“Your catapult captain?”
“Just do as you are ordered.”
Zarel turned away and for a moment Uriah thought he had been dismissed.
“Uriah, is there any chance we can get at One-eye between now and Festival.”
The dwarf looked up and came to his knees.
“I don’t think so, great lord.”
“Why not?”
“Jimak, Varnel, and Tulan are all bribeable. Kirlen is not. There is only one thing she wants and that is your power and the path to being a Walker. Nothing you can offer her other than your own power would be sufficient and she sees in One-eye a means of causing embarrassment, perhaps even of throwing the mob against you.”
Zarel looked down at Uriah.
“Sometimes, Uriah, I think you are too smart.”
“Only in service to you, my lord.”
“Why?”
Uriah hesitated.
“You are my lord.”
“Not sufficient.”
Uriah lowered his head.
“Because the others would never take me in.”
Zarel laughed coldly.
“The traitor of Turquoise, the one who fed me all the information while wearing their colors and unbarred the gate for the Night of Fire.”
Zarel smiled and looked down at Uriah, who squirmed uncomfortably.
“Who is this One-eye?” Zarel asked as if directing the question at himself.
Uriah looked up at him, saying nothing.
“You wore their colors for years, do you remember him?”
“No, Master,” Uriah said quietly.
“Get out of here.”
Uriah scurried away, barely avoiding a kick that was aimed in his direction.
As he closed the door he looked back at Zarel.
Who is he? the Grand Master had asked. Uriah smiled and limped away to nurse his bruises of the body and of the heart.
“You played good joke.”
Garth smiled, forcing himself to stay awake as Naru poured another round of drinks. The giant looked over the side of the table at Hammen, who lay passed out on the floor of the feasting hall, and laughed.
“Old man weak and now he stink bad,” Naru laughed.
Garth tried to nurse his drink along, his head swimming, wishing that he had control of one of the rare spells of curing drunkenness.
“Oh, but that bad trick you play on Naru.” The giant looked down into his drink and shook his head.
“Sorry, but if you remember, we were fighting at the time.”
Naru looked over at Garth and his eyes narrowed for a moment as if he was struggling to decide whether One-eye was a friend or not. His features finally relaxed.
“You beat Grand Master and return my spells. You still my friend.”
Garth nodded, having gone through this discussion more than a score of times in the last several hours. Naru started to pour another drink, looking at Garth sadly when he realized that his new friend was not keeping up.
“Too bad I’ll beat you at Festival.”
“Of course.”
“Naru hear people say Grand Master will declare final fights to be to death.”
Garth stirred and looked over at the giant.
“Where did you hear that?”
“Oh, Naru have friends. Grand Master do this more and more to make mob happy.”
“Why don’t you and the others refuse?”
“Can’t. Grand Master is Grand Master of Arena. When in arena can’t say no.”
“What about the House Masters?”
“Oh, they make good money from it, pay back of contracts, so they happy.”
Naru chuckled.
“Besides, Naru like breaking bones. Get many spells and mana from fallen, even though Grand Master keep part.”
The giant looked back at Garth and sighed.
“Too bad I must break your bones. I think I still like you.”
Naru raised his goblet to drain it, the movement setting off an inertia that kept the giant moving backward so that he fell off the back of his stool. He crashed to the floor, emitted a single belch, and passed out.
“One-eye.”
Startled, Garth turned to see Kirlen, the House Master of Bolk, standing in the doorway. The woman was bent over with age, hair long since gone from white to a sickly yellow, her wrinkled skin hanging loose on her face as if it had already lost hold upon the bones of her body. Her black robe clung to her slender frame as if she were a skeleton held up only by the staff she leaned against, holding it with both of her gnarled hands.
Garth slowly came to his feet and she motioned for him to follow her. Garth looked down at Hammen, who was sleeping alongside Naru, and realized that there was nothing he could do to rouse his friend. Moving carefully, so that he would not fall down, Garth stepped out into the corridor and walked behind Kirlen as she shuffled down the hallway and turned into her private quarters. The room was overly heated from a roaring fire and she went over to it, extending her hands and rubbing them. Garth looked around at the sparsely furnished quarters, which seemed almost like a monk’s cell, with nothing more than a cot and a desk piled high with books and scrolls. The four walls, however, were lined with bookcases crammed to overflowing. The room smelled musty, ancient, and somehow dangerous.
“Naru can be tedious, especially when he is drinking,” she said quietly.
“He’s interesting enough.”
“He’s an idiot. One of those rare savants who can barely empty the proverbial boot of its contents but somehow able to control the mana with remarkable ease. Someday soon he’ll get killed.” She pronounced her prediction with casual indifference.
She looked back at him and smiled, revealing a row of blackened stumps.
“I disgust you, don’t I?”
“No, my lady.”
”And suppose I asked you to share my bed?” she inquired, pointing to the narrow cot and cackling softly.
Garth said nothing.
“No, the Benalish woman, or Varena of Fentesk, with her golden red hair, now that would be different.”
She turned away for a moment and he almost felt a sense of pity for the flash of pain in her eyes.
“If you have the power I think you have, why don’t you rejuvenate yourself?” Garth asked.
She laughed, her voice breaking into a sigh.
“Ah, then I would have you, wouldn’t I?”
“That is not the question I asked,” Garth replied.
“Do you know how old I am?”
“I’ve heard rumors, my lady.”
“I lost count of the rejuvenations centuries ago. I lost count of the spells, the potions, the amulets that I burned upon dark altars. Each time I was made young again, but inside, inside one can be young but once. Youth is innocence on the inside as well as on the outside. No matter what spells I use, that innocence comes but once in a lifetime for all of us.
“Each time you turn back the hourglass you never quite gain back what you had, you lose a day, a week, a month. There are limits to the powers of this plane and I reached them long ago. Oh, I can live on for centuries yet to come, but only the Walker can grant me back my beauty and my passions.”
She paused for a long moment, looking into the fire. “Or by being a Walker myself.”
“And he will not grant it, and would most definitely block you from becoming one.”
She looked back at him, her eyes filled with a cold rage.
“You know, there was a time, a time so long ago I can barely remember it, when Kuthuman the Walker and I were lovers. How he praised my beauty then, how he pledged eternal fidelity to me.”
She cackled and then spit into the fire.
“And then he turned away as I grew older and could not reclaim my charms. He forgot such things and became consumed instead with other passions. To pierce the veil, that was all he desired.”
“He promised to take you with him, didn’t he?”
“How did you know that?”
“I’ve heard rumors.”
She stirred angrily.
“Who? Who says these things?”
“The Grand Master has it whispered about by his agents,” Garth replied softly.