Phoran had done a lot of thinking since his conversation with Avar before the council meeting. “He was a boy, and his own father had encouraged him to be wild. It wouldn’t have struck him odd that the old Sept would encourage him to take a twelve-year-old places that were at best unsavory and at worst outright dangerous—I don’t think that he’d have sought out my company without his father forcing him to do so.” It hurt to admit that, but he knew it was true.

“You have gained a reputation of being volatile and unreliable,” said Tier slowly. “Even we in the hinterlands of Redern have heard so much.”

“Not to say that I wasn’t a willing participant,” Phoran said staunchly, though he wanted Tier to like him and it was difficult to admit responsibility. “But if my uncle had lived I would never have been allowed the excesses I have visited.”

“And you would have come to power by now,” said Tier. “You are what, twenty-four? The Septs would have been under you directly for five years.”

“Am I seeing shadows that don’t exist?” Phoran asked.

“I don’t know,” said Tier. “But if you are, then so am I. I’ve been looking upon them as my problem, or even a Traveler problem. But so many Septs would make any group powerful, and powerful groups seek more power. I don’t know that wizards can create convenient plagues, but it is odd that so many of the Path survived to inherit.”

“I sent a letter to your wife,” said Phoran hesitantly.

Tier’s head jerked up, but Phoran couldn’t read his expression.

“I told her that you were here in the palace,” Phoran continued quickly. “I told her you were alive, but that it would be dangerous to come. I told her that she could send word to me or you through the messenger—he was one of my uncle’s men, retired this past decade. My uncle was a canny man; I doubt that any of his would be suborned to the Path.”

Tier laughed abruptly. “Told her it was dangerous, did you?”

Phoran nodded. “I thought it best.”

“We can plan on her showing up a week after she receives the letter, then,” he said. “And we’ll be the better for it. I’m not a Traveler—but my wife is, and, if you gave her enough information, she’ll bring the whole of the Travelers with her when she comes.” He laughed again. “Thank you.”

“I wrote to Gerant as well,” Phoran said. “Directly after the council meeting. I thought he ought to know what the council had almost done.” He hesitated. “It was a long letter. I told him of the situation I’ve made for myself, then asked him to come here and help clear out the Path. I told him that I had it on good authority that he was an honest man.”

Tier laughed. “He’ll want to thank me for that—but he’ll come, right enough. He’s almost too old for fighting—fifty or thereabouts by now—but he had several sons, good men all.” He began to play a quiet melody as he talked. “If the Path is as bad as we think, then it will be good to have Gerant at your back. The wizards won’t scare him off either; one of his daughters-in-law is a wizard, and he employed a few more when I knew him. I take it that you saved his land?”

Phoran launched into the story of his triumph. Tier was a good listener. He laughed in the right places—grinned, when Phoran told him about the way Avar had silenced the court.

“I can see why you like him. Phoran,” said Tier, “would you take some advice from an old soldier?”

“Try me,” Phoran replied.

“There are a lot of the Passerines here who might turn out to be good men if they had some goal, some task to work at. No one is more loyal than someone who feels good about himself and his accomplishments—someone who has a stake in the stability of your throne. Find them jobs to do.”

Phoran laughed. “If anyone should have hope that reformation is possible, it should be me. Get me a list of names and I’ll come up with something.”

“Military would work for most of them,” said Tier. “Bloodless dueling seems to be a pastime around here—and there are a number of fine swordsmen in the bunch.”

Phoran shook his head. “I don’t know where I’d put them. The city guards are political appointments through the merchant guilds. The palace guards are mostly inherited positions—and one of the Raptors is the captain of the guards. Neither troop is one a nobleman would willingly join.”

“You’re a Sept yourself, aren’t you?” asked Tier.

“Yes, Sept of Taela and of Hawkshold—but Hawkshold is a meaningless title. It’s been part of Taela for several hundred years. My lands are cared for by the palace guard, the city guard, and, if those won’t do, I can call upon the Septs to create an imperial army.”

“If the council leader were to countermand one of your orders to the palace guard, who would they obey?” asked Tier.

Phoran didn’t answer, because the answer was obvious.

“Gerant’s men will obey him, and he’ll obey you,” said Tier, his question answered by Phoran’s silence. “But his Sept is in a border area. He cannot stay in Taela for long without risking disaster to his own lands.”

“You’re saying that if I make up a troop of the Passerines they will obey me rather than the Raptors?”

Tier smiled a little grimly. “The Raptors provide the Passerines with drink, sex, and a place to lurk about and pretend to be dangerous. They are sent out periodically to destroy a tavern or rape and pillage or maim. There are sixty of them and I’ve seen five or six already that I wouldn’t want at my back—but there are some good men. If you make them feel like men, not boys, they will follow you to hell and back.”

Phoran was flattered, but he knew what he was. “They won’t follow me, Tier. A drunkard and a stupid fop.”

“You may be right,” agreed Tier readily. “But that’s not who you are, Phoran. It is what you once allowed yourself to become. But you do not smell of alcohol tonight, and there’s not a stupid man alive who ever got the best of the Council of Septs. Be honest with them, Phoran; they know what you have done. Lead and they will follow, my emperor. Just as Gerant and I follow.”

Phoran swallowed hard. “Get me a list of the men you think could work.”

“I’ll do that,” agreed Tier. “Let me have some more time with them first, maybe a couple of weeks. Then I’ll have a better idea who is suitable and who is not.” He hummed a haunting descant to go with the song he played, and then suddenly he smiled. “I have one for you already. There’s a young man named Collarn. Do you know him?”

Phoran shook his head.

“He is a musician, but one with more technical ability than talent. What he is good with are instruments and their care. And the stranger the instrument, the better he likes it.” Tier silenced his strings. “Am I mistaken in assuming that this labyrinth of yours might have a musical instrument or two?”

Phoran laughed and held up a hand. “I’ll find out.”

After a moment, Tier said, “If the Raptors are playing games with the merchant guilds as you think, you might go to them if you need more support. It seems to me that a group who’s being blackmailed, like the Weavers’ Guild is, wouldn’t be unhappy at removing their blackmailer’s ability to hurt them.”

Phoran smiled back, “Likely not.”

He closed his eyes and listened to the music, wondering when he’d ever been this content before. This was the feeling he’d been looking for since his uncle died. He had a larger purpose, if he could hold on to the gains he’d made today. But there was more, too: for the first time in his life he felt like an adult. He smiled to himself—Tier was right, it was a powerful feeling.