The overhang that marked the cave was only a dozen long, slantwise strides away, and three of the gaunt men were visible around it.
“Do you have a knife?” whispered Piros.
Alaric shook his head. He did, but it was in his knapsack back at the gaunt men’s camp.
“Take this one.” Piros pulled a long blade from his sleeve and held it out, hilt first.
“I don’t kill people,” whispered the minstrel.
“All I want is the threat. Ghosts with knives. Do you think they’ll stand against that?”
Alaric took the knife. Piros pulled two others from his sleeves. Alaric wondered how many more he carried.
“Follow me,” said the caravan master, and he sprang to his feet, leaped over the rise, and sprinted down the other side, shouting, “Murderers! Murderers!”
Alaric gripped the knife tightly and ran after him.
The three gaunt men looked up and began to scream—sharp, high-pitched screams, like wounded dogs. They clutched one another like terrified children, and then the other three came out from the overhang and began to scream, too.
By then, Piros had reached them. “Down!” he shouted. “Down like the curs you are, with your faces to the ground! Pour dust and stones on your heads and beg me not to give you the justice you deserve!” He waved his knives, and Alaric stopped a few paces behind him and began to wave his own blade in a manner he hoped was menacing enough.
The gaunt men crouched low, scrabbling at the ground with clawed and shaking fingers and dashing what they scraped up over their heads, screaming all the while.
“Silence!” roared the caravan master.
The screaming fell abruptly to whimpers punctuated by choking coughs.
“Who gave the order?” demanded Piros, and he kicked the nearest bowed head once, twice. When there was no response, he slashed at the man’s shoulder with the tip of one knife, ripping both the cloth and the skin beneath, and blood began to stain the man’s robe. “Answer!” Piros shouted.
The wounded man clutched at his shoulder and groaned.
“Your man,” said one of the others. “It was your man.”
“Hanio,” said another. “He said if we did it, we could go back to the village. Back to our families!”
“He said they would welcome us,” said yet another. “Someone else would have to harvest the Powder!”
Piros strode past the crouching cluster of men, and they made no attempt to stop him; they only followed him with their eyes. Alaric gave them a wider berth, wondering how long their terror would keep them from guessing that he and Piros were not spirits.
Hanio was waiting under the overhang, his back against the door that sealed the cave. He, too, had a pair of knives, long, wicked blades. “So there’s another way out,” he said. “And the poison is a lie.”
Piros shook his head. “You killed us.”
“I think not,” said Hanio, and he kicked a stone toward Piros. It struck the caravan master’s soft boot where it showed beneath the hem of his robe. “You’re still flesh and blood.”
Piros frowned. “Where is my son?”
“Gone,” said Hanio. He gestured southward with the tip of one knife. “Where he always wanted to go.”
Piros did not take his eyes from the man. “Did he know what you were planning?”
“Of course he did. You think he liked the prison you made of his life?”
Alaric could see Piros’s grip on his knives tighten, the knuckles white with the strain. “I would have given it all to you someday,” he said. “Not to him.”
“Someday, twenty years from now,” said Hanio. “And till then I would have to endure his madness. I’ve had enough. I’ve long since had enough.”
Piros eased to one side of the rock shelter, till the wall was at his shoulder. “So this is where we are.”
“Two against one,” said Hanio.
“Seven against two,” said Piros. “You set the odds yourself.”
Hanio shook his head. “They think you’re dead. They’ve run away.”
Piros did not look back toward the cowering gaunt men, but Alaric could not help glancing that way. They were indeed gone. “We seem to be alone,” he said.
Piros nodded. “Tell me if they come back. Otherwise, this is between Hanio and me.” He took a single step toward Hanio. “Which of the others is for you?”
“All of them,” said Hanio, “when I return without you.” He raised one of his knives to waist height and kept the other at his hip.
Piros sprang, knocking Hanio’s knives aside with his own, and then both men were hard against the wooden door for a moment before they dropped to the ground in a tangle of desert robes, Hanio on top. Alaric realized he was holding his breath, ready to flee in his own way but uncertain enough to stay another moment, and another.
Then Piros pushed Hanio aside and staggered to his feet. The blade in his left hand was bloody to the hilt, and there was a spreading stain of the same color at Hanio’s belly. Piros wiped the bloody knife on the hem of Hanio’s robe and slipped both of his blades back into his sleeves. Silently, Alaric passed him the knife he had loaned out, and that, too, went into one of his sleeves. “We’ll let the villagers bury him,” said Piros. “Or perhaps they’ll just leave him out in the heat to dry. Now for my son.” He started back up the rise.
Alaric followed. “What will you do to him?” he said.
At the top, Piros turned and looked southward, and Alaric stood beside him and did the same. The phantom city was there, as so often before, and between it and them, barely visible against the pale desert floor, was a tiny figure topped by a dark headwrap.
“I wonder how much fresh Powder they gave him,” said Piros. “It’s stronger fresh. He probably sees alabaster towers and gardens of flowers in full bloom where we see shapes that could as easily be clouds. And perhaps even boats on the water.” He took a deep, heavy breath. “That’s what I saw. And it frightened me enough that I never tried the Powder again.”
“We can fetch him back,” said Alaric.
“We can,” said Piros. “But I had no need of Hanio to tell me that the boy knew. Else they would have tossed him into the cave along with us. Hanio was ever a careful man. A good subordinate who never left anything to chance. If he killed you to leave no witness, he would not have spared Rudd.”
“You can’t be sure of that,” said Alaric. “Hanio could have been lying to gain an advantage in the fight. He might have trusted the Powder to befuddle the boy’s mind.” He squinted against the sun, gauging the distance. It would be an easy enough journey with his special power, and if he seized the boy quickly enough, while he was too surprised to struggle, the return would be easy, too. “Piros,” he said, “he’s your son.”
Piros laughed softly, ruefully. “He’s the Powder’s son. And I, too, have had enough of managing his prison.” He took another deep breath and then turned away from the south, the city, his son. “Let him have his heart’s desire.” He started down the north slope, toward the gaunt men’s cluster of huts.
Alaric trotted after him. “Piros …”
The caravan master kept walking. “Isn’t this a good enough end to your song, minstrel?”
“A perfect end for a song,” said Alaric. “But not for a man’s life. Will you let him die out there because the Powder is twisting his mind?”
“If you go after him,” said Piros, “he will become your charge. Is that what you want?”
Alaric swallowed hard. “Piros … I can’t let him die.”
Piros shook his head. “I didn’t take you for a fool, minstrel, but it seems you are.”
A heartbeat later, Alaric was walking south a few paces behind Piros’s son. “Rudd!” he shouted.