"What is it?" she asked.

"Those two," Jack said. "They were plotting something, my dear. I overheard them talking about how they would divert the Watch when they were ready to strike."

"Strike? Against whom? For what?"

Jack frowned. It was almost certainly none of his business, but what were they up to? He hated it when he discovered plots that were not his own. An assassination, perhaps? A coup? A simple robbery or theft?

He shook his head. "I do not know, Illyth, but they marked Lord Fox and Lady Crane as they left. We should be careful about protecting our identities from this point forward. They might not want us to find out what they were talking about."

"Ah!" said Illyth. "A new plot within the Game!"

"I do not think so," said Jack.

CHAPTER SIX

By the end of the Orange Lord's ball, Jack knew three things. He knew that Erizum was the Blue Lord. He knew that the Green Lord ruled Dues. And he knew that Lady Mantis and Lord Tiger meant him no good at all. In fact, they desperately wanted to find out who he was and what he knew.

Jack and Illyth had determined Erizum's identity through sheer good fortune. In the process of exchanging clues honestly with other players (the only method that Illyth condoned, unfortunately), they'd simply amassed five clues to the effect that neither Fatim, Alcantar, Dubhil, Geciras, nor Carad was the Blue Lord. That left Buriz and Erizum, and then they'd found a clue that read simply Buriz is either the Red Lord or the Green Lord. Clearly, some of the clues were simply better than others and offered the potential for a faster solution than simple elimination of possibilities. Jack decided that the Buriz clue must have been one of the key pieces that Randall Morran had mentioned when explaining the rules of the Game at the beginning of the Red Lord's revel, three nights ago.

The Green Lord's kingdom was somewhat more problematical. Jack knew it to be true, but he couldn't tell Illyth that he'd puzzled it out, because he'd done so by using his spell of copying to duplicate the stolen journals of two other players before slipping the books back into their owners' possession. Small thefts such as these had to be carefully timed, since early in the evening the owners were still sober and vigilant of their notebooks, while later in the evening the trickle of departing guests left the party much less crowded and made it harder to remove someone's book inconspicuously. And, of course, Jack couldn't rule out the possibility that someone might have made a false journal in the hope that it would be stolen and examined.

He solved that problem quite elegantly by convincing Illyth that they should split up for a while to obtain clues on their own. "After all," he pointed out, "We will double the rate at which we acquire information."

"But most of those clues will be unconfirmed," Illyth said. "We have only one token to show, so you would only be able to trade rumors."

"On the contrary, you will only be able to trade rumors. I will take our token for now."

"Just a moment! Why do you get the token?"

"Two reasons, my dear Lady Crane," Jack crooned. "First, you are by your very nature trusting and thus deserving of trust. You will fare better without the token than I would, because lying to a rogue such as Lord Fox is easy, but what true man could look into your eyes and utter a falsehood?"

"I can think of one," Illyth muttered.

"Second, if I have the token to trade, you will know that I am acquiring true and accurate information, and you will therefore have no cause to question my methods or the results I obtain at the end of the night."

The noblewoman studied him suspiciously. "To tell the truth, Jack, I find myself wondering what new scheme you can implement with the token under the guise of fair play. Besides, I don't think the rumors are all that important. Another player could say anything they liked to me about a token they claim to have seen, and how could I possibly know that they were telling the truth?"

"That is the beauty of it," Jack said. "When we compare our notes at the end of the night, we will simply assume that any unconfirmed clue we have acquired is actually false. Sifting through the rumors is the real challenge of this Game. If we wait until we have seen every clue token, we will certainly lose to someone who has seen fewer tokens but is willing to hazard all on a guess. Therefore, the key must lie in making the best use of our unconfirmed clues."

Illyth frowned, a gesture that her crane mask displayed as a subtle lowering of her bill and an introspective cast to her eye. "We should add to our notes a remark about which players have provided us with which clues," she said. "That way, we could more easily confirm rumors, or at least catch some of the more unscrupulous players in a lie. Very well, you can have the token, and I'll see what rumors I can trade. But try not to start any duels tonight!"

So Jack found an opportunity to circulate the most incredible and outrageous lies he could imagine, while presumably "acquiring" the information he'd gleaned from the rival journals. When he returned to Illyth at the end of the night, he conveyed a dozen of the clues he'd stolen from the journals as "confirmed" by examination of another player's token. Combining these with their own notes led to the discovery that the Green Lord ruled Dues, again by process of elimination. "See?" he told Illyth. "We are making substantial progress. I am absolutely confident that we will be able to solve the riddle in one more good session."

"I think two is more likely," Illyth replied. The hour had grown late. The party was breaking up, with masked nobles and players gracefully making their exits in pairs and small groups. "The Yellow Lord's tournament is in three days' time. Will you be there?"

"I cannot contemplate the thought of failing you," Jack said. "Of course I will be there." They drifted toward the robing room to turn in their masks and depart, waiting patiently as the players before them unmasked in secret and exited the other side of the room. "Should we meet beforehand in order to examine our clues together and build a solution?"

"An excellent idea," Illyth said. "Why don't you come to Fleetwood Manor an hour or so early, and we'll compare notes."

Jack grinned. The carriage rides to Illyth's estate were costing him an arm and a leg, but he couldn't possibly let her know that. "Consider it done-" he started to say, when he looked past Illyth's shoulder and noticed Lady Mantis watching the two of them like a hawk preparing to swoop down on a pair of field mice. Her green gown and glittering mask concealed malice so intense that Jack could almost feel it where he stood.

"Jack? What is it?" Illyth watched him for a moment, then glanced over her shoulder. "It's that lady you met earlier tonight, isn't it?"

"Yes," he said, "although I wouldn't really say that I have the pleasure of her acquaintance." He looked around for her companion, Lord Tiger, and failed to spot him. Ahead of Jack and Illyth, two Game attendants opened the door to the robing room and ushered in another pair of players, closing the doors behind them. The line advanced a couple of steps. "I don't see her escort anywhere, do you?"

Illyth looked around the ballroom. "He wore a tiger mask, right? I don't see him."

Jack tugged at his chin, thinking. "Tell me, Illyth, if you were discussing the details of some nefarious plot and discovered that a masked player had overheard your conversation, what would you do?"

"Why, I would try to identify him, so that I could confront him later and determine whether or not he heard anything important."

"And how would you do that? Might you resort to unpleasant tactics to ascertain what had been discovered?"