'Do you know why he is here,' Koezh asked, 'pretending to be a mercenary bodyguard instead of at the head of an army? From what you told me of Narkang and the White Circle prophecies, he would have justification enough.'
'He was lured here by one of Azaer's agents,' Doranei said.
Azaer?' said Koezh, a little taken aback. 'The false daemon-cult?'
'Azaer exists,' Doranei confirmed. 'It may not be a true daemon, but it's certainly some sort of immortal, albeit an unusual one – Azaer has no form or physical power, unlike normal daemons, but it does have guile. It exists as a shadow only, teasing out the cruelty and arrogance in men for its own purposes. I doubt you'll have come into contact with it, or its followers; the shadow is too weak to risk going near either of you.' He hesitated. 'Well, so King Emin believes, and he's come into conflict with Azaer's followers more than once. Azaer pre¬fers to steal its followers, to use words and magic to turn them against what they once believed in.'
'Which brings us back to this minstrel of yours,' Zhia said. 'I doubt you would have been able to see the wings but he was there tonight, watching the crowd.' She felt Doranei's body tense as she spoke, but pressure on his arm stopped the man from turning around to look at the building. She knew they would be watching her closely now.
'My late arrival has left me without all the facts,' Koezh interrupted, 'and if I'm to play, I need to know everything. We have an immortal that is neither God nor daemon, and you tell me the criminal execu¬ted on stage tonight was no wrongdoer but a priest?'
'Exactly so,' Zhia said, remembering with distaste the final scene of the play they had just watched. It was surely no simple mistake that the theatre troupe had taken the wrong prisoner from the gaol for that night's performance. 'The entire play was a bitter mockery of the Gods, and then instead of using a condemned man as they were supposed to, they killed a priest, one I had put in gaol to cool his temper,' she said bitterly. 'Fate's eyes, the priest had been complaining about the execution of men on stage!'
'And the crowd laughed,' Koezh finished, dismissing the irony with a shake of his black hair. 'Azaer wants to turn the people of the city against the Gods? You said the temples have been all but abandoned in recent weeks, and you've had to post guards to stop people throw-ing things at the priests-'
He was interrupted by a terrific crash from somewhere up ahead, followed by the sound of splintering timber and crumpling walls. Screams and shouts were interspersed with cheers and laughter. Thi¬orange flicker in the night sky fell away as the burning building col-lapsed in on itself, but Zhia could hear a low growl swell menacingly, and she knew the light would soon return.
Footsteps echoed from the dark side streets: men skulking in the shadows, looking for easy prey. They must have decided Zhia's parly was not for them, thanks to her guards, and because she was wearing her white shawl, marking her as a woman of the White Circle. They weren't all mages – only a few had any real ability – but rumour was a powerful tool, and many believed all who wore the shawl had magical powers.
'But what is the goal here?' she wondered aloud. 'There is a very patient mind at work behind all this.'
'It's pretty obvious the actors are no simple band of travelling play ers,' Koezh said. 'Those albino siblings look like gentry to me, and if they're here, in a city, they must have been stolen away from the woods they belonged to – and that, to me, is more remarkable than the presence of mages or Raylin.'
The clump of boots made them turn; two columns of soldiers trot-ted towards them. Seeing Zhia's shawl, the man leading the troops barked an order in their jagged language and the men clattered to a halt. Some were injured and their scaled armour and fat shit-Ids looked rather battered.
Zhia recognised the leader's facial tattoos marking him as an officer bonded by a Fysthrall woman. There were gaps in the ranks, so they must have seen some fighting already tonight. Zhia was intrigued and worried: a mob would have to be in a frenzy to take on real soldier., especially troops as uncompromisingly effieient as the Fysthrall.
'Calling Falcon,' Zhia called, reading his name from his cheek.
She was always a little disappointed that the Fysthrall's methods of subduing a man's spirit were so effective – when a soldier was bonded, he was given an animal's name, for he was no longer a man, but a woman's property, and his new name, his owner's and his army unit were then tattooed onto his face. Crude, Zhia thought to herself, that it worked only confirmed their opinion of their menfolk.
The man bobbed his head in acknowledgement and hurried to her, kneeling immediately. 'Yes, Mistress.'
'You have lost men already tonight?'
'Yes, Mistress; two died in an ambush. We killed many before they were driven off.' His command of the local dialect was excellent, but his accent was thick. He kept his eyes on her feet; this one had been well trained, Zhia realised. He looked about fifty summers – forty parades, in Fysthrall, from the annual ceremony all males performed from the age of ten. She didn't recognise his face or the owner's name so she guessed the woman was either dead or of very low family status.
'Are they attacking anyone, or just soldiers enforcing the curfew?'
'Anyone, Mistress – several of your Sisters have already disappeared this night, I have heard.'
'Well then, you will escort us home,' Zhia said.
'Mistress, I have orders-'
'No longer.' She pointed. 'It's that way.'
.
CHAPTER 21
Fordan Lesarl, Chief Steward of the Farlan, had spent his entire life in the service of his lord. He had been educated from birth to take his, father's place, taught how to use men like disposable tools. His foresight had led to the creation of a network within each city-state that was unrivalled throughout the Land. It was run by Whisper, one of Lesarl's coterie of unofficial ministers, and based on a web of local agents well-used to dark-eyed men and women looming out of the shadows with a list of requirements.
The Farlan agent in Scree was a corpulent merchant, Shuel Kenn, who had done well to hide his surprise when Lord Isak himself had appeared and demanded a base for his operations. Despite the glitter in his eyes that suggested Kenn was already calculating the profit he might make from playing the dutiful host, he had spared no expense to fulfil his employer's wishes. The house he provided for Isak was not his principal residence, but it was large and luxurious, and well situated in a quiet street a short distance from the homes of the truly wealthy, so they could enjoy the city guard's protection whilst maintaining their privacy. A walled courtyard surrounded three sides of the house, and a large old chestnut tree in the middle obscured the view should anyone consider watching the rear, while the street-door was fortified against anything less than a full-on battering ram.
Tila and Vesna sat on a covered balcony at the rear of the house, facing the morning sun and drinking warm tea flavoured with lime and honey. After the horror of the two previous evenings, Scree was peculiarly silent.
'All night, whenever I closed my eyes, I saw that stage covered In blood,' Tila whispered, clutching her cup. The shadows around hit eyes betrayed her disturbed sleep, and Vesna was worried that what lew hours' rest she had managed had led her even more troubled.
'1 know,' he told her. 'I've seen prisoners executed in public before, and never found anything in it to entertain me. To execute prisoners on stage, as part of a play – that's abominable, but to murder a priest, before the whole city? It beggars belief. I haven't the words.' Vesna pinched the bridge of his nose against the tired ache building behind his eyes. He was a seasoned campaigner, and his own uneasy rest had taken him by surprise. 'There was a time when death didn't move me,' he said, reflectively. 'I wonder what happened?'