some combination of enchantment and lightweight build letting it behave as a much smaller insect. Viridia was unconscious in its arms.

"She is breathing. Do not fear."

"Get ashore!" called out Adebeyo from elsewhere in the dark. Somehow the first mate had survived battle and shipwreck. Cold anger coiled within his voice. "There's bloody work ahead."

The fog vanished, and Sebastian's new command with it.

Chapter Seventeen

Intermission (with Monsters)

Bellis's citizens had returned, this time not with murderous intent but with a thousand questions. Merrigail held them off as best she could, while the bog strider stood a stone's throw away on the surface of the waters, ready to flee.

"What's happened?"

"Who are you?"

"Why's Mister Waxbill with you?"

To that last, Merrigail said, "He's assisting us with our investigation."

Some brought blankets and spare clothes for Gideon, Viridia, Adebeyo, and Grizzendell. Others set out in boats searching for more survivors of Riposte's destruction.

There were none.

Corvine gave her healing draught to Viridia, and soon the exhausted dancer was looking more her usual self, though full of grim resolve.

"He betrayed us." Viridia's eyes flickered with the flames that still sent sparks over the Sellen, for even a doomed ship takes time to burn. "He betrayed us all."

"He must not see it that way," Gideon said, staring at the pyre of the ship. "He's always dreamed of restoring Taldor's glory. I just never believed he'd start a war."

"It can't be him alone, Gideon," Corvine said. "He spoke of reinforcements."

Gideon made himself say it: "Regardless, Sebastian Tambour is a traitor. He's a danger to two countries that I love. He must be stopped."

"I'm with you. It's personal."

Viridia nodded.

Grizzendell, shivering beneath a blanket, said, "I'll come with you, through the Gate of Aroden, round the Eye of Abendego, and beyond the Horn of Droon if need be. I'll sail down the Styx itself to find Captain Tambour. Let him be a blackguard, a wizard, a bloody privateer, a spy, an assassin—I paid it no mind. But he's slaughtered his own crew, who were loyal. Burned his fine ship that always steered him true. Even a mutineer's better than that. And mutineers hang."

Adebeyo, his wound freshly bound and draped in an ill-fitting cloak, said, "The quartermaster speaks for me as well. There will be an accounting." He raised a dagger. "This I claimed from the figurehead of Riposte, so that she herself may slay her destroyer. I'm in."

"And I," said Asta, with her arm yet in a sling.

"And I," said Dymphna.

"Aye," said Tyndron.

The merchant sailors Hammerton and Briar consulted with each other in low tones. They surprised Gideon when Hammerton said, "We're with you," and Briar gave a sharp nod. "If Commander Hannison is," Hammerton added.

"I am," she said, joining them. "Even if I'm without a command."

"They're all dead?" Dymphna said, no hope in her voice.

"Yes. I'm sorry, sailor. Jandor had grown fond of you, too."

Dymphna's hands shook. "Then I'll not hide this anymore." She pulled from under her black garb an amulet, a golden ankh with a representation of the sun within the loop. "Sarenrae bless the dead. Bless Jandor and Drayper. Bless Jarin and Lunette, Kendrigan and Crallak, Favian and Krypt. Bless those of the River Guard who joined us at Arenway, for to my shame I did not learn all their names. Now, Taldans, arrest me for my religion if you must."

"I saw and heard nothing," Gideon said.

"I don't believe we're in Taldor," Viridia said, "are we?"

"No," said Corvine.

Adebeyo said, "At any rate, we'll swear to the Grand Prince himself that you prayed to Abadar or Desna just now. Yes?" His crewmates nodded.

"I'd offer sanctuary," Merrigail said, "but I don't think you'll need it."

"Thank you," Dymphna said. "All of you."

"Speaking of sanctuary," Gideon said, "we need to rest. And plan."

Through all of this, the bog strider had given no sign of hearing. But now it walked back across the waters, until it stood just off the pier.

"You will come to Tok-Tshka," it said for the second time. "What you landwalkers might call the Evernest. There we will consider."

"Where is the Evernest?" asked Gideon.

"It lies in the deep places of the treeweave," said the bog strider, gesturing across the Sellen.

"Beg pardon," said Grizzendell, "but we've got no ship."

Merrigail said, "I suppose I can procure a boat."

In response, a peculiar chirping emitted from the bog strider.

"Don't know what to say to that," said Grizzendell.

"I have summoned aid," said the bog strider. "Wait."

"All right," said Gideon. "We wait. Merrigail, if you can, please procure food, weapons, and traveling gear. I think we're rather poorly supplied at the moment. Corvine, you might go with her. You're a good negotiator."

"I better go, too," said the quartermaster. "It's my job." Grizzendell gave the bog strider a look suggesting he'd also be happy for an excuse to get distance from the bug-person.

As the supply team departed, Gideon turned to the entity in the water. "I don't wish to call you 'you,' or 'bog strider.' How might we refer to you?"

The bog strider said, "My kind are the Ses'h. My personal name is Lsst'tok."

"Lsst'tok?"

"That is sufficiently correct."

"Lsst'tok. I know a lot about the peoples of this region. How is it that I know nothing of you?"

"We are of the places where water and plant intermingle. We know what we know. We do not hunger for more, nor claim the drier or wetter places beyond our ken. It is enough. We see that for other kinds it is different. You war endlessly for prizes we do not understand. So we stay far away from you, close to what belongs to us, and to which we belong."

"Yet your people know me."

"It was she who became our seer-queen who found you by the river long ago, who considered killing you and who guarded you instead."

Gideon shivered. "Why did she consider killing me?"

"I do not wish to say more here. Soon we will come to the Evernest."

After a time, Corvine, Grizzendell, and Merrigail returned with full packs. Gideon asked, "When does help arrive?"

"It is already here. They merely waited until my final signal. Now that you are all gathered..." Lsst'tok chirped.

In the last dying flames of Riposte, a mass of shadows moved from the Taldan shore onto the surface of the Sellen.

Gideon Gull considered himself a man of the world, a broad-minded sort able to dwell in any nation, among any race, and deal fairly with all. Chelaxians, Qadirans, dwarves, elves—he kept an open mind about them all, if sometimes a closed purse.

But the march of fifty Ses'h across the waters was a sight of a different order. The wall of insectile shapes advancing across the Sellen touched something old and deep in his brain, something that could only respond with thoughts like run far away, and kill them with fire.

"Sweet Desna," Viridia said.

"Mangy mutts of all the gods," said Grizzendell.

"These beings come to help," Merrigail said. "Have respect."

"Oh, I have respect," Corvine said in a hush. "I have so much respect I think I may wet myself."

"My people will convey you across the water," Lsst'tok said. "Do not struggle."

"Eep," said Grizzendell.

If anything, being carried by the bog striders was worse than regarding their arrival. Gideon wondered why this was so, for in the Lsst'tok's clutches he didn't need to look at his benefactors. Yet something inside him squirmed desperately, preferring to risk drowning than rely upon the Ses'h.

Then he understood. To be carried by Lsst'tok, Gideon had to give up any struggle, to hold himself completely still. To trust.

A peculiar thing happened then. Having realized the source of his terror, it was as though he'd risen above it. The fear still existed, but it was somehow less significant, passing under him like the water beneath his feet.

On the opposite bank, the bog striders set down their passengers and immediately seemed to melt into the shadows, leaving only Lsst'tok. Adebeyo called a sound-off; all nine of their party, the prisoner included, had made it across.

Merrigail said, "Perhaps we should rest here, out of sight."

"I worry about the fog," Gideon answered. "I'd like to be farther from the river."

In low tones, Adebeyo added, "I don't think rest is the best thing for my shipmates. We had the heart cut out of us. We need a goal, or else something colder than the river will drag us under."

"I see your point," Merrigail said.

And so Lsst'tok guided them through the night forest, dark snowy trees rising all around them, silvery ground shining dimly in the starlight.

Travel became easier during the day, though the sleepless night began to take its toll. They stumbled through the ever-varied terrain of bush and branch, dirt and snow.

In the midmorning, while their breath still made clouds in front of their faces, a new bog strider appeared and passed a tiny scroll to Lsst'tok amid much clicking and chittering. The newcomer disappeared back into the trees.

"A messenger bird reached Bellis," Lsst'tok told them. "We were able to intercept the scroll. It is from a friend of yours."

"Could it be...?" said Viridia. "Ozrif?"

"He was working on that spell," Corvine said.

Viridia took and read the message. "It is from Ozrif! Oh no."

"What is it?" Gideon said.

"'I hope this reaches you, Viridia,'" she read, "'and that you fare well, for disaster's befallen us. A pair of devils set upon the crusader boat in the night and burned it. Only I escaped. This is no credit to me, only to my family for teaching me to swim. I tried to rescue the Eagle Knight Kester, but he drowned and I failed to revive him. I ask forgiveness of Commander Hannison. I managed to reach the fort upon Arenway. They've given me enough details about Bellis to send a messenger there. With all my hope and love, Ozrif.'"

Merrigail lowered her head. "If I survive for vengeance only, O Talmandor," she said, "that's enough." To Viridia, she said, "I'm glad Ozrif lives, at least."

"Thank you. I'm sorry for the loss of your compatriots."

"I should reply," Corvine said.

"I suggest you wait until we reach the Evernest and make our plans," Gideon said. "It shouldn't be long."

In fact, it was midafternoon before they reached Tok-Tshka, and by then the party was battered, worn, and discouraged. The place was a small lake concealed by low hills; within rose a trio of islands linked by marsh-grass and the canopies of trees.

"Here is the Evernest," Lsst'tok said.

"I don't really see anything," Gideon said.

"To be sure. We do not build as you do, though sometimes we shape. My kind prefers solitude. The Evernest exists for times of celebration or defense. Since the return of the fog, there are many of us gathered here. We will carry you to the seer-queen."

The horde of bog striders, invisible throughout the day, now emerged from the trees to grasp the travelers.

And so commenced another journey across the waters, albeit a shorter one this time. The prisoner Waxbill lost his nerve at this point, perhaps because today it was easier to see their insectile hosts. "I know you mean to kill me here! Cheliax will avenge me!"

"The same Cheliax that already tried to kill you?" Gideon asked.

Waxbill went silent.

At the heart of the largest island lay a grove surrounded by evergreens, with a muddy pond in its midst, a snow-covered boulder in the pond's center. The travelers were instructed to sit upon the boulder. Bog striders settled into the mud all around them.

Gideon felt like a ladybug who'd flown onto an anthill. He had trouble telling the bog striders apart, and by now he had lost Lsst'tok among the chittering mass of Ses'h.

"They're going to eat us," said Waxbill. "We spared them the effort of carrying our meat."

"Don't be foolish. Most of them were with us the whole time. They've had nearly a day to eat us. Now, maybe they want to sacrifice us to their gods..."

"I'm a simple barber," Waxbill wailed.

Now the bog striders went silent all at once, and one of them edged a trifle forward. It was smaller than average, and its hide looked ragged. "I am Rik'visk, seer-queen to this gathering. Gideon Gull I know. You are the one in communication with the fog."

"I greet you again." Gideon felt dizzy. "What you say is true. Though I don't know how."

"I believe you, and thus you still live. Do you vouch for these others?"

"All but this man, Waxbill, our prisoner. Until recently he served the country of Cheliax, which has been controlling the fog."

Waxbill laughed hopelessly. "You still don't understand. It's too late for you. For us all."

"Silence," said Rik'visk. "For now. Gideon Gull, know that the fog has turned even bog strider against bog strider, though we resist its effects better than your kind. If I believed you in league with it, we would destroy you now."

"We seek to end it."

"Then we will aid you. We will not lend our strength in battle, but in all other ways we will help. These lands are our home, and we will not abandon them lightly. Yet if war begins, we cannot be safe, and we will depart for safer waters."

"I understand."

"I ask now that your prisoner speak."

Grizzendell kicked at the barber. "Be about it! Explain yourself. Are you part of Cheliax's army? Do you serve their queen? Speak up!"

The barber looked here and there, finding no friends or allies. "Very well...It won't help you, but I'll tell you what I know. My group wasn't military, or government. And I'm not Chelish myself. We were freelance diabolists, operating out of Cheliax's capital, Egorian. We were fixers and investigators—dirty job people. Once in a while we got the high-risk, high-pay work. Government projects of the deniable kind."

"If we bring this to the Chelaxians," Gideon guessed, "they'll claim you were just criminals, acting alone."

"You have the right of it. Our current assignment was to start a war. Someone in Taldor had an army ready to annex the part of the Verduran Forest that lies within Andoran. Our job was to set up shop in Bellis and start building up resentments up and down the river, and beyond. Devils are wonderful tools for such work. We had agents, too, like our man Savaric down in Cassomir. We were ready to deflect the blame everywhere, of course. Qadiran daggers for murder, Andoren gold for bribes. If discovered, we would say we were Chelish freelancers, and that it was all our doing. But meanwhile our Taldan silent partners had their ghoulish fog, and other tricks, to stoke the flames. Eventually everything would burn."

Savaric. Gideon remembered the vision of the man dead, Qadiran dagger beside him. Savaric would never give away his true employers.

"The Verduran Forest," Corvine mused. "All that Andoren timber, ready to go down to Cassomir, no druids to get in the way."

Viridia said, "And Taldor's troops could dig into the wooded terrain. The Andorens would have trouble extracting them, without access to the Sellen."

"You went to a lot of effort," Gideon told Waxbill. "What did Cheliax get out of it?"

"Augustana, and everything north, if all went well. The whole eastern third of Andoran."

"Sebastian wouldn't have had the authority for such a deal."

"Authority is what you take," Waxbill said. "And success is two-thirds of forgiveness. That's the Chelish attitude, anyway. They figured Taldor wasn't about to surrender any territory that got seized, and neither would they. Meanwhile your democratic brethren could vote, I suppose, on which fate was worse for the remaining third—bowing to the Grand Prince or to Queen Abrogail."

"A gamble. Cheliax would strengthen Taldor at the same time as themselves."

"Cheliax's star is rising, Taldor's is setting. Cheliax's relative position would still be strong. Is still strong, Andoren—nothing you've done has reduced tensions along the border. Perhaps the opposite. The plan may still proceed. Let me go, and I'll put in a good word for you."

Corvine put a hand over Gideon's fist before he realized he'd clenched it.

"Your colleagues tried to kill you," she reminded Waxbill.

"A misunderstanding. I objected to the Taldan side of the operation—their decision to saturate Bellis with the War Fog. Those townsfolk were my customers. I suppose my cover business got in the way of my real business. But what's done is done. I've still got contacts back in Egorian."

Corvine made a face. "Who's your contact with the Taldans?"

