‘Dancing with the Claws. Right now they're holding off. Seems they're curious too.’

Shimmer eyed the armoured back of Skinner who had strode ahead with the standard-bearer, Lazar. ‘As am I, Smoky. As am I.’

Guards bowed and opened every sealed door he met, locks clicked and yielded, and wards parted like thinnest cloth before his questings, until Cowl found himself before the final barrier between himself and the innermost sanctum of Tayschrenn's quarters. He reached out to the door then hesitated; why should he have been invited onward? Was it a trap? Yet his every sense told him the High Mage awaited within – he and none other. Alone. As it should be; he and Tay, duelling once again.

He pushed the door open with a blow that sent it banging from the wall. A bare empty room, lit by open windows, and at its centre wards carved into the very stone of the marble floor and filled with poured and hardened gold and silver filigree in concentric circles surrounding a bowed, cross-legged man, long scraggly hair fallen forward over his face.

‘Greetings, Tay.’

The seated figure did not raise his head. ‘You should not have come, Cowl,’ the man intoned in a rough voice. ‘Yet I knew you could not have stayed away.’

‘Getting all mystical in your old age, I see.’ Cowl walked the edge of the craven wards – these he could pass but they would send him to wherever it was Tayschrenn had taken himself off to, and all indications were it was a place he would not wish to be. While Cowl paced the circle Tayschrenn failed to respond, so, impatient with the man's theatrics – some things never change – Cowl said directly, ‘Will you stand aside?’

‘If you mean, shall I intervene? The answer is no, I shall not.’

Cowl did not bother keeping a smile of victory from his face. ‘Wise move, Tay. All alone now, you would fall to my knives.’

The head rose, greasy lank hair shifting to reveal a haggard strained face, eyes sunken, fevered. ‘Wise?’ the unnerving figure demanded. ‘Do you know the final attainment of absolute power, Cowl?’

‘The final what of what?’

‘Powerlessness, Cowl. Absolute power diffuses into powerlessness.’

Cowl stepped away from the warded figure. ‘Is this some kind of elaborate self-justification for cowardice?’

Tayschrenn continued as if Cowl hadn't spoken, ‘I have stretched myself further than I have ever dared before probing onward ahead into the possibilities of what might come. I have glimpsed things that both terrify and exult. Can you answer this puzzle, Cowl? How can both of these things be?’

Despite his dismissal of this Hermetic side of Warren manipulation, Cowl found himself responding by rote, ‘Because the future holds everything.’

‘Exactly, Cowl. I see that it is possible that you are in fact worthy of the title High Mage. And so, the question then follows, what course of action should I take in the present? Which steps might lead to all that which terrifies, which steps might lead to all that which exults? The answer is of course that I cannot know for certain. Thus I am held back from all choice. Total awareness, my friend, results in paralysis.’ The head sank once more, as if dismissing Cowl, indeed as if dismissing all physical reality.

Cowl relaxed, let his hands fall from the crossed baldrics and belts beneath his cloak. He had weapons invested and aspected that might just reach the man, but what he'd found here was no threat to anyone. It was now clear to him that the twisted Gnostic innards of theurgy had claimed the mind of the most promising mage of his generation.

He turned and left the chamber.

Once Cowl exited the room light shimmered next to the open door revealing a woman with short black hair in ash-hued tunic and trousers and carrying a long slim stave. This she planted with a sharp blow upon the marble flags. ‘He should never have been allowed to get this close.’

‘I am beyond his physical reach,’ Tayschrenn answered mildly.

‘Yet he is also a formidable mage, so I understand.’

‘In certain narrow and sharp applications, yes.’

The woman swung the stave across her shoulders, draped her arms over it. ‘And now?’

‘They will see that nothing can be decided here. It all lies upon Heng's walls, as before. And they will go.’

‘Before?’

Tayschrenn nodded, his eyes closed. ‘Yes. When the Protectress fell to Kellanved and Dancer everyone realized that no one was safe from them – all proceeded logically from that.’

The woman stood still for some time, head cocked as if listening. Tayschrenn's head sank lower, his breathing shallowed to imperceptibility. She stepped to the open door. ‘Do not involve yourself,’ announced the motionless Tayschrenn.

The woman froze, mouthed a silent curse. She set the stave against the wall. ‘Just going to keep an eye on things.’ She waited a time for an answer but none came. She cursed again and left.

Leaning against a street-side stall, Possum watched the ragged, exhausted column of Crimson Guardsmen enter the tall bronze doors of the Palace precincts. He didn't know whether to laugh or cry; was this it then? The much vaunted Guard? Had the stories over the years so grown in the telling? And what of Cowl? Had he survived?

A Hand-commander stopped at his side. One of the second echelon, vice-commanders. Coil was her name. ‘Anand wishes to know if he can count on us cooperating with the barricades.’

Possum leaned forward blocking one nostril to blow his nose to the street. ‘Yes. Seed the crowds. Tell everyone to keep their distance.’

‘Very good.’ Still, the woman did not move. She watched the outer gates swinging ponderously shut.

‘Yes, Coil?’

‘Hard to believe, yes?’

Irritated by the familiarity, Possum demanded, ‘What? That they returned? Or the condition in which they did? Or the chances that they should pick this time to show up?’

Coil did not turn to her head to glance to him. ‘Chance? I don't believe in it. And I don't take them.’

Which is why, Coil, you'll never stand where I am. ‘You have your orders.’

Coil glanced to him with her half-lidded hard eyes. ‘And these orders – from the Empress?’

The Hand-commander's tone quickened Possum's pulse. By the Queen's Mysteries, was she challenging his authority? ‘Immaterial. You've just heard them from me.’

Smiling, Coil inclined her head in the shallowest of bows, and sauntered away. Possum watched her go. Why so bold? No need to advertise what everyone in the ranks understands – that all those beneath you think they can do a better job, and are ever watchful for opportunities to demonstrate such by ousting said superior.

Blowing his nose once more, Possum dismissed Coil from his mind. She'd been merely angling for news of the Empress. No need to tell her he'd searched the Palace earlier and found no sign of her; sensibly, she'd run off. No point being disappointed about it. What could she be expected to do against some fifty Avowed and seven hundred Guardsmen? Bravely face them only to be captured? Reduced thereafter to a hostage or mere bargaining chip? What would be the sense in that? No, to Possum's way of thinking she'd done the wise thing. Let the Guard blunder like clod-footed fools through the Palace. What did they expect? To just sit on the throne and be obeyed? No, this whole episode was the shabby and frankly rather embarrassing final chapter to what had once been a noble career. Possum wiped his nose. Yes, thinking about it, he realized that he was quite disappointed by the whole thing and more than a little resentful that they'd bothered showing up at all; they'd ruined the legend for him and for everyone.