Then, with a last pat, he offered the rope to Zandilar who had no use for it. Her mist-made form dissolved around the colt, obscuring him, consuming him, drawing him back into the small, dark hole.

Bro had expected her to ride away on Dancer's back, as she had in his vision. He hadn't expected the colt to completely disappear. A macabre progression formed in his thoughts: Shali's corpse had been whole, Dent's had been half-gone, Dancer was wholly gone. It meant nothing; nothing had meaning any more. Bro was back where he'd been in the stable: deaf and numb but without Dancer, without even his human sister to keep him moving.

"It's time to leave," Rizcarn said. Bro hadn't noticed him approaching or felt his hand on his arm. "You angered her. Disappointed her."

Bro shook his head.

"The moon's waning, Ebroin. There's much to do between now and when it's full again. We'll meet Zandilar in the Sunglade. Maybe you'll get another chance, son. Maybe. I can't say, but you're still with me, and I've got much to do."

Bro shook his head again. Rizcarn's hand was warm on his arm, but there was no way he could pretend that it was his father's hand, no way to pretend that he wasn't an orphan. Worse than an orphan. He was a man in a world of trouble with no where to go but forward, following the man who had once been his father back across the river.

16

The Black Citadel in the city of Bezantur, in Thay Afternoon, the eighteenth day of Eleasias, The Year of the Banner (1368DR)

For the first time in over a month, a cool breeze had freshened over Bezantur Harbor. It cleansed the city, awakening it from stagnant dreams. In Bezantur's one thousand fabled temples, priests and acolytes invoked their deities with prayers for High Harvest, the season that followed Reeking Heat. Ordinary folk smiled at the sun; they greeted their loved ones and neighbors like long-lost friends. On a balcony overlooking the slave market, Aznar Thrul waited impatiently while a trio of terrified gnolls arranged an early supper on a gilded table.

The Mighty Tharchion, Mightier Zulkir had plans for the evening: a visit to the citadel dungeons, which he hadn't visited during the Heat, to savor a torture session without sharing it. Afterward, he planned a midnight visit to the locked chamber where Bezantur's former tharchion awaited his pleasure. Awaited was, perhaps, too strong a word. Mari Agneh scarcely comprehended that she was alive. Thrul had bound his predecessor in a web of spells that left her worse than dead. She, who had once sent armies against him, had become a painted doll, sating his whims and those of his other guests. The pleasure was always his, never hers.

For a month, Aznar Thrul had lived the boring life of an ascetic, cut off from the diversions of the flesh. However much he cherished the power that went with his dual titles, there were times when the zulkir and tharchion yearned for the simpler days of his youth, when life was all potential, little responsibility, and every night belonged to him alone.

The naked gnolls finished setting out his supper. They kowtowed on the marble floor, then backed through the open door, their eyes averted from his majesty. Thrul removed a gnarled amber rod from the sleeve of his velvet robe. Holding it precisely between his thumb and index finger, he passed it carefully over each dish on the table, each plate, knife, fork, and spoon. He touched the rim of three crystal goblets, the ewers of wine, nectar, and water as well. There were no sparks, no foul emanations; the food was pure enough for a zulkir and tharchion to eat. He was mildly disappointed: fresh prisoners were better subjects in the torture chamber.

But as the meal was wholesome, there was nothing to do but eat. Thrul began with a plate of jellied eggs on a bed of pickled rice. Picking up a knife very similar to the ones his torturers used, he made delicate cuts across the green ovals. Albumen parted like virgin flesh; blood-red yolks glistened within. He stabbed each of them and smiled as the viscous yolk fluid seeped into the rice.

It was almost too pretty, too metaphoric to eat, but he'd skipped lunch. The zulkir pushed a dripping dollop onto his spoon with a crust of bread and raised it to his lips.

"O Mighty Tharchion, Mightier Zulkir, a thousand apologies for this interruption. I beg your mercy."

Thrul set the spoon down with an ominous sigh. He glowered at his pot-bellied chamberlain. The man had eaten-the zulkir could pluck the menu from his mind; he would have to suffer.

"Why? Why have you come? Why should I forgive the interruption?"

"He is here, O Mighty Tharchion, Mightier Zulkir. He wishes to speak with you. Now."

The chamberlain's thoughts were less coherent than usual, but a thread of fear ran through all of them, different than the fear Thrul himself inspired. One might almost think Szass Tam had manifested at the citadel's gate, except zulkirs did not visit one another, not without extreme precautions. There had been no alarms, no warnings. Thrul concluded he knew who wished to see him: the spy master.

"Tell her I'm indisposed. Tell her I will remain that way until sundown-unless she'd care to join me in, say, my bedchamber." He couldn't imagine her accepting the offer, though he'd bestir himself if she did.

The chamberlain didn't budge.

"Are you deaf, lead-head? Go and tell her," Thrul commanded, once again raising his spoon.

"O Mighty Tharchion, Mightier Zulkir, it is not a woman who waits. It is the Chairmaster himself, O Mighty Tharchion, Mightier Zulkir."

That was a mild surprise. It was only this morning that Thrul had sent word to his chairkeeper that a Convocation was likely, and that only because he'd allowed two of Mythrell'aa's minions to escape the city, both of them carrying messages for Szass Tam asking the lich to call a Convocation of zulkirs. Even Szass Tam had to follow procedure for a Convocation. The Chairmaster shouldn't have arrived for another two or three days.

"Find out if he wishes to dine with me-"

"I do not," a man's deep voice came through the door. "Nor do I wish to see your bedchamber."

The chamberlain, who was responsible for Thrul's sacrosanct privacy, turned pasty white beneath his tattoos. His eyes glazed. Spittle appeared at the corners of his quivering mouth. He would have died, if Thrul hadn't decided to deny the Chairmaster the pleasure of watching.

"Welcome," he said. "You should have sent word."

"I am word," the exceptionally tall and slender man said as he entered the balcony.

The Chairmaster wore his own clothes: blood-colored linen gauze, suitable to the season, trimmed with gold threads, garnets, and star rubies-never let it be said that the zulkirs stinted their tithes to the Chairmaster. By his tattoos, the Chairmaster was an illusionist, but he owed nothing to Mythrell'aa, or to anyone else. When he extended his hand, a chair appeared on the balcony: a testament to his power and immunity by working magic in a zulkir's presence without triggering his wards. He sat down opposite Thrul and, having said he wouldn't dine, poured himself wine.

Thrul would have loved to throw the insufferable lout over the balustrade, or, better yet, take him downstairs to the dungeons. He didn't dare. Not even Szass Tam could successfully challenge the Chairmaster, though rumor had it that the lich had tried a century ago. Supposedly the necromancer still bore a wound that wouldn't heal, though the laws of magic stated that the undead couldn't heal-it took magic to repair their torn flesh, magic any adolescent necromancer should have mastered, and Szass Tam was long past adolescence. Of course, by those same magical laws, Szass Tam couldn't exist either as a lich or as a man, so the rumor never died, and the Chairmaster's reputation as both survivor and wizard was enhanced.