Waxbill shook his head. "My superior Karcuna handled all that."

"You ranted before about 'the future.' I don't think you simply meant a war. What was that about?"

"It's what the Taldans have. The face of future war. I've seen it, in the river. You think it's a ghost ship, right? That's just a disguise. An illusion that works on any mind that views it. The real ship is a vessel that travels under the waves. Karcuna rode with them and told me about it. Some mad inventor up in Ustalav inspired the design. Its got metal barrels on board that store the War Fog until it's needed—all squeezed in tight until they pop the cork. With their submersible, the Taldans can deliver the fog anywhere near the water. Bellis, Cassomir—you name it. They've even been to Almas and Oppara—if you want to start a war, you want the muckety-mucks to get crazy, too."

"Ah," said Adebeyo. "I've been wondering how Captain Tambour was managing to hatch this plot while maintaining his other duties. But as a Lion Blade he would often leave us, on mysterious errands."

"And maybe go off to meet his underwater contraption," Grizzendell said. "We could be operating down by Garund, and he could be off to Oppara and back."

Viridia looked at Gideon. "That's why Xeritian died, I'd wager. He was too close to uncovering an operation in Oppara."

"Warfare waged underwater," Gideon said in awe and dismay, "and within the mind."

Waxbill laughed. "That's the future I've seen. Submersibles and poison gas and mind control. And whole countries hungry for slaughter."

"You can't think this funny," Merrigail said. "You nearly died defending the people of Bellis."

Waxbill stopped laughing. "It's different when you see their faces. But what can anyone do? The future comes whether we like it or not."

"You're wrong. We bring the future, all of us. Ladies and gentlemen, we have to find Sebastian's toys and break them. And we have to alert both our capitals of his plot."

"Agreed," said Adebeyo. "But we need to know more. Especially what the bog striders mean by Gideon's connection with this fog."

"Please tell me," Gideon told Rik'visk.

The seer-queen said, "This fog, or something much like it, was seen many seasons ago. When you were a child, it was unleashed against Bellis. There was a mind behind it, within it, even then. It contacted you. I believe it took pity on you, Gideon Gull, because it was the mind of a mother, who had a boy of her own."

"Tell that to my brother," Gideon said. "It's the spirit of Sebastian Tambour's mother, isn't it? The War Fog is some creation of his father's, and his mother's mind became linked with it."

"I know not the names or origins. Only the essences. But the mind of the fog spared you. It also took an interest in you. And because it is an unhealthy mind, it tugs at you in dangerous ways. It inspires you, but it also lures you toward self-destruction."

"My muse."

"Perhaps. For many years it lay quiescent, rarely stirring. But it has reawakened. She has reawakened. And she remains interested in you."

Corvine said, "All this time...Sebastian must have known you were linked to the fog. He's been trying to sway you to his point of view, make you ready to join his plot. Your connection would've made you his ideal agent." She shook her head. "To think I admired him."

"It's easy to admire passion," Merrigail said, "especially passion for one's country. I also sensed this in Sebastian and...respected it."

"Why didn't he kill me at Bellis?" Gideon said.

"Old friendship, maybe," Viridia said. "Or maybe he wasn't sure the fog would approve."

"Is he not fully in control after all?" Corvine asked.

Gideon remembered the vision of Captain Crookwing of Demonwake, pointing at him and hiding the gesture from the image of Desdimira. He still didn't not know what it meant, but he said, "Sebastian spoke of the War Fog tugging at its leash. You're right; I don't think he has total command."

Adebeyo said, "It seems to me this is our hope: Gideon using his link with the fog. He can seek out the source."

"I'll do it," Gideon said, "though I fear it. But I don't need to make contact to find it. I think Sebastian already told me. Maybe on some level he wanted me to know. His family's old castle lies up the Verduran Fork. The description he gave fits the vision we saw at the Isle of Arenway. That's where we'll find him."

"We can't search every bend of the river," Grizzendell said. "There's no time."

The seer-queen said, "If you can describe it, or draw it in the mud, perhaps we can help you find it. Every place the waters touch, we know well."

"I can do better than that," Gideon realized, and brought to mind his illusion spell.

What will I dream when the hangman hauls?

The air shimmered, and there appeared the granite cliff, and the dark waters swirling beneath, as if in a cauldron.

"We know this place," rose the voice of a bog strider—Lsst'tok?—from the crowd of Ses'h. "It lies on the southern bank of the Verduran Fork."

"That's still a long way from here," Grizzendell said. "Tambour'll have attacked by then."

"It is a long way for you," Lsst'tok said. "We can reach it in a day, perhaps two."

Adebeyo said, "In two days it's the dark of the moon. A good time for ambushes."

"A good time for revenge," said Grizzendell.

Corvine nodded. "I'll send word to Ozrif."

Gideon thought of his friend Sebastian, who'd helped him rise from the gutter. But he also thought of his brother Gareth, and snowball fights, and raft rides, and summer days in Carpenden.

"Revenge," he said. "But maybe peace as well. So be it."

Chapter Eighteen

Ballad of the Desperate Bards

The journey to the Verduran Fork was a trek unlike any Gideon had experienced.

A human alone in the forest might seek paths or animal trails, or aim for high ground to get bearings. The Ses'h saw the woods differently, as a web of waterways interrupted by the inconvenience of drier ground. Thus their route meandered with the waters' flow, a disorienting pirouette beneath the dark twisting arms of bare trees, until it seemed the forest itself was juggling the journeyers in giant, frosty hands.

"I have no idea where we are," Gideon said to no one in particular. His breath turned golden and vaporous where the afternoon sunlight cut through the forest canopy.

Lsst'tok, who was the only Ses'h on this trip to yet speak to the humanoids, answered. "We make good progress. We will reach the castle of your enemy tomorrow."

"'Good progress?'" Corvine said from behind. "I've never traveled so fast in my life. It's exhilarating!"

"My enemy," Gideon repeated, letting the word settle in his ears. He was practicing the listening techniques of the Lion Blades, letting sound wash over him. The air was cool and still beneath the branches, but by the creaking twists of the upper canopy and the distant whispers in the treetops, Gideon knew the wind was picking up, and that this snowfall would pass inland toward the Tandak Plains, just as it had no doubt whitened the Carpenden Plains in Andoran. And he reflected that for the clouds and the woods, there was no "Andoran" nor "Taldor," and all the lines on maps were just ink, human things that splintered seeing.

Do the druids perceive things in this way? Endless detail, with no attempt to judge, divide, classify? He doubted he truly had their perspective, but perhaps he was closer than usual.

The openness left him receptive to something else. A voice sang brightly in his mind, as if far off, beyond the trees.

Never knowing ever flowing
The river claims its own
You are water for the slaughter
Mud to join the stones
Down the river you will shiver
Till you meet the sea
Ever broken till you've spoken
Words of love for me.

"Gideon," Corvine was whispering. "Gideon."

His perspective was gone, and again he was merely a stupid town-dweller lost in the woods. Corvine had convinced her Ses'h companion to come closer to Lsst'tok, and the stream was wide enough here to allow them to walk over the waters side by side.

"Gideon, are you all right? Your face looked awful, and you were whispering to yourself."

"Oh. Well. I felt her."

"Ah."

"It's a unique sensation, realizing your muse is actually your former friend's mother's ghost. I prefer other feelings, all things considered."

"We need to get you some better feelings," she murmured. "There's no fog here. How?"

"I think that with my mind quiet and open, it's easier to hear her. And maybe she's getting stronger."

"Does she sense you?"

"To a degree, I think."

Corvine looked grim. "Will she know we're coming?"

"I don't know. I feel we're going in the right direction, so maybe the feeling is mutual."

"This worries me."

"I can't sit out this fight."

"I understand. I don't think there's a choice for you. But I hope that Ozrif can roust the River Guard to help. Perhaps even the druids..."

"I don't have much hope there."

"Nor I. Well, at least if we die in the attack, we won't have to worry about finishing our entries for the thaumacycle competition."

"A shame. I'd like to hear yours."

"Likewise."

They were silent for a time, but it was a different silence than that which had come before.

"I'm sorry to have dragged you into this," Gideon said.

"I don't recall any dragging. Why, I don't think you could drag me into anything, Gideon Gull."

"I'm sorry that by knowing me you've had to face devils, traitors, and frothing rage zombies."

"Gideon Gull! They are not zombies. Zombies are magically animated corpses. The frothers and Smoke-Tongued are living people!"

"It was a thematic comparison—"

"For shame. And you call yourself a bard!"

"Perhaps I should stop apologizing. I'm not very good at it."

"Arrogance always did suit you better."

"I feel as if this is an exchange I can't win, and I don't even know the rules."

"If you win an argument against me, you'll simply lose in other ways."

"I have no idea what you mean."

"I think you do. We camp once more before reaching the castle. No one will begrudge us what we do."

He smiled. "You're seriously proposing we collaborate on the same opera?"

"I'd throw a rock at your thick skull, but I can't reach one." She paused. "You would really collaborate?"

"I've never collaborated with anyone," he said, realizing as he said it that the offer was real. "There's a first time for everything."

She smiled, tilted her head to one side. "Really? I seem to remember you doing a lot of collaborating, in the old days. Not just with me, either."

"There's collaborating and there's collaborating."

"Which kind are we talking about?"

"I'm not sure anymore."

As they had been talking, whispering had been left far behind, and their voices echoed around this quiet stretch of the stream.

Corvine said, "Do you mean the collaborating where you're up late working out duets until the neighbors start banging on the floor?"

"I mean the collaborating where you share music all the way from tuning up to crescendo."

"Ah," she said, "you mean the collaborating where your lyrics and my lyrics mix together until we can't tell which is which anymore."

"Hm. Is that the collaborating where you wake up after an all-night session exhausted, but somehow you're ready to collaborate again?"

"Get an island already!" shouted Grizzendell.

∗ ∗ ∗

They didn't get an island. They did get a small hill, guarded by three stalwart-looking oak trees, yet allowing a clear view of the stars. They also got a bedroll. And there was collaborating of both kinds.

The morning was bright and cold and wonderful.

"Good morning!" the unseen Grizzendell bellowed in their general direction. "Rise and shine! Breakfast! Vengeance!"

"Agh." Gideon found it less wonderful to make his body move. "I'm not twenty-nine anymore. Alas for old age."

Corvine laughed and patted his shoulder. "Don't worry. It's not a permanent condition."

"Oh, thank you very much."

"At your service." She rose to dress, but paused to watch dark birds flit over the wide pale blue; he watched her watching. "This is a moment outside time. I don't know how things will be if we survive."

"You don't need to give that speech."

"Well, dead Corvine wouldn't be able to." She resumed dressing. "And you probably wouldn't want her to."

"I mean, if we survive, we can talk about the rest."

"I may want to move to Andoran, Gideon."

"Or, we could talk now..."

"You've drawn ever closer to Taldor. But I feel myself drawn to your homeland. That must seem maddening to you."

He stretched, winced, and grabbed his clothes. "Well, perhaps we're simply drawn to contrasts. It's an artistic quirk. Do you feel you'd be more at home in Andoran?"

"I don't know. I'd like to find out."

"Everything's tangled. I love my home. Recent events have helped me remember that. But I love yours as well, Corvine. Perhaps our loves are something only the gods can sort out."

"I don't necessarily hold with the gods, Gideon. I notice you still make the sign of Erastil, and I respect that. I've never had much time for gods, or they for me. But there is something larger than ourselves at work in the relationship of Taldor and Andoran. I've read a lot about Andoren democracy. I used to think that Andorens were arrogant."

Gideon drew himself to his full height, and painted a smirk on his face. "And now?"

"Ha! I still do. But there's a reason for it. Democracy's the future, Gideon. I think that one day Taldor will have real voting, not just our feeble Senate. And it will be completely Taldan to have that, not an abandonment of our heritage, as some claim."

"I've never seen you worry about the larger world. I'd assumed art was enough for you."

"Things change. Once in a while. Would you live with me there, in your country?"

"I have a duty," he said, the strangeness of it making his voice rough. "To your country."

They stood there silently.

There came a cough.

Viridia stood at the edge of the trees. "If you're decent, lovebirds, we should be about it."

Corvine said, "Decent, I don't know; but we're dressed."

"Good enough."

"You go ahead," Corvine said to Gideon. "I'll finish gathering our things."

Gideon did as asked, noting that Viridia lingered to have a few words with Corvine. He wished he could listen to their conversation, but it was probably pointless to try sneaking up on a Lion Blade student and a bard. And I should probably be relieved I didn't need to answer Corvine's question.

He joined his companions for breakfast. The Ses'h had allowed a campfire, and Asta and Grizzendell had collaborated in making the party's cold supplies interesting. There was even Sargavan coffee.

Adebeyo said, "Lsst'tok says if we move soon, we'll reach the castle by sunset."

"Good," said Gideon. "We can study it in the light, and infiltrate in the dark."

"Sebastian's forces may greatly outnumber ours," Merrigail said, sitting down beside him on a mossy log, sharpening her sword.

Gideon looked around at the survivors of Riposte, and the grim looks that shadowed their eyes, even this bright morning. "Ours may be more motivated. Even so, if anyone wishes to depart..."

Asta snorted.

"Don't be a fool," Adebeyo said. Grizzendell spat.

"The Dawnflower's brought me this far," Dymphna said. "I'll see it through."

Gideon had thought Hammerton and Briar, the pair of ordinary Andoren sailors, might have turned back; but they looked at each other and nodded their agreement with Dymphna. The elf Tyndron merely smiled beside the fire and sharpened his own blade.

"Very well," said Gideon, "I simply don't wish to compel..."

"Rubbish!" said Briar, in a rare outburst. "We follow Commander Merrigail, Hammerton and I. And even if we didn't, you won't last two days without a decent cook or accountant—we won't have you dying hungry and penniless before you even reach the battle. You have no authority to release us, Gull."

"And I won't insult them by releasing them now," Merrigail said.

"Fine," Gideon said, pleased and chagrined. "In that case, we go forward, into hideous danger!"

"That's the spirit!" Grizzendell said.

"The same could be said for you," Merrigail said more quietly. "As a spy, your task can be considered complete, no? You've reported in. Ozrif and the River Guard know the truth. Isn't it appropriate to sit out the battle, avoid risking your life?"

"Are you trying to talk me out of this?"

"Not at all. I'm merely curious."

"If we don't act, Sebastian's plans may come to fruition. War may begin."

She nodded. "And by then your government may decide it's best to go along. It's one thing to prevent a war, another to abandon one when it's underway. Then there's loss of life, treasure, and prestige, and nothing to show for it."

"The thought had crossed my mind. So?"

