'But it's hard to be sure,' Bahl finished. 'There are ways to find out such information if you're willing to pay the price. He was in league with several daemon-princes, after all. The elves of the forest? Perhaps they hoped Malich could be made to get it for them. The White Isle is certainly somewhere no elf would dare venture, but a man might survive, and Malich's ascendance did their position no damage at all.'

'Lord, would it be presumptive to ask what you propose to use the Skull for?' asked Lesarl, his voice wavering a little.

'Yes, it would. Be content that it is my will. Do whatever you must.' Bahl's face softened a little. 'Lesarl, I know you must ask those queS' tions that no one else would dare, but do not press me any further on this.'

Bahl thought back to Cordein Malich's beginning: he had been a student of astonishing promise when he arrived at the gates of the College of Magic; talented enough that the conceited mages in Tirah had not questioned why he had travelled all the way from Embere to enrol. After Malich's second summer there, his behaviour had grown increasingly erratic. A number of bizarre accidents befell several. people on his growing list of enemies. The Archmage of the day had been on the point of throwing Malich out – despite his remarkable talent – because of the unhealthy influence he held over the other students, when Malich suddenly disappeared, together with a number

of forbidden works from the restricted library. Some decades later, Bahl only just managed to prevent all-out civil war when, during a pre-emptive attack on Malich's fortress deep in, the forest, he had succeeded in killing the necromancer.

What they found there had sickened even the white-eyes of the c rd and resulted in more than a hundred Parian nobles and mages u 'ne condemned to death for treason and heresy. Before the castle burnt to the ground, Bahl had removed Malich's entire library. Some of the works were carefully and totally destroyed; some were spirited away to be studied secretly, and at length.

He'd waited a long time for these journals to be translated. He pressed Lesarl again. 'And there's no clue in Malich's journal about where on the White Isle the Skull is kept? I hate to think how long it would take to walk every corridor of the palace there.'

Lesarl scratched his chin, clearly unwilling to encourage Bahl in any way, but he knew better than to lie. 'It does say that the Skull is watched over by the first among men. It's a reasonable assumption that this means Kasi Parian, but there is no guarantee. How much help that is, I don't know. The palace covers much of the entire island, doesn't it?'

Bahl nodded. He drew on his pipe, frowning when he realised it had gone out, then discarded it on a table. In that moment he looked suddenly old. With his shoulders hunched and his gaze distant, Lesarl thought his Lord resembled his own father who, in his later years, had been haunted by all he'd seen in Bahl's service.

The Chief Steward shivered at the image and cleared his throat noisily to dispel it. 'I do have one last piece of news, something I had not intended to bother you with until, well-' He coughed nervously. It seems that Duke Nemarse, the ruler of Raland, has been doing a little plundering on the quiet. He discovered some tombs near his southern border. My agent discovered a soldier who had been involved in the excavation; apparently he believed he was not sufficiently compensated for committing sacrilege, and declared as much to the whole tavern.

One of the things he mentioned was a skull as clear as glass not much to look at, he said, but the duke made a point of personally collecting it from the man who'd brought it out.'

‘And where is this man now?'

‘He seems to have disappeared, my Lord. My agent is looking for him now. But, there remains the possibility that Duke Nemarse actually possesses a Crystal Skull. Raland would be easier to search than the White Isle, and certainly safer.'

Bahl nodded. The Palace of the White Isle was vast and otherworldly; Raland was indeed a far easier target. Duke Nemarse was a fool and a coward; every mercenary captain he'd employed had either left within the year or attempted a coup. The only thing that kept the duke in power was a series of expensive commissions to the city's assassins.

'Send one of your more direct agents to track this soldier down and do whatever is necessary. I want to know every detail of the duke's activities, and stop this rumour going any further.'

'The agent in question should be eminently suitable: she has the mouth and manners of a cavalryman, according to the temple-mistress, but her "special talents" are described as "proficient". Her standing orders mean she should already be on her way home with the deed done.'

'Ah, one of those.' Bahl smiled.

In the city of Helrect, halfway between Tirah and Raland, Chief Steward Lesarl’s agent squinted down at the cup before her. It was a public holiday there; anyone not inebriated at this hour was either well on the way towards it or, quite possibly, dead because of it. Legana had seen examples of all of those when she had travelled through the city streets a few hours earlier, hurrying through the twilight to reach the inn before the day faded completely. Even for a woman of her skills, Helrect's streets under cover of darkness were a dangerous place to be and the general drunkenness only exacerbated the problem.

She looked past her drinking companions to the bonfires that set the boundaries of what was visible. She didn't have to worry about her safety, not now she was sat in the midst of a company of Chetse mercenaries whose commander was extremely fond of her, but the instinct to constantly check her surroundings was too ingrained to change. She soon regretted the move; focusing was proving rather difficult and even when she did manage to see clearly, she still saw nothing more than the dilapidated sight of Helrect.

'Oh Gods, I hate this city,' Legana muttered, raising her cup once more. The man beside her snorted with amusement and reached out to give her a pat on the shoulder. His palm felt like a large ham thumping down.

'Hah you're drunk, woman! You always get depressed when you're

drunk ' Destech, the commander's lieutenant, considered Legana his

friend for a reason only a Chetse soldier would ever consider. He

cocked his head to one side and took a good look at her. 'You're not so pretty when you're drunk either, which is odd, because I'm

drunk too, and most women'll do once I've got a few jars inside me.’

'Get your bastard hand off me or I'll break your nose back the way it was,' Legana growled. 'Even drunk, you still look like the arse end of a pig-' She tossed back her copper-tinted hair to look Destech in the eye. He withdrew his hand, chuckling.

The Farlan agent's dyed hair shone disturbingly in the firelight, a reminder that she was a devotee of the Lady. Some of the Lady's followers were gentle people who spent their lives doing works of charity, but Fate was not a patron who attracted the rich. Her temple communities were self-supporting, rather than relying on endowments from dying aristocrats. The disciplines taught in the temples had a range of uses in the outside world and Chief Steward Lesarl was one of those men delighted to employ every one of those disciplines. Destech was a soldier, a hardened veteran, and he had sense enough to know how far to push her, and when to withdraw.

'Ah my dear, the city's not so bad,' commented the man on Legana's other side. He was middle-aged and powerfully built, even by the standards of Chetse soldiers, but he wore a sour expression that belied his words. Commander Tochet had once been first among the generals of the Chetse Army; Commander of the Eastern Tunnels, the most vicious battleground of their long-running war with the Siblis. His fall from grace had carried him from minor conflict to minor conflict and now he travelled to Raland to be Duke Nemarse's bodyguard.