'Azaer has finally shown its hand?'

The witch straightened up and brushed the remaining dust from her hand. 'The shadow's stench hangs over this city; the people are turning against each other. I know of no other mind that turns men inwards and against themselves like this.'

'To what end?'

'I have no idea,' she replied sadly. 'I have never had any contact with Azaer's followers; I have tried only to heal the victims of the shadow's machinations. I feel the shadow is anathema to all I hold dear, and I fear it.'

She used her walking staff to drag a path through the dust. Fernal peered down at the shape she was drawing, his bony brow looking even more crumpled than usual as he tried to make out the symbols.

'Will you try to stop it?'

'Of course. Whether I can or not, I will not stand idly by.' The witch stopped drawing in the dirt and stared at what she had done for a while before she erased it with her toe. She looked up at Fernal, a rare display of concern showing on her face. 'I've seen enough of Azaer's deeds to know that it goes against the balance of the Land; that in itself is enough for me to choose a side. In the last town we passed, they swore priests were being beaten in the street, temples were being burned. Tell me, Fernal, without people to worship them, without temples and priests to glorify them, what are the Gods?'

The blue-skinned figure was looking out over the city. Somewhere behind the walls a lambent glow indicated that the riots had begun early that night. 'Just a voice on the wind,' he replied.

'Well this is an evening for the unexpected,' Koezh commented coolly, walking with Legana on his arm, the perfect nobleman. 'I almost feel like introducing myself to Lord Isak, just to crown the peculiarity of it all.'

At Koezh's side, the young Farlan woman, still trying to hide her discomfort, followed his pointing finger to where a tall figure in a cape stood at the head of a squad of guards.

'1 suspect he would not react well to it. Everyone here is somewbal tense; understandable perhaps, after that repulsive travesty we've just sat through.'

I shouldn't tease her by suggesting such things, Zhia thought as sin-observed Legana, rather surprised at how fond she was of the prickly Farlan agent, but it is fun to watch her stepping out like a countess. I suspect she cares less that my brother is a vampire than that he's a male one!

'The boy was sufficiently respectful when I last met him,' Zhia replied. They were taking a turn around the theatre, ostensibly to avoid the confusion of coaches and sedans crowding around its exit. At her side, rather more comfortable than Legana, Doranei stifled a snort. She gave his hand a squeeze and leaned close to his eat. 'You disagree?'

They stopped at the head of the main street leading into the Shambles. A burning cart illuminated half a dozen Fysthrall soldiers who stood in a nervous knot two hundred yards down the road, flinching behind their shields as stones clattered down on them from every side. Zhia was pleased to notice Doranei couldn't stop hlmseli breathing in her scent before replying.

'I laving spent a few weeks in Lord lsak's company, respectful isn't the first word I'd have used for him,' Doranei said with a faint grin,

'Really? I rather believed you thought highly of the man,' Zhia said. Behind them a handful of guardsmen, Major Amber, Nai and Haipar,

shuffled to a halt. She watched the Fysthrall troops huddling under their shields while they tried to edge away, and briefly wondered if she'd brought enough men with her.

'Oh I do,' Doranei answered hurriedly, 'and I wish I could have gone to greet him tonight – if it had been under other circumstances – but he's a white-eye, and one of the Chosen. I don't think he feels any great need to be respectful to anyone – and it doesn't come naturally to him anyway.' He shot a cautious look at Legana, not wishing to start trouble, but she didn't appear to take umbrage.

'Do you know why he is here,' Koezh asked, 'pretending to be a mercenary bodyguard instead of at the head of an army? From what you told me of Narkang and the White Circle prophecies, he would have justification enough.'

'He was lured here by one of Azaer's agents,' Doranei said.

Azaer?' said Koezh, a little taken aback. 'The false daemon-cult?'

'Azaer exists,' Doranei confirmed. 'It may not be a true daemon, but it's certainly some sort of immortal, albeit an unusual one – Azaer has no form or physical power, unlike normal daemons, but it does have guile. It exists as a shadow only, teasing out the cruelty and arrogance in men for its own purposes. I doubt you'll have come into contact with it, or its followers; the shadow is too weak to risk going near either of you.' He hesitated. 'Well, so King Emin believes, and he's come into conflict with Azaer's followers more than once. Azaer pre¬fers to steal its followers, to use words and magic to turn them against what they once believed in.'

'Which brings us back to this minstrel of yours,' Zhia said. 'I doubt you would have been able to see the wings but he was there tonight, watching the crowd.' She felt Doranei's body tense as she spoke, but pressure on his arm stopped the man from turning around to look at the building. She knew they would be watching her closely now.

'My late arrival has left me without all the facts,' Koezh interrupted, 'and if I'm to play, I need to know everything. We have an immortal that is neither God nor daemon, and you tell me the criminal execu¬ted on stage tonight was no wrongdoer but a priest?'

'Exactly so,' Zhia said, remembering with distaste the final scene of the play they had just watched. It was surely no simple mistake that the theatre troupe had taken the wrong prisoner from the gaol for that night's performance. 'The entire play was a bitter mockery of the Gods, and then instead of using a condemned man as they were supposed to, they killed a priest, one I had put in gaol to cool his temper,' she said bitterly. 'Fate's eyes, the priest had been complaining about the execution of men on stage!'

'And the crowd laughed,' Koezh finished, dismissing the irony with a shake of his black hair. 'Azaer wants to turn the people of the city against the Gods? You said the temples have been all but abandoned in recent weeks, and you've had to post guards to stop people throw-ing things at the priests-'

He was interrupted by a terrific crash from somewhere up ahead, followed by the sound of splintering timber and crumpling walls. Screams and shouts were interspersed with cheers and laughter. Thi¬orange flicker in the night sky fell away as the burning building col-lapsed in on itself, but Zhia could hear a low growl swell menacingly, and she knew the light would soon return.

Footsteps echoed from the dark side streets: men skulking in the shadows, looking for easy prey. They must have decided Zhia's parly was not for them, thanks to her guards, and because she was wearing her white shawl, marking her as a woman of the White Circle. They weren't all mages – only a few had any real ability – but rumour was a powerful tool, and many believed all who wore the shawl had magical powers.

'But what is the goal here?' she wondered aloud. 'There is a very patient mind at work behind all this.'

'It's pretty obvious the actors are no simple band of travelling play ers,' Koezh said. 'Those albino siblings look like gentry to me, and if they're here, in a city, they must have been stolen away from the woods they belonged to – and that, to me, is more remarkable than the presence of mages or Raylin.'

The clump of boots made them turn; two columns of soldiers trot-ted towards them. Seeing Zhia's shawl, the man leading the troops barked an order in their jagged language and the men clattered to a halt. Some were injured and their scaled armour and fat shit-Ids looked rather battered.