"So you're risking your life for an ideal, Lion Blade. For the greater good."

"It might be simple vengeance. I'm a simple spy, after all."

"You're more than that, Gideon Gull. What I don't understand is why you hide from it."

"What? Should I be billing myself as a hero?"

Merrigail shook her head, smiling. "In our age, that word has become a rusty old door whose hinges are stuck. It's a block to your imagination. But there's a light behind the door. Don't seek to be a hero. Seek the light."

"I feel like I'm back talking to the druids again."

"I see no reason to insult me."

∗ ∗ ∗

The second day of travel through the snowy woods and streams was glittering and peaceful, and Gideon's muse did not haunt him again. There was one interruption near midday, however—a welcome one.

A dark hawk winged under the white-fringed boughs, bearing a message from Ozrif. Corvine read it to the group.

Greetings and commiserations, Corvine.
I sorrow to hear of Tambour's betrayal. Let me soothe you with news. Bad news first: The druids won't help. The most they'll do is send this bird of Arenway, which I'm told can find you anywhere. The good news: They'll let us help ourselves. The River Guard has permission to disturb the Verduran Forest by attacking Sebastian's castle. Alas, only one reinforcing ship's arrived, so their numbers are limited. We'll disembark at a discreet distance and prepare a surprise attack. If you can clarify your plans, perhaps we can arrange a signal. This hawk will return to me when you're ready. Tell Viridia I look forward to seeing her, even under these circumstances!
In desperate hope,
Ozrif

"Desperate hope indeed," said Gideon. "But less desperate with the River Guard on hand."

"Perhaps we can link up," Viridia said.

"We may not have the opportunity," Merrigail said. "We'll be approaching across the river, remember. So it must necessarily be at night."

"We have any number of signals available," Corvine said.

"Let's break for lunch," Gideon said. "Corvine, you mind writing a return message?"

"My pleasure. As for a signal, why don't I tell Ozrif to be alert for the spells a bard's likely to use in combat? He'll recognize them."

"Sebastian knows those spells too."

"If Sebastian starts casting them," Corvine said, "I suspect we'll still be wanting the River Guard."

∗ ∗ ∗

They made good progress, but as the sun dropped and reddened, Gideon feared they'd lose the light. Then suddenly the wide, dark flow of the Verduran Fork appeared through a gap between boulders and trunks.

And not just the river.

"There," said Lsst'tok.

Without the Ses'h, they might never have found the castle at all. Mist shrouded the opposite shore. Where it cleared, Gideon could spy a granite bank stretching for a quarter mile upstream and down, broken at many points by stream beds, mud flows, piles of boulders, and determined trees. In one particularly misty spot, the cliff rose higher, perhaps five hundred feet, to form a promontory. The cliff bent inward in this place, so that a vast swirling pool was sheltered below, and an outcropping loomed above. Trees and shrubs and moss clung to the rock, and the setting grew increasingly ghostly as one looked toward the heights, where in the sunset glow indistinct branches and stones seemed wreathed in fire.

Between the promontory's trees rose a dark watchtower with a greater gray keep looming behind, a crenelated wall surrounding both like a square-toothed lower jaw. Tower and keep bore crenellations as well, and amid the ones on the tower Gideon thought he glimpsed a gray-bearded humanoid figure in a white robe, like a wisp of fog itself. He blinked, and it was gone.

Through the haze most of the tower's windows looked like black seeds against frosty ground, but some glowed, two with firelight, a gold that contrasted the sunset's red. There were also windows that flickered with unnatural blue, green, or purple.

"Magic's being done in there," said Corvine beside him.

"That's not all. I sense her. The War Fog is active nearby." Gideon closed his eyes. "And I think the ghost ship is coming."

"How do you know?"

"I just do. It's the music."

The group took cover. Before long the ghost ship did indeed glide into view, still resembling Demonwake for Gideon, a dark mirror of lost Riposte for Corvine, and other ominous craft for the rest.

As the vessel approached the castle, it sank beneath the waters. Pale green light glowed under the surface a short while, and then the river was once again dark, wavelets tinged by sunset scarlet.

"Once again I saw the Seawraith," Viridia said, "the constellation of the pirate goddess, the way I viewed it from the plains when I was a girl. Only this time swirling with nebula-sails, handled by ghosts with eyes like dying stars. What did you see, Lsst'tok?"

"The Evernest, drowned and drifting upon the waters, Ses'h moving within it like dead things animated by foul magic."

Gideon said, "There must be some hidden port over there for the submersible."

"I've been thinking about the ship," Viridia said. "Evidently the 'ghost' aspect's a disguise. But if it can truly travel underwater, why use such tricks at all? Surely submerging and going unnoticed is better than any camouflage."

"It must have some reason for surfacing," Corvine guessed. "Limited air?"

"Exactly. I suspect it can't stay down constantly."

Merrigail said, "It probably saves that capability for times it truly needs to hide."

Gideon said, "That means we have a chance to attack it."

"Are you serious?" Corvine asked.

Gideon looked at her. "Isn't that where you were all going with this conversation?"

The others shook their heads.

"Oh. Well, I still think it could work."

"Gideon Gull, berserker," Corvine said. Yet there was amusement in her voice. "Let's say we're mad enough to hear you out. What's your plan?"

∗ ∗ ∗

One hour's travel downstream and eight hours of waiting later, Gideon was beginning to despair. He was nodding off once again when Lsst'tok poked him, startling him into a cold awakening.

"It comes," said the bog strider.

Gideon looked upon the waters and saw the glow of Demonwake approaching, and heard the dim, strident music of Blacwin's Wanderloss in his mind. He began waking the others.

Once again the Ses'h carried them, this time onto the waters of the Verduran Fork.

"Thank you, Lsst'tok," Gideon said. "I may not see you again."

"I will convey your thanks to the seer-queen. For myself, I doubt time's currents will bring us another meeting. But I wish you well. Should you survive, and make account of us to your people, see that we are left alone."

"You have my word. I'll do what I can."

Though the stars blazed above, the only significant illumination came from the spectral craft bearing down upon them. The bog striders were moving at double time to intercept the vessel, and Gideon mentally braced himself for a terrifying transition.

It happened at a dizzying pace. Demonwake swelled to monstrous proportions ahead; Lsst'tok and the other Ses'h flung the companions through the air; and Gideon had a terrifying moment of seeming to plunge headfirst into the glowing hull of the great vessel.

In the next moment his vision blurred and he found himself with his comrades upon the varnished satinwood deck of a very different sort of vessel. It was considerably smaller than Demonwake had appeared to be, intermediate in size between Riposte and the crusaders' keelboat.

The ship lacked sails or oars, and the bow was dominated by a bizarre assortment of brass controls. Beside the helm was the draconic snout of the alchemical weapon Merrigail had called a firedrake. But the shocked crew were not so esoteric, being humans clad in undecorated variants of Taldan military greens and blues.

Disoriented as Gideon's boarding party was, they still gained a moment of surprise.

They took full advantage. Gideon leapt forward and tackled the nearest crew member. Merrigail shield-bashed another. Behind him, Viridia cast a sleeping spell toward the stern. Corvine had likely unleashed the spell of loathing, for he heard an unfamiliar voice cry, "Ugh, get away from me! You disgust me!"

The man who appeared to be the captain swung a cutlass at Gideon; the bard drew his daggers and tumbled out of the Taldan's reach, but there was little room to maneuver on the deck. Tyndron intercepted the captain and a true melee ensued.

Gideon reached the helmsman, who worked something resembling the controls of the maniacally complex pipe organ of the Rhapsodic Academy. He put a dagger to the man's throat.

"Turn us around."

The man hesitated, and then his hands lashed out and turned knobs. The ship lurched to one side.

Momentum flung Gideon away from the helmsman, who drew a dagger of his own. A couple of the Taldan's comrades fell into the water. A couple of Gideon's nearly did as well.

Suddenly Grizzendell was there, tripping the helmsman and punching him into submission. "You're lucky the Lion Blades want you all alive," he snarled. "Now how's about doing what the man said?"

The captain, wounded, was surrendering his sword to Tyndron.

"Adebeyo," Gideon said, "care to assume command?"

Riposte's former first mate took the captain's sword from the elf, nodding his thanks.

The vessel's crew had numbered eight, and the six remaining were soon bound, in what Gideon suspected was the most successful fight he'd ever have. Tyndron had taken some light cuts, as had Asta. Viridia retained a trace of her limp. But his team was in better condition than he'd any right to expect.

A sane gambler would walk away with his winnings, Gideon thought. Probably as far as Oppara.

The voice of Sebastian rose unbidden: Who ever said the Lion Blades were sane? Or, for that matter, the world?

"We won't cooperate," the captain was saying. His accent was Taldan, probably from down by Zimar.

"Don't you know Tambour's gone rogue?" Gideon asked.

"You're Andoren," said the helmsman. "Why should we care what you say?"

"Sebastian Tambour will restore Taldor to glory," said the captain. "Despite itself."

Merrigail said, "I don't think they'll see reason, having gone this far."

"You're working with the Eagle Knights," said the helmsman. "The enemy!"

"Even in Andoran we understand the chain of command. We're not your enemy. Not yet."

"Grizzendell," Gideon said, "do you think you can figure out the controls? We saw him turn this..."

"Yes," mused the gnome, "and there's that..."

The vessel lurched.

"You'll never figure it out," said the helmsman.

"I so admire your bravery," Corvine said, stepping closer and singing the peculiar syllables of an enchantment under her breath.

"Ah. What?" The helmsman shivered a little, looking into her eyes, as her spell impacted his mind.

"My friends," she said sadly, "are the bloody, violent type. And yet you resist! I so admire that."

"Oh...?"

"So willing to protect a leader who didn't give you enough troops to guard this wondrous ship. And it is wondrous, isn't it! I bet few men have the mettle to master such a vessel."

"Don't listen to her—" began the captain.

"Go to sleep," said Viridia, twirling and tossing petals. The captain did.

"It isn't easy, you know," the helmsman said. "The captain keeps acting like he could do it, but I've seen him try. You need the touch."

"I'm sure," said Corvine, leaning a little closer. "You need the touch."

It's good I'm not a jealous man, thought Gideon.

Oh, hell with it, he thought in the next second. I am a jealous man. But I'm also a grown one.

"Tambour got the basic idea from this inventor named Croon," the helmsman babbled. "But the inventor's ideas were hard to replicate, so Tambour used magic. He got the basic spell for submerging a ship from off in the Shackles. Then there's the spell that turns some of our on-board War Fog into a psychic disguise..."

Before long they had all the information they needed for Grizzendell to guide the vessel, and more interesting knowledge besides. Binding and gagging the helmsman ended the spell, but the deed was done.

Glowing mists closed over the top of the craft as it plunged into the waters.

"Sure we shouldn't look for Ozrif?" Viridia asked Gideon.

Gideon shook his head. "Wish we could. But we're not sure where to look, and too much of the night's passed already. I hope this was the correct approach."

"It's by far the most fun one," said Grizzendell, grinning at an enchanted globe that gave him perfect vision of the river bottom and its hazards. As the rocks of the castle promontory came into view, Gideon hoped the gnome would be as eager when they assaulted Sebastian's fortress.

Chapter Nineteen

Fantasia for Empire

Grizzendell still thought the approach entertaining, even after the vessel scraped upon the sides of the underwater tunnel.

"Hahaha! The stories I'll tell!"

"Let the bards think about that, Grizzendell," Adebeyo said. "If we live."

Gideon glanced uneasily at the catapult in the stern, the one beside the crates of disassembled skeletons and the metal drums labeled War Fog and bearing handprints of red paint. At least he assumed it was paint.

"Here we go," said Grizzendell.

The ship surfaced within a vast chamber carved with bas-reliefs, lit by a stone chandelier representing an octopus, with a magical flame blazing on the tip of each limb.

"Welcome to Mistwatch," Gideon said.

The group was prepared for a fight, but discovered no one nearby. They claimed garments from the crew and left them beside the wall in their underclothes, bound and gagged and in some cases sleeping.

There were two female uniforms. Viridia claimed one, and after some coaxing Merrigail gave up her Andoren livery to don the other. Luckily there was no device on her shield. The remaining four went to Gideon, Adebeyo, Hammerton, and Briar.

"I'll be more convincing as a prisoner," Tyndron said.

"You, me, Dymphna, Asta, Grizzendell," Corvine said, "we're simple delvers who blundered into the wrong ruin."

"Right," Grizzendell said. "That'll work for all of ten seconds."

"That long?"

Dymphna was regarding the vessel. "Should we wreck it?"

"We lack time and tools," Adebeyo said.

"I'll sink it, at least," Grizzendell said. "Don't worry, I'll swim out in time."

"Be sure you do. That's an order."

As the gnome set about his work, Tyndron looked around at the bas-reliefs, which depicted squids and crayfish, otters and salmon, merfolk and gillmen. "There's an elven look to all this, but in a wild style. Perhaps the traitor Zethril feels at home here."

"You have a special enmity for Zethril," Viridia said.

"Do betrayal and murder not justify such?"

"It began before then, though, didn't it?"

Tyndron shrugged. "My family is among those faithful who didn't abandon the elven lands before the Age of Darkness, when the fall of the Starstone rent the world. We kept watch over the empty cities while Zethril's kind dallied in the otherworldly paradise of Sovyrian."

"You once said your family was cast out," Gideon said.

"I can believe I said that, although I don't remember. I must have been in fog-rage. Whatever, it was an exaggeration. Since their return, most of the abandoners show us courtesy at least. Their superior airs are a subtle thing. My family chooses to live far from the homeland, but we weren't forced. Even so, some, like Zethril, are not at all subtle in their contempt. They see my kind as backward."

"Your kin were reunited over two thousand years ago."

Tyndron shrugged. "It's the privilege of elves to have long memories."

"Or their curse?" Corvine said.

"As you wish."

The submersible sank like lost Azlant; after a worrisome moment, Grizzendell emerged from the waters, laughing.

"Well done," Merrigail said. "But I advise less noise from all of us."

"Let's be about our work," Grizzendell said. "After that water, I need to warm up."

Gideon and Merrigail led the way, he a little ahead, ready to tumble back to the protection of the Eagle Knight's sword and shield.

Four passageways led from the chamber. The first two, as it turned out, accessed supply chambers. The remaining tunnels presented a decision, for they both led upward.

One was a simple ascent up a stone staircase, winding far out of sight. The other sloped to a bizarre laboratory, this one also lit by magical flames, here embedded in lanterns hanging from chains.

"I vote for the insane laboratory," Viridia said, and there was general agreement.

The workspace occupied a small cavern sheltering a natural pool, one that billowed with unnatural-looking fog, glinting green.

They crept closer. Several metal tables stood rusting, full of equipment Gideon couldn't begin to identify. Beside these were many open barrels of the sort they'd found on the submersible.

A circular air shaft opened in the ceiling above the pool, rising as far as they could see. Merrigail pointed it out, holding a finger to her lips. In a far corner, a spiral staircase of metal ascended through another opening overhead.

Gideon thought he glimpsed a glow above the spiral stairs. His imagination? By now he couldn't trust that explanation.

"This must be where Tambour brews his War Fog," he whispered.

"I'd have expected a livelier facility," Viridia answered.

"It seems we've a choice of ascents," Adebeyo muttered. "Commander Hannison, your opinion?"

"Hold," the Eagle Knight whispered, scanning the room. "Something's not right."

"You think?" said Grizzendell.

"A sense of abandonment, bereavement...Don't you feel it? Do you sense anything, Gideon? Gideon?"

"I...do. I think I sense something descending those stairs."

His companions raised their weapons. "Is it her, Gideon?" Corvine asked.

He couldn't answer, for he was transfixed by an approaching shape.

Its robes billowed black, outlined by a spectral glow like moonlight upon the waters. Emerging from the sleeves were skeletal hands, and a skull grinned from within its hood.

"Do you see it?" he gasped.

It was Captain Crookwing, pointing at Gideon once more.

"I see nothing," said Corvine, and the others murmured agreement.

"What is it?" Viridia asked.

Crookwing beckoned and ascended out of sight.

"Not sure. But I feel I should go up." He found himself walking toward the stairs, as if in a dream.

"We'll come with you, Gideon," Merrigail said.

He shook his head. "I feel this presence will flee if we all go."

"Very well," Corvine said, stepping beside him. "I'll go."

"I don't suppose I can refuse."

"Nope."

They climbed the spiral staircase, their boots making damp muted music upon the metal. Beyond was an opened trapdoor leading to a small library that possessed no windows and no other doors. If there were ever magical light-stones in this room, they had gone as dark as Treacherous Jack. But light was still present.

Captain Crookwing was gone, but a semitransparent, white-robed figure stood within the room, waiting for them. It glowed with much the same light as the War Fog and the ghost ship, if a trifle less green. The figure appeared to be an old, gray-bearded human, tall, slightly stooped, but with the bearing of one used to giving orders, and the poise of a man who remembered being handsome. His eyes were sad. He studied the bards but did not attack.

"I see it now, Gideon. What is it?"

"I don't know. But I feel that I should." Gideon led her the rest of the way into the library, watching. The room might have been pleasant under other circumstances, with its desk and chairs and many books, and its globe which Gideon, with a bard's curiosity, might have spun and consulted. Just the sort of room he might have wanted to whisk Corvine off to. Except for the small problem of the...

"Ghost?" Corvine was saying. "Is it truly a ghost? Why is it just standing there?"

He recalled the voice of the Mistress of Lies and Memory. Beware naming a thing before you've truly investigated it.

"Hello? Sir?"

The figure turned away.

"Was it something I said?"

"He does look familiar, somehow," Corvine said.

"I think I saw him on one of the towers earlier."

"That's not what I mean. It's like I've met him before."

The ghost—or apparition, spirit, spectre, projection, what-have-you—stepped into one corner of the library.

It pointed to one book with its left hand, and to a second book with its right.

"Well," Corvine said, swallowing hard, "let's see what reading he recommends."

"I'd prefer if he were Spindlegrim, the librarian from the college. But yes."

They carefully edged around either side of the apparition.

Gideon got his hand on a stained, untitled notebook wedged between works titled The Meta-Anatomy of Ooze-Life and The Enchanter's Guide to the Humanoid Psyche. He pulled it forth.

As soon as he did so, a rasping, ancient-sounding voice reverberated in his mind. At last we can speak, Gideon Gull. You hold my journal, a thing most precious to me in life. Through it, I can reach you for a time, without her notice.

Gideon spun and confronted the apparition. It smiled, crookedly. Yes, I know you. And you know me—or rather, my work, and my shame. My name is Tarquin Tambour, and I was Sebastian's father. There is much you should know.

Corvine gave no sign of having heard anything. "I think he wants me to look at this book called The Primary Tactic of the Wise Magician," she was saying. "But it won't budge...Wait..."

Some memory of Spindlegrim's library tugged at Gideon even as Corvine tugged on the book. "Corvine—"

The entire book-lined wall spun around on a circular section of floor, wheeling Corvine into the shadowy spaces on the other side.

No! came the voice of Tarquin Tambour. Too soon! Her attention stirs!

The old man vanished, plunging Gideon into darkness.

"Corvine!" Gideon hissed. Even now, he was mindful not to make too much noise.

He didn't hear her, but footsteps did ascend the spiral staircase behind him. As his companions approached, he kept calling out to Corvine as loudly as he dared, fumbling in the dark for the trigger book. There was no answer, nor any response from the door.

He searched his spell component pouch for the little vial containing a dead firefly. He murmured the doggerel couplet that helped him access his spell of illumination—one of the first he'd learned at the Rhapsodic College.

Hearken, night, to my bright verse,
Better this, than darkness curse

The firefly vanished, but the vial glowed like an Opparan streetlamp.

Viridia reached him. "What happened?"

"She found a secret doorway. I can't find the trigger, and apparently she can't find the corresponding control on the other side. Anyone, can you find a book with a title something like The Wise Magician?"

"Ah," said Grizzendell. "Here, down by me."

"Try pulling it out."

"Grr. Wedged in here..."

"Let me," said Tyndron. After a moment, he said, "No good. It's anchored in place somehow."

"It was the trigger," Gideon said, fighting down panic. "It worked before."

Viridia found his hand, squeezed it. "I remember the Master of Charm and Disguise talking about such a mechanism. A bookshelf door with a variable lock. Keyed to allow a quick escape, but once used, a different combination is needed."

Gideon flipped through the old wizard's journal, but it swirled with an arcane script unknown to him. He began pulling on different books. He found one that shifted only so far before stopping. Then another. Neither triggered the door. His hands kept moving.

"Gideon!" Viridia said, taking his arm and holding it tight. "She's my friend too. But you're not going to solve this puzzle. Not now, in a raid. I'm sorry."

It was maddening. "She was just here...If I only knew..."

"Gideon," Merrigail said, and from her tone he knew exactly what she would say. "I don't wish to abandon Corvine. But we have a mission. She's a capable person. Don't count her out."

"And if she's injured?"

"We can't know. But I do know what she would say."

"You're right." He slammed his hand against the bookshelf. "The ghost—it was Sebastian's father. I think he meant for us to go this way, but now he's gone."

"I don't think we can wait for his return," Merrigail said. "We need to try another path. When our tasks are done, no one will search harder for Corvine than I. You have my word."

"And mine," said Adebeyo. "But Merrigail's right."

"Gideon..." Viridia said.

"I know. We go."

As they passed the fog pit in the laboratory, the vapors within seemed agitated, swirling with more violence. The infiltrators hurried by. When they returned to the submersible's chamber and the prisoners' glares, Gideon stirred from dark thoughts long enough to glance again at the journal. It was full of notes and diagrams in a clear hand. Though the writing was unintelligible, the drawings were intriguing, depicting vapors and various bizarre-looking slimes and liquids, and methods of their containment and manipulation.

Ghost? he thought as he stared at the book. Lord Tambour? If you're out there, please make it known.

No voices touched his mind.

They ascended the far stairs.

The illumination was sparse—a magical torch here and there—and so Gideon padded forward with Tyndron and Grizzendell at his back, ready to alert him to dangers he'd missed. Viridia and Merrigail came next, then Adebeyo and Dymphna, Hammerton and Briar, and Asta as their rear guard. The tunnels had the look of old abuse. Gideon saw evidence of burns and water damage, scraped and cleaned with efficiency but no love. The stairway took a turn and ascended again, and Gideon was just beginning to wonder at the absence of guards when he spotted a sculpture on the next landing. He stopped and flattened himself against the wall.

He recalled the words of the Master of Steel and Sinew: All statues are guilty until proven inanimate.

This statue continued the aquatic theme of the chamber below. It was a voluptuous mermaid with ample cleavage, sunning herself upon a rock. As such, she was merely a saucier variation on other statues of the type, except that she bore a tattoo upon one breast—some sort of rune. He couldn't help but study...

He shut his eyes. Clever. Animation was not the danger here.

He descended a few steps. "No one advance. Up ahead's a magical inscription you'll have some difficulty not noticing. But if you stare, it will have ill effect."

"What sort of effect?" Grizzendell said.

"I didn't see it closely enough to be sure. Popular variations are madness, unconsciousness, terror, agony, and simple death."

"I'll be closing my eyes then."

"You all should."

It took precious time, but Gideon wasn't about to let his comrades fall to a known trap. Eyes shut, he passed the statue and then, eyes open, scouted to verify that the staircase ahead was provisionally safe. Returning to shepherd the others, he got them past the mermaid without incident.

"So far so good," he whispered to Viridia, trying not to think of Corvine.

"But still no way to signal the River Guard."

Two landings later, they encountered more magic.

Fresh illumination poured from a curtain of light. It had no true substance, but was rather a shifting weave of multicolored filaments of energy. Gideon could see through the effect to perceive an ordinary-looking landing beyond, yet the curtain was fascinating, forming half-understood patterns before breaking apart again. He wondered if it was some hypnotic effect, yet his mind didn't seem enchanted.

He called for Viridia, and for her opinion.

"Pretty," she said.

"Very helpful."

"Pretty troublesome," she added. "Surely it does bad things, and we can't avoid it."

Gideon tapped his foot. Ghost? he thought. I suspect this is your old handiwork. Care to fill me in on your genius?

"It looks wrong for enchanted flame," Viridia said.

Gideon nodded. "And wardings of force are usually invisible..." Something nagged at him.

"Wizards," Viridia said disgustedly. "I don't know how they keep all this stuff in their heads without going insane."

"That's it!" Gideon said, suddenly understanding. "Sebastian's father—his specialty was magic of the mind. Insanity. That's how he created the War Fog."

"So it's a warding that drives you insane?"

"I remember something like this being mentioned in class once—the Veil of Nauseating Madness, or some such thing. As I recall, it has a safe side, and a side that drives you absolutely bonkers."

"This must be the safe side, then. But how is it we're so lucky?"

"Sebastian's father must have been more worried about someone coming down the stairs and discovering his secret lab. Sebastian, too." Gideon scratched his chin. "Whatever he expected of us after Bellis, it probably wasn't a high-speed counterattack with bog striders. And that's probably all we've got on our side right now." Until they discover Corvine. "Wait here."

He cracked his knuckles and stepped through the curtain.

It felt like nothing at all, and then he was through. He didn't turn around.

"Please follow me if you would," he called behind him. "But don't look back."

As the party passed through, Gideon scouted up the stairs, reminding himself to descend slowly backward on the return.

"We're all fine," Viridia told him.

"All clear so far."

Four flights later, Gideon heard a voice—not up the stairs, but in his mind.

Gideon Gull.

Gideon slowed, and thought back, Tarquin Tambour. Where's my missing friend?

She ascends a secret path, as you ascend a more open one. There are guards ahead. Be wary.

I will. But frankly, I'm more afraid of your son. And your—wife?

She and I are not truly what we appear to be. The War Fog has a psychic resonance to it. I used that property to imprint my and her personalities onto the fog, so we might better control it. Now her mind and mine inhabit the War Fog—though hers is the stronger. You and your friends can release us. But first—the guards!

Gideon indeed heard low voices and saw light spilling around the corner. He raised a hand to halt Grizzendell and Tyndron. Listening carefully, he counted the voices, then turned and held up five fingers to Grizzendell and Tyndron. They whispered this information to the rest.

"You hear something?" asked one of the voices up the stairs.

Gideon charged.

It was hardly complete surprise. But as luck would have it the guards, clad in the same pseudo-Taldan livery as the men on the ship, were arrayed at nearly the four corners of the landing, with a fifth a few steps above. They gaped as Gideon plunged a dagger into one and flung him aside. Tyndron rushed up and skewered the second.

Then their luck turned.

Grizzendell and Viridia ran forward next, headed for the back rank of guards. For a second it seemed odd to Gideon that the guards were holding back, as if something occupied that empty space.

"Wait—" he began.

It was too late. The center of the landing collapsed under Grizzendell and Viridia. It must have been made of something flimsy, painted to resemble stone.

Viridia heard Gideon's warning, and with her dancer's reflexes was able to careen backward at the last moment. She still would have fallen, but Tyndron was able to grab her flailing arm and pull her aside. The two of them tumbled.

Grizzendell was not so lucky.

In horror, Gideon heard the gnome's cry of shock and outrage as he plunged down and down in a seemingly endless drop.

All surprise gone, Gideon found himself with a swordsman in his face and a looming pit at his side. He backed down the stairs, wrenching words from his throat. "Pit! Be wary!"

The three guards offered grim smiles in return.

The smiles faded somewhat as they saw the opposition coming up the stairs.

"For Andoran!" cried Merrigail. She shoved her shield in the way of the guard nearest Tyndron and Viridia, blocking his thrust. The guard's eyes widened.

"For my shipmates!" screamed Asta, and the kindly sailor transformed into a berserker of the North. Her sword cut deep into Gideon's startled foe, even as Gideon's boot went deep into the man's stomach.

The guard toppled into the pit.

The leader had no more laughter in him as he fled. Asta ran after him, but before she could reach him Gideon grabbed his harp and plucked, casting Leothric's spell of sonic assault.

It succeeded. The guard leader reeled, hands upon his ears, and before he could recover, Asta was upon him. Then Adebeyo was beside her, for the First Mate was surefooted enough to leap over the pit.

As if in silent concord, the two survivors of Riposte shoved the leader into the pit.

Now Viridia and Tyndron rose. With three foes ahead, two behind, and a pit to one side, the remaining guard tossed his weapon at Merrigail's feet and raised his hands. His expression was calm. She waved him to her side and began binding his hands. Dymphna, Hammerton, and Briar were similarly binding the two who'd been wounded.

The reality of the swift battle now resonated in their minds. Gideon sagged against the wall, gasping.

"Grizzendell." Adebeyo gazed expressionlessly at the jagged maw of the pit."

Gideon grabbed the captured guard and shoved the man's head down, to look into the cold, stone plunge. The edge had not broken entirely, and bits of it crumbled, falling into darkness.

"How far down does that go?"

"All the way," said the guard. "It slides to an underground river, feeding the Verduran Fork. Your friend's drowned, Andoren. My companions, too."

He does not lie, said the ghost-wizard's voice in Gideon's mind.

Gideon shivered. "I'm Andoren, yes," he told the guard, "but I'm in the employ of your country. Which you will answer to. How many in this castle?"

"Fifty-odd."

He speaks true.

"You can't mean to invade Andoran with fifty soldiers."

"No. More are coming from upstream. From Falling River Fort, I think."

"When?"

The guard shrugged. "We're not told everything. But I think they're on the way. They stop here, then one more War Fog softening, and we're ready."

"'Softening.' Where's Tambour?"

"Usually in the smaller tower. But you'll never get to him. He's got Chelish wizards. And that ghost-witch."

"Tell me about that."

"She's part of the fog, and it's part of her. You'll never get to Tambour."

"We'll get to him. You're going to talk us through. Unless you want the pit."

"I...all right."

They got Tyndron into one of the captured men's livery. Unfortunately, that still left several of them without suitable guard uniforms, so the 'prisoner' gambit would have to do. Gideon wished his disguise kit hadn't gone down with Riposte.

As they ascended, Gideon, thought, Tarquin Tambour?

I'm here, Gull.

Why are you helping us? And how do you know my name?

Both questions have much the same answer. I created the original War Fog, whose successor has taken such an interest in you.

Why would you make such a thing? Did you hate Andoran so much?

Hate? No. Rather, I loved Taldor. I saw your country as a wayward province, in need of return to the fold. And I saw my fog as a better kind of warfare. Its intent was to make populations lose heart, to surrender without fighting. But it all went wrong. The experiment at Bellis shouldn't have come out the way it did. Your brother shouldn't have died.

No one should have!

I know. It's all ashes. What's the glory of Taldor if it's built on the bodies of dead families? The War Fog was meant to pacify, not destroy. But I failed, and I tried to make amends by destroying myself and my castle, asking forgiveness of whatever might grant it. You see how that turned out.

How could you do this? And how could you make your monster mirror your own wife?

The strength of her imprint was beyond my dreams, or nightmares. She killed herself after I was gone. Perhaps the trauma of that event resonated through the War Fog, and that's why she is so strong—and so distorted. But it took my son to find the sleeping remnants of the fog and restore it to vitality. He used Chelish wizards to help him, and struck a vile bargain. You must stop him. He has gone down a dark road. No more should die because of my dream. Soon—no! She stirs. I must—

The voice abandoned him.

The stairway seemed endless, but at last they reached the castle proper. The stairs opened upon a torchlit chamber within the main keep, with a portcullis facing a winding stone road. The starry sky was still dark, and Gideon was glad of that.

They needed to get past this guard post, sabotage the portcullis, and signal the River Guard as soon as they were inside the wizard's tower.

A soldier approached, surprised to see them. Gideon stood at attention, thinking to himself, I am a guard. All you see is a guard. Anonymous and ignorable. Meanwhile the Andoren sailor Briar was carrying all the supposed prisoners' weapons.

"What's this?"

The captured guard from the stairway said, "They claim to be delvers. Thought this place was abandoned."

The new guard narrowed his eyes. "Delvers. They came up from below?"

"Said they stumbled on a secret way. Seem harmless enough. Tambour said not to hurt any civilians."

"They don't all look Taldan. I don't like this. Tambour's orders are that he interrogate all trespassers..."

"Where do you think we're going?"

Suspicion lingered on the keep guard's face, and Gideon never did learn whether it would have lasted longer; because just then something new changed everything.

From the wizard's tower came the now-familiar explosion of magical sound.

Corvine?

"What was that?" shouted the keep guard. "Something in the tower?"

Beside one of the darkened tower windows, a light blazed to life. For a brief, gleaming moment a symbol burned in the air: a shield half blue, half green, with a golden crown above a white lion. The symbol of Taldor, facing downstream.

Corvine.

Chapter Twenty

Aria for Broken Voices

Tambour's warning us!" the keep guard shouted. "Trouble at the tower!"

Half-right, Gideon thought.

The man hustled toward his troops, ordering the portcullis lowered and a force sent to aid Sebastian. Gideon nudged their own "captor," and their group of "prisoners" moved toward the courtyard archway as well.

"Wait!" said the keep guard.

They halted.

"Best you should stay here, until we know the tower's secure." He strode up, frowning. "You sure these are just delvers?" The frown deepened into a scowl. He squinted more closely at the group.

The rope Gideon carried shot out as if of its own volition and snared the guard. He followed it, clamping his hand upon the guard's mouth and shifting between him and his people. Busy as they were, there was a chance the struggle would go unnoticed just a moment longer. He pulled out a bit of fleece and shifted from humming "Haul Away for Arcadia" to "What Will I Dream When the Hangman Hauls?"

Gideon dreamed of a keep guard just like the entangled one, only standing between Gideon and the troops, nodding, looking around at the activity, acting as if nothing was wrong. Gideon added a couple of the guards from the fight on the stairs for good measure.

By the time they reached the courtyard the rope spell had worn off. But by then Adebeyo had demonstrated his skill with sailors' knots. The keep guard struggled, but couldn't break free or warn his people. Gideon had the illusionary guards follow them.

"I'm dead now if you don't silence this man," said the turncoat, sounding unhappy with his choice. "Or else defeat Tambour."

"Gideon," Viridia said. "I'm going to slip away and make sure the portcullis goes up when Ozrif arrives with the Guard."

"Are you crazy?" he said.

"I'm not, and you know it. You've seen me in training. You've studied illusions, but my best spells enhance my movement. I'll blend in better and move faster alone. Trust me."

He looked up at the sky. The stars still filled it, but a hint of gray was appearing to the east. "Good luck."

She was gone almost before he noticed it.

Eight of them now, not including their collaborator and their prisoner. It would have to be enough.

They hid the keep guard in the stable beside the wizard's tower. They hustled to the door of the tower, even as sounds of alarm rose from the keep.

Gideon maintained the illusion of additional guards as they reached the entrance. Even with Grizzendell's loss, they'd been lucky so far. It couldn't hold.

Tambour.
Gull.
Is there a better way inside?
Yes, the passage from the laboratory.
One we can reach?
No.
Is there a passphrase at the door, then?
Yes...

Soon Gideon said, "'The weather is witchy in Westcrown.' We've got prisoners for Tambour. What's going on?"

For a moment the lead guard looked suspicious, but studying Gideon's illusions he saw familiar faces. "An intruder got in here. Just got word Tambour's caught her."

"Bet these are her accomplices, then."

"He'll want to see them up top."

They entered a high chamber perhaps fifty feet across, filled with long tables—a dining hall perhaps. A large stone pillar, carved to resemble swirling clouds, rose from floor to ceiling. Gideon wondered what would require such a massive support.

The pillar wasn't the only peculiar feature. The heads of strange creatures hung upon the wall: a bear whose fur was interrupted with sharp bone extrusions, an owl with an equally gigantic head, another oversized bird with a cruel beak the equal of a battleaxe, and a three-headed fusion of dragon, lion, and goat. Stone stairs hugged the wall, rising out of sight through a gap in the ceiling.

Ascending, they found the workshops of a wizard. Many of the tables and items were hidden by sheets and dust, but some stood unveiled. The only commonalities of these chambers were the windows, the stairway, and the central pillar that continued upward through each of the stories.

Are we on the right track, Tambour?
The path to slaying my son? Yes.
Must he die?
You would spare him?
Twisted as he is, I would. I have seen too much killing.

Gideon sensed the ghost's approval. He was right in wanting to keep you as an ally, then. I wish he'd grown up far from our shadows, among friends such as you.

They passed the second floor with its shelves stocked with bizarre creatures and substances. Gideon glanced at the nearest such shelf and noted the cryptically labeled jars. Warp Dust (swirling and glowing and seemingly changing in mass); Psychic Kudzu (something like blurry ivy, with leaves covered in arcane script); Clutterbugs (a writhing pile of insects that resembled lost thimbles, spoons, and clasps); Arcwight (a stick-figure of lightning pounding on the glass.)

Did he truly think I would support him? Gideon asked.

I cannot sift his thoughts. But he had heard of your disenchantment with your family and countrymen. He made the War Fog's advances against Andoren more potent, to make the Andorens seem more susceptible. In the end, I think he believed his own propaganda about Andoran's instability.

Gideon thought about that. If they'd not crossed paths with Merrigail's party, if he hadn't seen those Andorens' bravery, would he have been swayed by Sebastian's arguments? The fog was getting out of his control, though. Just as it escaped yours.

They reached the third floor. Here a number of crystalline vats held groups of rats. Tubes connected the vats to smaller versions of the barrels he'd seen earlier, those labeled with the red handprint.

Yes, Tambour said. It afflicted his crew more than he'd intended, making him mistrust them. And he'd never wanted any Mendevians attacked. But the War Fog hungers, and she who guides it now is a tormented soul, causing ruin, yet pining for lost innocence. I think that may be why she clutches at you, Gull. You are also scarred by the fog, yet you retain an innocence, like our son in better days ...

On the fourth floor was a wealth of mirrors, many glowing with strange lights and reflecting, not the chamber, but far places. Gideon glimpsed the Grand Bridge of Oppara greeting the sunrise, the Field of Concord in Almas dotted with lanterns as merchants assembled for market in the gray predawn, and the blade-like towers of the Chelish capital of Egorian, festooned with torches burning in the ebbing night. Other mirrors showed alien landscapes beneath suns of red, orange, or blue. In one mirror, strangely curved and bordered by metalwork bat wings, Gideon saw his own party distorted into nightmarish shapes. Adebeyo was like a ghost with raiment of torn sail. Merrigail was a sculpture made of blades. Gideon was a man sliced in two, entrails dangling, yet still walking, as though he'd been chopped down the middle. He looked away.

"I don't like this place," Merrigail said.

The collaborator said, "I warned you. And we haven't even seen the ghost-witch."

"Nowhere to go but up," Gideon said, thinking of all he'd heard. He dropped the illusion of the guard from the keep, suspecting they'd be carefully questioned soon. Crossing his fingers, he ascended.

The fifth floor was surely the last before they would confront Sebastian, for here their path ended, and four guards protected a spiral stairway rising beside the far wall. There was also a pale woman in black robes embroidered in flowing diabolic symbols. Although the marks did not actually say I am a devil-summoning evil wizard, Gideon figured that would do for a translation.

The pillar was still here, rising to the chamber above. Now Gideon remembered the shaft in the ceiling of the cavern laboratory. If the War Fog spawned down there, it had a clear path to the tower top.

"We have prisoners," Gideon said to the guards in his best Taldan accent.

"I don't recognize you," said their leader. At least he didn't object to the accent.

The collaborator said, "He's new. We're getting some fresh faces, seeing as we're about to see action."

"I do recognize you," put in the woman in wizard's robes, looking as though she regretted the fact. Her accent was Chelish. "Where's your superior?"

"He had to see to something down below."

The guard commander said, "Wait here." He was about to climb the spiral stairs when a runner came up the stairs behind.

"Sergeant!" said the young man, out of breath. "No one can find the lieutenant."

The sergeant stepped down and scrutinized the newcomers anew. "Too many strange events. I don't like this at all." Glancing to his left and right he said, "You and you, take the prisoners to the cells." To the collaborator, he said, "You'll be staying here. Tambour'll—"

Gideon didn't need to hear the whole performance to know the genre of the music. He snared a feather and tiny fruit tarts from his spell component pouch, and incanted the syllables to invoke uncontrollable laughter.

(In his mind there was no fresh joke for this situation, though if he had one, it would have begun, A bard, a knight, and a bunch of sailors walked into an evil wizard's tower. They really wished it was a bar.)

Luckily, the Chelish wizard was either unfamiliar with this particular spell, or else was simply startled by the sight of Gideon talking with his mouth full while waving a feather at the sergeant's nose.

The spell worked. The sergeant shuddered in a fit of cackling, toppling to the floor and rolling about in hideous glee.

The wizard snarled and backed away, narrowly saving herself from being bashed by Merrigail's shield.

The collaborator pursued her with his sword, perhaps preferring this to battling his former comrades. Briar wasted no time tossing out weapons and snatching up the sergeant's.

The three guards at the spiral stairway, although startled, were not about to stand idle. Gideon found himself ducking beneath the thrust of one Taldan, while Briar parried the swing of another, getting knocked backward in the process. A third engaged Merrigail.

Behind the intruders, the runner from below bellowed for help. Gideon heard the shout cut off by the sounds of a struggle, but was too preoccupied with the sword in his face to get a good look.

The next moment something quite different preoccupied him.

The Chelish wizard spoke words of triumphant arcane gibberish. A swath of brilliant violet flame slashed across the room, rising from floor to ceiling. It cut off about a third of the room, leaving the descending stairway on one side, the central pillar on the other.

It also burned through the collaborator, and Tyndron, and Asta.

The first fell and did not rise; the second dropped and rolled; the third, still burning, charged toward the Chelish wizard like a flaming longship of the dead.

The defenders took heart. Merrigail was startled and pushed back by her foe. Adebeyo was engaged in a knife-fight with the runner. Briar was knocked to the floor by his own foe, and Dymphna and Hammerton tried to protect him. Gideon narrowly escaped perforation.

This was not the sort of battle that provided nice, neat geometries. Yet Lion Blade training wasn't about conventional battle lines. He growled in his throat and heard the words once more. We are always with you, brother! No force in the world can stop you!

He ducked, rolled, and let the momentum carry him toward the spiral stairs. Once there, he leapt, grabbed at the metal, and swung toward the wizard, feet first.

He connected, disrupting whatever eldritch formula she'd commenced, leaving her open to Asta's attack.

By now his original opponent had followed him. He kicked at the man's sword hand, and by some fierce luck managed to throw off his aim.

Your claws will tear the foe! Your fangs will rip the enemy!

Gideon took advantage of the opening to launch himself at the man, jabbing with his dagger, punching, kicking, until he lost himself in the flurry of the battle, not entirely conscious of his goal until he'd maneuvered the shocked guard into the curtain of fire. As the man shrieked, Adebeyo's dagger claimed him from the other side.

"Thanks," gasped Gideon.

"Look to Asta!" said Adebeyo.

Too late. A blast resembling Karcuna's lightning bolt dazzled Gideon's vision, and he only barely shifted out of its way.

Asta was not so lucky. She fell.

By now Tyndron was up, his clothing still smoking. With a savage swing, he felled the wizard.

Gideon and Tyndron at her side, Asta tried to speak.

"I sail now..."

"Asta—" said Tyndron.

"She's gone," said Gideon.

When he looked up, a dread hush came upon the room, save for the crackling of the magical flames and the sergeant's mad laughter.

Seven of them now.

Gideon, Tyndron, and Merrigail had ended up on one side of the fire. Adebeyo, Dymphna, Hammerton, and Briar were on the other.

Merrigail bound and gagged the sergeant.

Gideon said, "I don't know how long this fire will last."

There came from far outside the sound of horns, and battle-cries from many throats.

"The River Guard!" Merrigail said.

"Let's hope Viridia succeeded," Tyndron said.

"Adebeyo," Gideon said, "you'd better judge the situation as best you can. If you think you must come through the fire before it goes out, follow us. If not, defend the stairs and hope the River Guard arrives soon."

"Agreed."

"Good luck," said Dymphna.

"We'll hold them off, Commander," said Hammerton.

"Thank you," said Merrigail, "all of you."

Three of them now.

They ascended into Sebastian's lair. The stairway rose through a stone barrier for perhaps thirty feet, and the sounds of flame and battle faded behind.

Gideon pushed open a trapdoor as quietly as he dared.

As it happened, he was expected.

"Mmph!" came Corvine's voice.

"I was wrong about you in many ways," said Sebastian. "But I was right that you were a good recruit for the Shadow School."

Gideon let the trapdoor fall open. He scrambled for cover in the dimly lit space.

They were in a wide, circular chamber lit by eight windows, all thrown open to the elements, silvery light piercing the eastern side. The room was furnished as a study, and Gideon was reminded both of Headmaster Xeritian's office back in Oppara, and of Admiral Kasaba's meeting room in Cassomir. There was a desk, several bookshelves, various chests, a table with outspread maps, globes of more than one planet, and a sleeping cot.

There was also a pit. A great circular hole filled the center of the floor like the opening to an oubliette, matching the position of the great pillar that had risen through the whole tower.

Corvine's hands were tied behind her back, and there was a cloth gagging her mouth. Sebastian held her at the edge of the pit, ready to shove.

Sebastian looked weary."I'm sorry. Corvine deserves better. She fought fiercely when she emerged from the secret passage."

She tried to stomp his foot, but he evaded her, keeping her at the edge.

"Once I knew she was here, I knew you'd be on your way, too. The fog itself's been hinting of it."

From behind an annotated globe of the green planet Castrovel, Gideon answered,"Just let her go."

"Sorry, no. She's how I make you listen."

"Ungag her, at least."

"Ungag a hostile bard? No."

There was something pensive about Sebastian, even in the midst of his threats. Something had unnerved him. The others were emerging and likewise seeking cover. Good. If Sebastian wanted to talk, let him talk, while they all prepared to fight. "What makes you think she's hostile?" Gideon asked.

"Ha!"

"Grmph!" said Corvine.

"So you want me to listen," Gideon said. "Say what you'll say."

"Go home, Gideon. Just stay out of my way. Soon this will all be over, and everyone will accept the result. You were always meant to be on my side, to help convince the Andorens of our cause. I thought it would help to have you witness events on the Andoren border, see what monsters your democratic countrymen would become with just a little push. Just like in Galt. But you're too stubborn, and the War Fog is too unmanageable. I was a fool."

Corvine snorted.

"I think she thinks you're a master of understatement."

Merrigail and Tyndron had taken up positions around the room. Together with Gideon they formed a triangle around Sebastian.

Yet Sebastian could easily fling Corvine to her death.

"Leave, Gideon. I'll give her back to you if you swear on your brother's grave you'll depart—stay back, Merrigail!"

Merrigail, who from behind a bookshelf had tensed for a lunge, edged backward. "This is about more than Gideon, Sebastian," she said. "He can't speak for me."

"I've been sentimental. Sadly, I should have eliminated you both, as I did Xeritian, once he began investigating my doings. Friendship is a luxury."

"Friendship!" Tyndron spat from behind a globe of Akiton, red planet of war. "You know nothing of friendship, traitor."

"Surrender, Sebastian," said Merrigail.

"I'll always respect you, Merrigail. But the time for Andoran's independence has passed. It's time to come home. Mother, come forth!"

An eerie keening arose from down the shaft. Bursting forth like water from a geyser came the War Fog. At it heart there seemed to dance a shape, a beautiful elven woman with a hint of cruelty to her features, and more than a touch of resemblance to Sebastian.

The look she offered Gideon mixed fury with maternal concern. She seemed animalistic, not quite sapient, as though the imprinted personality danced on a knife-edge dividing self-awareness from pure hunger.

"He won't help us, Mother! But there are those who will. The River Guard attacks the gate—go to them. Turn all of them you can!"

Out the open window she flew. Behind her trailed white-green mist like the body of a cloudy serpent.

Sebastian said, "You may think she's a monster, but she's Taldor's salvation."

"Not according to your father," Gideon said. "He spoke to me, you know. His ghost. You know what he said?"

"My father?" Sebastian looked startled.

Corvine acted. This time her foot connected with Sebastian's, and she threw him off balance, into the vast coil of fog. She broke free, teetering at the pit's edge. Tyndron was closest, and he sprang to grab her before she plunged. He worked at the knot binding her wrists.

Gideon and Merrigail engaged Sebastian. But Sebastian had reason for his arrogant self-confidence. Tentacles of fog formed at the half-elf's gesture and lashed out at his former companions. They hit like whips. But worse than the pain was seeing the faces within it, dimly glimpsed visions of Asta and Grizzendell, Leothric and Xeritian, so many others all the way back to Gideon's brother, Gareth. Gideon shuddered, struggling to avert his gaze.

When he did, he saw Merrigail transfixed by the fog as well.

"Zethril!" Sebastian shouted. "Get in here!"

"I'm busy," came the voice of the former bosun. And now he saw Zethril beyond the window, backing up along a narrow ledge and jabbing his sword at Ozrif, who advanced with a pair of blades in his juggler's hands.

"Ozrif!" said Gideon.

"Sorry for the delay." Ozrif tossed a sword to the now-freed Corvine, who grabbed it mid-air.

Sebastian tumbled to engage her, with dagger drawn. Meanwhile, the War Fog weaved and writhed, lashing at Sebastian's foes. Gideon shut his eyes and ran through it to reach Sebastian.

He opened them a little too early, and again his vision swam with the images of those who'd died. He sank to one knee.

A female voice shouted, but it was not his dark muse. It was Viridia.

"You are loved, brothers!" she sang out. "You will triumph! Your claws will tear the foe! Your fangs will rip the enemy!"

There she was, at the westernmost window. She leapt into the room and commenced to spin, her bardic presence energizing the moves of a whirling dance of Qadira, a war dance, embodying the paradox of serenity in motion. It was as though Viridia's blurred form was the center of the turning universe, telling Gideon the cosmos itself wanted him to endure.

He rose.

Sebastian reeled away as Gideon lunged with his dagger, then riposted, slashing a wicked cut into Gideon's arm.

Corvine swung at Sebastian, with much the same result as Gideon. "Keep...pressing him...Gideon..."

Now Merrigail was here, too; perhaps Viridia's song had broken the fog's hold. And Ozrif had entered, Zethril pursuing.

"Allow me to trade opponents," Tyndron said to Ozrif, and the two elves squared off, their swords dancing a waltz with an inevitably bloody finale.

Gideon, Merrigail, and Ozrif jabbed, swung, and kicked, while Viridia whirled and Sebastian danced between opponents, stabbing at his former colleagues' vitals. Yet they began landing blows against him—nothing deadly, but enough to rattle the man.

"Surrender," Merrigail repeated. "The battle turns."

"Which battle?" Sebastian said.

In the distance they could hear the panicked cries of soldiers, and the shouts of frothers.

"So," Zethril was saying to Tyndron. "I get to put you in your place at last."

"My kind grew tough on Golarion, while yours sunned yourselves in Sovyrian."

Zethril's retort was in Elven, as was the subsequent duel of words. The duel of steel went on without either side gaining the advantage.

Suddenly there burst up the stairs the welcome faces of Adebeyo, Dymphna, Hammerton, and Briar, followed by shouts of pursuit. Adebeyo took one look around, slammed shut the trapdoor, and supervised the others in sliding furniture to cover it. Pounding commenced from below.

The trapdoor began to burn.

"Devils?" Gideon said.

"They're becoming ubiquitous!" said Adebeyo.

Gideon sliced Sebastian's shoulder, and for once the man didn't spin away. Merrigail cut his leg. Ozrif didn't land a blow, but his movements hemmed Sebastian in, and now Sebastian teetered at the edge of the pit, just as Corvine had.

Corvine herself gestured and sang, and Gideon caught the words, "Look at me, Sebastian Tambour; look at one who views you with horror."

In a sense, it was the opposite of Corvine's spell of loathing. Although Sebastian didn't cease fighting, his eyes couldn't turn away from her. He still fended off attacks, but surrounded and compelled to study one foe, it was a losing battle. "Mother!" he called.

There was a great roiling in the mist, and it was as though some ship of cloud-dwelling giants was hauling in the anchor line.

Viridia danced faster, pouring her magic into her movements, spinning it out to touch her comrades, invigorating them. Sweat glistened on her face.

The white visage of Sebastian's mother flowed into the chamber. Tendrils of fog representing her dress lashed out and engulfed Tyndron and Zethril where they dueled. The elves shuddered, for the moment forgetting their feud.

"Mother, destroy them!"

Whether it was Viridia's dance that emboldened Merrigail, or simply Commander Hannison's inherent selfless bravery, the Eagle Knight ran to the window to intercept the War Fog.

Gideon found himself transfixed by the sight. Merrigail swung at the cloudy entity, and her sword passed through it harmlessly. But the fog reached out with ivory hands and clutched Merrigail's throat. As the Eagle Knight shuddered, the entity shrieked.

Merrigail fell as though her legs had been cut out beneath her.

Gideon felt a nothingness as deep as the pit nearby. Only it was inside him, had always been inside him, had been torn open the day Gareth died and had never gone away. It had merely scabbed closed, ready to be torn open to admit the darkness once more.

The world seemed to pivot and blur, and a portion of his mind that still struggled to sift and analyze realized the despair was in part the effect of the wail. Yet not all.

"Merrigail!" people were shouting, but he heard Corvine and Viridia's voices the loudest.

For a moment everyone hesitated, even the War Fog.

Corvine's spell ended. Sebastian stared at Merrigail's body.

Viridia left off her dancing, and ran to face him. Her voice was ragged. "She's dead!"

"Merrigail..." Sebastian said.

"She might have loved you," Corvine said.

"Was it worth it?" Gideon demanded.

The fog's hesitation continued. Sebastian shook, and Gideon had the sensation that he was looking at two components of the same living thing: one flesh, one fog.

He stared. Something was changing.

Within the fog, beyond the ghost-witch, stood the indistinct image of an old wizard, as if in a portal to some mist-shrouded otherworld.

"You act as if Taldor's a parent you must live up to," Gideon said to his former friend, watching the shade of Tarquin. "But Taldor is more like you, Sebastian. A grown man who must learn to make his own way. A man who must let go of what's past. That, perhaps, is something your father would like to see."

"How dare you speak of him?"

"Ask him yourself." Gideon pointed into the fog.

And he saw that Sebastian saw.

Stranger still, his "mother" saw. She turned around and gazed into the realm of mists and memory and beheld the figure of her husband.

With a cry, she ran toward him, the two figures seeming to diminish, as if into the distance. It did not have the look of a friendly reunion.

"This isn't possible," Sebastian said.

"No?" Corvine said, nodding at Gideon. "Think of it, Tambour. If your mother's personality survived within the fog—"

"—why not your father's?" Gideon said. "Weaker, perhaps, unable to reach you or take control. But still present. Still grieving. And as we grew nearer Mistwatch, he found a way to influence events."

"She'll destroy him..." Sebastian said. "Mother will destroy him."

An explosion of fire blew open the trapdoor and toppled the burning furniture. Hammerton, Briar, and Adebeyo were knocked from their feet as well.

Three ukobach devils leapt giggling into the chamber, followed by Chelaxians in dark robes.

Sebastian hesitated, eyes following the laughing devils, torn between what was and what might have been. "What have I done..."

"No," Corvine said. "The question is, what will you do?"

"I couldn't let go of all this—of Mistwatch. Its legacy. People have died..." He looked again at Merrigail's body.

"Many can still live," Gideon said. "This war hasn't begun yet. You can stop it. For Taldor's sake. For your own. Sebastian Tambour can still make his mark."

"Perhaps...perhaps I only thought I was manipulating her. When truly she—it—was manipulating me." He set his jaw. "No more."

And Sebastian stepped into the fog.

He stood there, quivering, his eyes rolling back into his head. Beyond him, distantly, the images of his parents grappled.

"Gideon!" Corvine said. "You need to do it, too! Quickly, while there's a chance!"

"Do what? I don't even know what he's doing!"

"You're linked to the fog. Help him tip the balance! We'll hold off the Chelaxians. Go!"

Despite all the chaos, one thing remained clear to Gideon: he couldn't refuse Corvine Gale.

He stepped into the fog and shut his eyes.

∗ ∗ ∗

"Where am I?"

"That's not the right question," Sebastian answered. "The real question is: why are you here?"

They stood within a twilight landscape beside the smoldering ruins of a riverside castle. Here and there, within the morning mist, fires still burned. It might have been Mistwatch, years ago.

And yet the river that flowed here was not the Verduran Fork but the Sellen, and the shore was not rocky but muddy, as the bank beside Bellis had been the night Gideon slept, guarded by the future seer-queen of the bog striders.

There she was, in fact, looming in the shadows between the bushes, watching him.

"This place," Gideon said. "It's made of our memories. These are the scenes we always come back to, you and I."

"Not precisely." Sebastian pointed to a disturbance on the river.

There, where the fog was thickest, the ghostly figures of a human man and an elven woman grappled atop the water. They moved unnaturally slowly, as though rehearsing a strictly choreographed number. If so, it seemed to Gideon that the script called for the man to eventually lose.

"I wonder," Sebastian said. "Did I restore my father's work, reanimating the fog from the remnants within the laboratory, because at the back of my mind I wanted them back? In the end, am I simply a pathetic little brat who wanted his mommy and daddy?"

"And if you were? We're only human, Sebastian."

Sebastian stared. "Help me," he said at last, and walked into the river.

Unlike the ghosts, the two men sank into the water. "If this is a dreamscape," Gideon wondered as they waded, "why are we reduced to swimming?"

"Our control's limited, I think. It's primarily my mother's dream. Or rather, the thing that's borrowed her image."

They began to swim.

If I ever run the Shadow School, lucid dreaming will be on the curriculum. Also, the piloting of esoteric vehicles. And cryptozoology—

"When this is done," Sebastian interrupted his thoughts, speaking between strokes, "there's a thing I would ask of you. In Canal Row in Oppara, at a tavern called The Cat and Feather, you may find a server named Roesia with the tattoo of a cat's eye on her arm. If you do, tell her I'm sorry."

"She may prefer to hear it from you."

"I doubt I'll be at liberty. Will you do it?"

"Yes."

They reached the struggle. The image of Sebastian's father was being shoved beneath the river.

Sebastian grabbed one ankle of his mother's image, and this time his control of the dream sufficed. Gideon grabbed the other ankle. Their weight pulled her down.

"No! No!" she shrieked, and Gideon was afraid his heart would stop at the pain in that voice. "You all betray me! If your father wins now, it's all for nothing. The end of our family honor. No glory. No fulfillment."

"There was never fulfillment," Sebastian gasped, struggling to keep his head above water. "He abandoned us, and that's all there is."

"You're right, son," came Tarquin Tambour's voice. "I'm sorry."

"But I won't abandon you..."

It was as though each of Sebastian's words was a weight tied around their legs. The two humans plunged into the water, and his mother's ghost came with them.

Darkness overtook Gideon, and cold, and he felt he was dead flesh upon broken bones, rolling down the river, as in the ghost-witch's song.

Down the river you will shiver
Till you meet the sea...

So be it. He would join Grizzendell, and Leothric, and Gareth, and all the endless others who had dwelled on Golarion and whose substance went to feed new life. All things went in their time to the sea. His time had come and gone.

Yet a glow like the rising sun came to him, and he thought he beheld a young woman smiling up at him from the deep.

Not yet, she said.

The hair that swam about her was dark, and she herself was pale, with brown freckles. She bore a gleaming sword.

Muse, he tried to say. I thought she ...

She took my place for a time. You had to know her and resist her, before you could see me clearly again. But I will never abandon you.

Are you real? Or a thing I made up?

What's the difference?

She grinned and swung her sword, and in its brightness it clove apart the dream of fog.

∗ ∗ ∗

He awoke to the smell of smoke and the babble of many voices.

"Gideon!"

Corvine was beside him, and she helped him rise. He was back in the chamber of the pit. The battle was done. Chelish wizards, ukobach devils, and tower guards lay dead near the remnants of the trapdoor. Many true soldiers of Taldor were here now, and they surrounded the still forms of Sebastian, Merrigail, and the elf Zethril.

"Are they—"

"They're all dead, Gideon."

Adebeyo came closer, Dymphna's body in his arms. With him stood Hammerton, Briar, and Tyndron.

Dymphna's symbol of Sarenrae gleamed about her neck. Gideon met Adebeyo's gaze.

"It's so wrong," Gideon said. "So unfair."

Adebeyo nodded. "At least the killing is done. I'll take Dymphna to the river now. Asta too. There will be a pyre. They can join Grizzendell. The holy symbol will go with them."

"I'm not certain Dymphna would want that," Corvine said. "The symbol, I mean. Take it with you."

"I'm not one of the Dawnflower's followers."

"I don't think that would matter to Dymphna," Gideon said. "Keep it with the dagger you claimed from Riposte. Someday there'll be another ship. Keep them together, so you can remember."

Adebeyo grunted. "I'd meant to plunge that dagger into Tambour's heart." He looked toward his former captain's body. "Yet it seems pointless now. I almost feel sorry for the man. I'll do as you say."

When they had gone, Corvine said, "What happened in the fog, Gideon?"

"A dream." The details were beginning to blur. "A nightmare. What did you see?"

"We saw faces shifting through the fog—the mother's, the father's, Sebastian's, yours. In the end, it was Sebastian's face that dominated. He reached out with a hand made of fog and attacked the Chelaxians." She nodded toward the fallen wizards. "They and the devils went mad in his grip. They mostly destroyed each other. They might have overwhelmed us, but Sebastian saved us in the end."

Gideon saw Ozrif and Viridia leaning against each other beside a window. They nodded at Corvine and Gideon, their faces solemn. It was good to see them together, at least.

Corvine looked around at the open windows. "Once the foes turned against each other, the fog disintegrated and dispersed. Like a million pale droplets scattering in all directions. I think it's truly gone."

Music slipped into his mind, and for once it was nothing sinister. He began to hum.

"What's that?" Corvine asked.

"I think I finally understand something," Gideon said. "When we sing 'The Ride of Alysande,' or other patriotic songs, it's not in pride, or anger. We sing them in awe, and gratitude. There won't be a war, Corvine. Whatever the cost, there won't be a war between your country and mine."

She embraced him, tears in her eyes. "You must remember that. That it mattered. We must all remember it."

He thought back to his crumbling recollection of the dream, remembered Sebastian's simple plea beside the river, the moment when his friend returned, for a brief, final time. Help me.

"Help me," Gideon said. "Help me to remember."

"Always."

Coda in Oppara

Longnight was clear and bright, and the full moon and stars blazed over Oppara as the House of the Immortal Son flickered with light and vibrated with the sounds of the thaumacycle competition.

It was considered bad form for the actual authors of a work to perform it, or even view it on its opening. Gideon and Corvine lurked outside a stage entrance, listening to Death and Dreams on the Sellen come to life.

"You shouldn't worry," Corvine said.

"I always worry."

"Linota, Avoca, and Waleran are three of the finest singers available."

"I'm more worried about the spellcasters."

"Fabian and Eustace are two of the most...enthusiastic illusionists available."

"We're doomed."

She patted his shoulder.

Two weeks, much of the time aboard ship, was a reckless span in which to write an opera, even a necessarily short one. And although the opera house had connected them with a director and performers, it had all been a frantic mess. Only by comparison with the previous weeks did it seem tolerable. There was nothing like fear, death, and averting a war to put things in perspective.

But Gideon was an artist, and so he worried.

"Am I intruding?" came a voice.

The figure had stepped up to them with no warning, seemingly manifesting out of the moonlit shadows. Gideon and Corvine jumped.

"Sir," Gideon began, uncertain what to say. For there was no mistaking the tall man with multicolored eyes, his face unreadable.

"Good evening, Gull."

"Corvine, this is, ah..."

"Dominicus Rell, Mistress Gale." Gideon's ultimate superior bowed. "I'm one of those disreputable associates he says so little about."

"Charmed. Call me Corvine. Shall I leave you two alone?"

"Oh, I'm the third wheel here, Corvine." That bland face with the piercing gaze turned to Gideon. "I merely wish to ask if Gull has come to a decision."

"Decision?" Corvine said.

"He's proven his skills, and is worthy to graduate into my little circle of errand-runners for the Grand Prince. All that waits is his consent. We're eager to have it, since the other members of his cell have chosen to leave us."

It would never be comfortable talking to Rell, Gull realized. But this wasn't a month ago, nor was it the Pindrop Room. "I'll let you know tomorrow."

"I look forward to the news." Rell paused, listening to the music pouring out of the House of the Immortal Son. The big three-way number of the first act had begun. Corvine and Gideon's characters had begun their rafting trip back to their old home in Cassomir. The brother, Leo, wished to return to Cassomir's Locker, while his sister Merri unwillingly accompanied him. Unheard by the siblings, the kelpie who hunted them mocked them.

MERRI: O my brother, do not go
Down to where no light is known
Chase no more a foolish dream
Of magic's lure and treasure's gleam.

KELPIE: Down the river you will shiver
Till you meet the sea
Ever broken till you've spoken
Words of love for me.

LEO: Frost and fate are gathered here
At the turning of the year
Bones of creatures scattered there
Never more to love or share
Hear them sighing on the breeze
Sister, I implore you please
Let me live the life I've got
While breath is dear and blood is hot
Even if I join the lost
Gathered here by fate and frost.

"Strange," said Rell. "I'd say there are some elven stylings in that music."

"We try to be open to influences at the Rhapsodic," Gideon said.

"By the way. I saw the Royal Adjunct Vice-Critic for Moral Suasion in the Fine Arts lurking at the front entrance, making notes. I handed him a fiery Galtan tract I discovered in the marketplace this morning. I believe he'll be too preoccupied for the immediate future to trouble the two of you."

"Thank you," Corvine said.

"Well. Good evening."

They watched him go, but weren't quite certain when he'd truly vanished.

"So," Corvine said. "You won't accompany me to Andoran?"

"I may need to join you later. There may be—duties."

"Ozrif and Viridia are certain they don't want to join the Lion Blades, after what they've seen. Why is it different for you?"

"Speak of the ukobach—"

"Gideon! Corvine!" Viridia waved and sprinted to them. Ozrif smiled and strolled up behind. "We thought you would be about. It seems to be going well."

"We shouldn't even be here," Corvine said. "Bad luck. But a parent fusses."

"It sounds good," Ozrif said.

Gideon shrugged. The encounter with Rell had given him new worries. "I think we'll be beaten by The Opera Murders. Taldan audiences love a good self-referential bloodbath. Did you see Rell?"

"What?" Ozrif looked around. "Where?"

"He walked in your direction...Oh, what am I saying?" Gideon laughed. "He could still be standing here, for all I know."

Viridia frowned at the shadows and the moonlit cobblestones. "Let's walk. He isn't trying to recruit you still?"

"He is," said Corvine, as they left the opera house and wandered in the direction of the Grand Bridge. "And Gideon is still thinking about it."

"I'm surprised," Ozrif said. "You were more harmed than either of us by what happened."

"And more healed," Gideon said, realizing it only as he said it. Before they could ask him what he meant, he said, "Where will you go?"

Ozrif didn't answer.

"Well, I want to head back to Cassomir," Viridia said. "The bardic scene there looks big enough to be lively, but small enough that you can make a mark. And it's not as stuffy as Oppara. Will you still show me around, Corvine?"

"That's what I said, the morning before Mistwatch. I'll honor my promise. If I'm there, anyway."

"Were you planning to go somewhere else?"

"Well..."

"Gull!" someone called behind them. "Gale! Hey, that's Viridia and Ozrif!"

They turned and saw the four survivors of Riposte running up to them. There were Adebeyo, Tyndron, Hammerton, and Briar. The companions cheered and hugged—except Tyndron, who smiled slightly and shook hands.

Adebeyo said, "We looked for you at the opera house, and nearly missed you."

Gideon said, "I haven't seen any of you since we chanced to meet at The Harp and Harpoon, Adebeyo."

"We've been busy getting ourselves a ship," said Hammerton. He put his arm around Briar and beamed. "You're looking at the masters of the merchant ship Second Intention, home port of Almas."

Briar said, "We have hired Adebeyo as captain and Tyndron as first mate."

"My condition," Adebeyo said, "is that we never go up a river. At least no farther than Oppara lies up the Porthmos."

"And my condition is that we avoid parting," Tyndron said. "So that we may remember."

"Grief brings us together," Hammerton said. "But in time, this crew will have other, better memories that bring us together, too."

"I think we're walking to the Grand Bridge," Gideon said, and the bards didn't dissent. "Join us?"

"For a while," Adebeyo said. "We've much to do tomorrow."

"It's Longnight," Corvine said. "Staying up till dawn is traditional."

"It is also traditional to hate yourself in the morning," Ozrif said.

They walked together, the three couples and two bachelors, and for a time, hand-in-hand with Corvine, Gideon could pretend it was old times again, and better than before.

If Sebastian had never recommended him for the Rhapsodic and the Shadow School, Gideon wondered, what would be different now? Would he have managed to lead a decent life in Cassomir, with his music and Corvine? Had Sebastian's machinations tainted his life forever?

And yet, without the thrill of danger the Shadow School had offered, would he have slipped back into the gutter?

"Unanswerable," said Ozrif.

"What?" said Gideon, startled.

They had come to the Grand Bridge, passing the statues of General Coren and other worthies. They ascended over the Sellen, with the lights of the city burning in winter's heart like swarms of summer fireflies.

Ozrif sighed. "I was asking myself what will come of my meeting with Brother Zaganos, and I realized the question, as with all dealings with the druids, is unanswerable."

"You met with Zaganos?" Corvine asked. "When?"

"When we rested in Cassomir, after the business upriver was done. I...have grown fascinated with the druids' perspective. I've always juggled and joked my way through everything, but in talking to them more after we parted on the Sellen, I glimpsed something serious behind their strangeness. Something important."

"This is Ozrif's great secret," Viridia said. "It's why he's leaving the Shadow School. He is going to study with Zaganos, to see if he wishes to become a druid. Zaganos is tolerant of the idea."

"‘Young organisms need to grow'—I believe those were his words," said Ozrif. "He's not so bad, I think. I believe he took pity on us, before our journey up the Sellen. Thus the symbol, which certain river beings could perceive. That's how word reached the bog striders."

Adebeyo said, "How much did Zaganos know, or suspect?"

"Unanswerable," quipped Gideon.

"Well," Viridia said, "I hope Corvine can answer something I asked before. If you won't be in Cassomir, where will you be?"

"Andoran. I don't have more specific plans. I want to see it. More of it. I might want to become an Eagle Knight." She spoke the last in a rush. "There, I've said it."

The group went silent.

"You don't believe in small ambitions, do you?" said Ozrif.

"Says the would-be druid!"

"You have to investigate dreams," said Gideon—to them, to her, to himself. "Even if you don't follow them, you have to understand them, why they speak to you. I was surprised, too. But Corvine needs to do this." As he spoke, some memory teased him, of a vision he'd forgotten. It spiraled away from his grasp.

"Will you be showing her around, Mister Gull?" asked Hammerton.

"I...don't know. I'll write to my family, for certain. It's been too long. But I may also have duties here. Corvine and I have much to discuss."

"Well, if you need anything, Mistress Gale," Hammerton said, "you look us up. We're not the most well-connected people in Almas, Briar and I, but we're no slouches either." Briar grunted agreement. "And if your winds blow our way in the near future, maybe we can take you there, no charge. We're staying at The Cat and Feather."

"Thank you," Corvine said. "I'll work my passage, if so."

"We'll be glad of the help," Adebeyo said. "Tyndron amazes with the sword but he's all thumbs with the mop."

"Feh," said Tyndron.

They admired the city and moon and stars, talking of this or that, while the back of Gideon's mind flickered with dimly glimpsed portents. He half-expected Demonwake to return.

But it was not a ghost-ship that was approaching, but time itself.

Second Intention's crew made their farewells, then Ozrif and Viridia, and then Corvine and Gideon stood alone, save for the vast presences of past and future.

"I feel like a stone," Corvine said, "at the very top of a high hill. At any moment the wind will blow and decide which way I'll fall. Even a man's breath would be enough to send me on my way." She put her arm around him. "But I want to hear him speak."

"I don't know what to say," Gideon confessed. "I don't know what I am. I've allowed Taldor, and Sebastian, to turn me into a walking conundrum. An Andoren commoner who serves the nobles of Taldor. A performer who spies. A lover who kills."

"This may simply be a more complicated way of saying you're human."

"It's more than that, Corvine. I think you recognize that."

She sighed. "Let the wind blow. What's your choice?"

"I will join the Lion Blades. All the men I am, they must honor their obligations. Because all the men I was have spent too many years avoiding them."

"And you and I? Do I have no claim on your sense of duty?"

"I think you know the answer."

"I think I don't."

"If Ozrif and Viridia can attempt to divide themselves between bardhood and the druids, surely you and I can negotiate our way between Andoran and Taldor."

"Now who's dreaming large? Ozrif and Viridia need only stroll the streets of Cassomir to find each other. We'll have whole nations between us!"

"I suspect we'll find ways of spending time in Cassomir, too. And who knows? It may be advantageous to have a Lion Blade stationed in Andoran. I'll make my desire known to Rell."

She laughed, hope and despair making a chord of her voice. "What if it's my destiny to hunt you down?"

"If so, promise we'll write an opera about it."

"I promise nothing. I fear you don't know what you're getting into. That you're too truthful a man to be a spy."

He remembered Xeritian's words. You dislike lies, and that is admirable. Remember the value of truth. It is high. But it is not infinite.

"But I'll try, Gideon. I'll try to make this work." They stood, embracing in the cold breeze, the sounds of the city washing over them. "I believe I just heard the finale of our first opera. Time to return to The Harp and Harpoon, I think."

"You go," Gideon said, something at last crystalizing like a snowflake in his memory. "I have an errand. Something I'd forgotten until just now. I won't be long."

"An errand? I suppose you're off to see another woman."

"Not precisely. More an assignment for the Lion Blades."

"I'll see you later, then. But be quick about whatever assignation or assassination you have in mind, Gideon Gull. You don't want your character assassinated by a bard."

"Well do I know it."

They parted down by the statue of General Coren, and both patted its foot for luck.

As if walking in a dream, Gideon threaded his way to Canal Row, the Longnight revelers keeping its streets busy, until he found his way to the tavern with the wide-eyed cat upon its sign, feather in its mouth. There he asked after a server named Roesia.

When the tall, red-haired woman with the cat's-eye tattoo came to his table, he couldn't help but notice the swell of her belly. She'd have to leave off work soon, he suspected.

"Sir?" she said.

"Please sit. I won't be long."

She had tired eyes, but not hard ones. Somehow he was glad of that. She said, "I hope not, if you don't mind. The tavern-keeper's paying extra tonight, and I need the work."

"I'll be quick. I have a message from Sebastian Tambour."

She put her hands on the table, as if to steady herself. "Yes?"

"He said to say he's sorry."

Even after weeks of fog and wizards and ghosts, the silence afterward was more than Gideon could bear. And so he set his coin purse on the table, and slid it over to her. "And to give you this."

She took the purse, hands shaking, and glanced into it. Her mouth opened in shock.

Ozrif was right about Longnight, Gideon thought; he would probably hate himself in the morning.

"Where is he?" Roesia asked. "Can you say?"

"He's dead."

She closed her eyes. "How?"

He hesitated only a moment. "He died serving his country. I can say no more."

"I'll tell his child that," she whispered. Her eyes narrowed. "If it's the truth...?"

With this dagger, child, I will protect you, in the name of the child he was, weeping by the burned castle, and the child I was, shivering by the old, cold river.

"You can trust me," he said.

Acknowledgments

I'm grateful for the efforts of: James Sutter, wielder of the +5 sword of editing; my agent, Joe Monti of the 18 in Awesomeness; the mighty He-Who-Was-Once-The-Slush-God, John Joseph Adams; and especially my wife Becky, who let me take an extended trip to Golarion. A raised mug of Bellis Mead to Fritz Leiber, for charting the territory.

About the Author

Chris Willrich is a former children's librarian best known for his sword-and-sorcery tales of Gaunt and Bone, which have appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction and elsewhere, and which continue in the novels The Scroll of Years (Pyr, 2013) and The Silk Map (forthcoming). Chris lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with his family.

Glossary

All Pathfinder Tales novels are set in the rich and vibrant world of the Pathfinder campaign setting. Below are explanations of various key terms used in this book. For more information on the world of Golarion and the strange monsters, people, and deities that make it their home, see The Inner Sea World Guide, or dive into the game and begin playing your own adventures with the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Core Rulebook or the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Beginner Box, all available on paizo.com. Readers particularly interested in Andoran and Taldor should see the Pathfinder Player Companions Andoran, Spirit of Liberty and Taldor, Echoes of Glory.

Abadar: Master of the First Vault and the god of cities, wealth, merchants, and law.

Abrogail II: Current ruler of Cheliax.

Absalom: Largest city in the Inner Sea region, located on an island in the Inner Sea.

Abyss: Plane of evil and chaos ruled by demons, where many evil souls go after they die.

Age of Darkness: The barbaric era following the apocalyptic fall of a meteorite called the Starstone.

Almas: Capital city of Andoran.

Andoran: Democratic and freedom-loving nation. Formerly controlled by the Chelish Empire, and before that by the Taldan Empire

Andoren: Of or pertaining to Andoran; someone from Andoran.

Archdevil: Powerful devils second only to Asmodeus in the rule of Hell.

Aroden: The god of humanity, who died mysteriously a hundred years ago.

Asmodeus: The ruling deity of Hell.

Augustana: Port city in Andoran known for its shipyards.

Azlant: The first human empire, which sank beneath the waves long ago in the cataclysm following the fall of the Starstone.

Azlanti: Of or pertaining to Azlant; someone from Azlant.

Bard: An artist or performer able to harness his or her innate magic through art. Often cross-trained in combat and other adventuring skills.

Bellis: Town in northeastern Andoran famed for its bees and mead.

Bog strider: Race of giant, intelligent insects that live in swamps and marshes.

Carpenden: Agricultural town in eastern Andoran.

Cassomir: Port city in Taldor.

Cassomir's Locker: Network of old catacombs and tunnels beneath Cassomir, reputed to be full of monsters and lost treasure.

Cassomirite: Someone from Cassomir.

Chelaxian: Someone from Cheliax.

Cheliax: A powerful nation in southwestern Avistan allied with Hell and its devils.

Chelish: Of or relating to the nation of Cheliax.

Darklands: Extensive series of subterranean caverns crisscrossing much of the Inner Sea region, known to be inhabited by monsters.

Dawnflower: Sarenrae.

Demonwake: Ghost ship from the popular opera Wanderloss.

Desna: Good-natured goddess of dreams, stars, travelers, and luck.

Devils: Fiendish occupants of Hell who seek to corrupt mortals in order to claim their souls.

Diabolist: A spellcaster who specializes in binding devils and making infernal pacts.

Druid: Someone who reveres nature and draws magical power from the boundless energy of the natural world (sometimes called the Green Faith, or the Green).

Dwarves: Short, stocky humanoids who excel at physical labor, mining, and craftsmanship. Stalwart enemies of the orcs and other evil subterranean monsters.

Eagle Knights: Military order in Andoran devoted to spreading the virtues of justice, equality, and freedom.

Egorian: Capital of Cheliax.

Elves: Long-lived, beautiful humanoids who abandoned Golarion millennia ago before the fall of the Starstone and have only recently returned. Identifiable by their pointed ears, lithe bodies, and pupils so large their eyes appear to be one color.

Erastil: Stag-headed god of farming, hunting, trade, and family, also known as Old Deadeye.

Evernest: Bog strider settlement in the Verduran Forest.

Eye of Abendego: Enormous permanent hurricane southwest of the Inner Sea.

Galt: A nation locked in perpetual and bloody democratic revolution. Fond of beheadings.

Galtan: Of or relating to Galt, or a citizen of that nation.

Garund: Continent south of the Inner Sea, renowned for its deserts and jungles.

Gnomes: Small humanoids with strange mindsets, big eyes, and often wildly colored hair.

Golarion: The planet on which the Pathfinder campaign setting focuses.

Golden Legion: Branch of the Eagle Knights devoted to protecting Andoran's borders.

Golden Legionnaires: Eagle Knights of the Golden Legion.

Grand Bridge: The Grand Bridge of the Empire, stretching from Oppara to the southern shore of the Porthmos River.

Gray Corsairs: Naval division of the Steel Falcons, the Eagle Knight branch focused on abolitionist military activities. Often focused on raiding slave ships.

Gray Gardeners: The masked secret police of Galt, who dispense harsh revolutionary justice to those who cross them or the state.

Half-Elves: The children of unions between elves and humans. Taller, longer-lived, and generally more graceful and attractive than the average human, yet not nearly so much so as their full elven kin. Often regarded as having the best qualities of both races, yet still see a certain amount of prejudice, particularly from their pure elven relations.

Half-Orcs: Bred from humans and orcs, members of this race have green or gray skin, brutish appearances, and short tempers, and are mistrusted by many societies.

Halflings: Race of humanoids known for their tiny stature, deft hands, and mischievous personalities.

Hangman's Harbor: Small town on the Taldan side of the Sellen River

Hellknights: Organization of hardened law enforcers whose tactics are often seen as harsh and intimidating, and who bind devils to their will. Based in Cheliax.

Inner Sea: The vast inland sea whose northern continent, Avistan, and southern continent, Garund, as well as the seas and nearby lands, are the primary focus of the Pathfinder campaign setting.

Iomedae: Goddess of valor, rulership, justice, and honor.

Isle of Arenway: Druid-ruled island in the Verduran Forest, formed by confluence of the Sellen River and the Verduran Fork.

Jagged Saw: Treacherous stretch of Inner Sea coastline in Taldor.

Jalmeray: Island nation in the Obari Ocean, heavily influenced by the customs and cultures of distant Vudra.

Katapesh: Mighty trade nation south of the Inner Sea. Also the name of its capital city.

Katapeshi: Of or related to the nation of Katapesh.

Kelish: The language of Keleshites, spoken in many southern and eastern nations.

Kitharodian Academy: Bardic school in Oppara. Rival to the Rhapsodic College.

Kyonin: An elven forest-kingdom north of Andoran. Largely forbidden to non-elven travelers.

Lion Blades: Elite Taldan espionage agents. Often bards and other performers.

Longnight: A winter holiday often celebrated by staying up all night to greet the dawn.

Mendev: Cold, northern crusader nation that provides the primary force defending the rest of the Inner Sea region from the demonic infestation of the Worldwound.

Mendevian: Of or pertaining to Mendev.

Mwangi Expanse: A sweltering jungle region south of the Inner Sea.

Mwangi: Of or pertaining to the Mwangi Expanse; someone from that region.

Night of the Pale: Night of morbid revelry celebrating the ghosts of the last year's dead.

Oppara: Coastal capital of Taldor.

Opparan: Of or related to Oppara; someone from Oppara.

Osirian: Of or relating to the region of Osirion, or a resident of Osirion.

Osirion: Ancient nation south of the Inner Sea renowned for its deserts, pharaohs, and pyramids.

Pesh: Type of narcotic drug made from a type of cactus.

Pharasma: The goddess of birth, death, and prophecy, who judges mortal souls after their deaths and sends them on to the appropriate afterlife; also known as the Lady of Graves.

Porthmos: Major river in Taldor.

Qadira: Desert nation on the eastern side of the Inner Sea.

Qadiran Satrap: The ruler of Qadira.

Qadiran: Of or related to Qadira; someone from Qadira.

Rhapsodic College: Legendary bardic school in Oppara; also the site of a secret Lion Blade training facility.

Rippleden: Small town on the Andoren side of the Sellen River

River Guard: Branch of Taldor's navy devoted to protecting traffic on the Sellen River from pirates.

River Kingdoms: A region of small, feuding fiefdoms and bandit strongholds, where borders change frequently.

Sarenrae: Goddess of the sun, honesty, and redemption. Often seen as a fiery crusader and redeemer.

Screaming Pillars: Nickname for Whitehall, the headquarters of Oppara's constabulary.

Sellen River: Major river that acts as the border for Andoran and Taldor.

Ses'h: Bog striders' name for their race.

Shackles: Pirate isles southwest of the Inner Sea.

Shadow School: Secret training facility for Lion Blade agents.

Shadow Taunt: Training challenge in which Shadow School students must achieve a covert task in public without arousing suspicion.

Shelyn: The goddess of beauty, art, love, and music.

Solscrene: Small town on the Sellen River.

Sovyrian: Mysterious realm to which the elves retreated after the catastrophe of Earthfall.

Starstone: Stone that fell from the sky ten thousand years ago, creating an enormous dust cloud that blotted out the sun and began the Age of Darkness, wiping out most preexisting civilizations. Eventually raised up from the ocean floor by Aroden and housed in Absalom, where those who can pass its mysterious and deadly tests can ascend to godhood.

Stavian's Hold: Plains town in eastern Taldor.

Taldan: Of or pertaining to Taldor; a citizen of Taldor.

Taldor: A formerly glorious nation that has lost many of its holdings in recent years to neglect and decadence. Ruled by immature aristocrats and overly complicated bureaucracy.

Talmandor: Heavenly patron of Andoran.

Thuvia: Desert nation on the Inner Sea, famous for the production of a magical elixir which grants immortality.

Tian Xia: Continent on the opposite side of the world from the Inner Sea region.

Tian: Someone or something from Tian Xia, the Dragon Empires of the distant east.

Ukobach: Type of devil associated with malign creativity and innovation.

Ulfen: A race of warlike humans from the cold nations of the north, particularly the Lands of the Linnorm Kings.

Varisian: Of or relating to the region of the frontier region of Varisia, or a resident of that region.

Verduran Forest: Huge forest between Taldor and Andoran.

Verduran Fork: Tributary of the Sellen River stretching from the Fog Peaks to where it joins the Sellen in the Verduran Forest.

Vudra: Exotic continent far to the east of the Inner Sea.

Wanderloss: Famous opera about ghost ships.

Westport: Aristocratic district of Oppara.

Whistling Plains: Open plains along Taldor's eastern border.

Whiterush: Small town on the Andoren side of the Sellen.

Wildwood Lodge: The seat of druidic power in the Verduran Forest, on the Isle of Arenway.

Wildwood Treaty: Important agreement by which the druids of the Wildwood Lodge agreed to allow Taldor a certain amount of wood from its forests in order to curtail additional logging, avoiding massive conflict and death between the two powers.

Wispil: Gnome city in the Verduran Forest.

Wizard: Someone who casts spells through careful study and rigorous scientific methods rather than faith or innate talent, recording the necessary incantations in a spellbook.

Yanmass: City in northern Taldor.

Zimar: City in southern Taldor.