She was mortally wounded, broken beyond repair. Her arms looked like bags of shattered bone, and she coughed blood. Her legs and her face were undamaged, however, and Chainer watched sadly as all three of her eyes rolled back and forth in her head.

"Don't you dare," Deidre rasped. Dazed, numb, and mute, Chainer stepped forward.

"Don't… waste," Deidre managed. She choked and coughed before continuing. "Don't waste… us." She tried to gesture with her mangled arm and then screamed in pain.

"Don't waste us," she said again. Her eyes were wild, unfocused. She smiled one last time.

Chainer understood. "I won't, big sister."

"Don't…"

Chainer waited for a few silent seconds and then closed Deidre's eyes.

"The Cabal is here," he whispered, and the jolt sent him sprawling backward. Deidre had been so very much alive that converting her savage life into death almost finished Chainer off as well.

He felt better as he picked himself up. Chainer caught his reflection in a mirrored hallway decoration. His tightly rolled braids were all undone and askew. His face was a smear of blood. His eyes were two black holes that glowed with an un-light very similar to the Mirari's.

He glanced at the remaining bodies, and then walked past them to where the officer lay. He, too, was very near the end.

"For Kirtar," he said. "For the Order." Then he died.

"For the First," Chainer's voice was a bitter snarl. "For Deidre. For the Cabal."

Chainer got out the censer and started another disc of incense burning. He left the cage at the mouth of the vault hallway so that the smoke would obscure the entrance. Then he went back and finished what he had promised to Deidre.

Skellum and the First watched the scrying pool. Chainer's smoke did not affect the spell that powered the pool, and his Cabal masters could see him clearly. "You have trained him well, Skellum." "I didn't teach him that, Pater," Skellum said. "It's bad enough that he abandoned the assignment you gave him, but-"

"I have nothing but praise for your student's behavior. He showed initiative. He stood by his family and protected our property."

"But the Order… the tournament. We were going to give the Mirari away as a trophy. Why should he kill to protect it?"

"Because it is my will," the First said. "And you, his master, doubted his abilities. Look at him now."

Skellum was careful to keep his face neutral as he watched. Chainer was moving from body to body, standing over them, absorbing what he could of their dying energy. With each absorption, the black glow from his eyes grew stronger, and the more exaggerated and stylized his movements became.

"He continues to impress," the First said. "He does everything properly and with enthusiasm."

"He's a ghoul, Pater," Skellum said. "I know you think me overcautious, but what he's doing is exactly wrong for a dementist at his level."

"Wrong?" the First asked witheringly. Skellum bowed his head.

"Forgive me, Pater. You are wise and I see little. But I must-"

"You must be silent," the First said. He sat watching Chainer for a few seconds. The youth was casting several chains at once, creating them out of thin air with the dying energies he had just absorbed. He used them to sound the edges of the space he was in, striking sparks off the stone walls and then drawing the chains back into his body. "How like a spider he is," the First muttered, "or a snake with a dozen flickering tongues."

Skellum stood in silence. The figure of Chainer turned on some silent enemy, opened his mouth wide, and sent a barrage of chains lashing out from his fingers. He jerked the chains back and crossed his arms in satisfaction. Whomever or whatever he had been striking at had beat a hasty retreat.

The First stood, and Skellum smoothly backpedaled to get out of his way. "When your student has bled off some of that energy he's holding onto," the First said, "I want you to collect him and take him home. By this time next week, I want him ready for the pits."'

"In his mind, Pater, he's already there." Skellum kept his head bowed, anticipating a rebuke. But the First merely gestured, and one of his hand attendants stepped forward and put a comforting arm on Skellum's shoulder.

"Your concerns have been noted. But you should be proud of what you have accomplished for the Cabal. And of what your student will yet accomplish."

"I am proud, Pater, but I am also afraid."

The First stared down at Skellum through his milky eyes. The barest hint of a smile played with the corners of his mouth.

"Then you are no different from any other father. Come. I suspect the large dragon has been subdued by now, and I've yet to hear the final result of the tournament.

"And then," he added, "we have to make sure the Mirari falls into the most deserving hands we can find."

Both men fell silent as they continued to watch Chainer's lethal dance in the scrying pool, but only the First was smiling. Skellum's eyes were far away and his face slack, as if he were staring at something enormous that only he could see.

CHAPTER 10

The empress's mirror had been silent for weeks, and Veza had quickly become desperate for anything of substance to report. Obtaining information from or about Laquatus was not a problem. He frequently called to flirt and chatter about Cabal doings. Obtaining useful information from or about Laquatus was another matter. Veza had exhausted her private library and her admittedly sparse network of contacts, and had even paid passing sailors and local hoodlums for any gossip or rumors about the ambassador. So far, the ambassador remained a cipher.

There were those who claimed Laquatus was a staunch supporter of the emperor, but there were an equal number who claimed he was firmly but secretly in Llawan's camp. The most prevalent opinion was that he was simply following the tide, which currently favored Aboshan. It was rumored that he had vast mental powers, and could rewrite your memories as easily as he could sign his own name. Veza heard tales of the awesome creatures he had enslaved with the power of his mind and the darkest of spells, of the pirates he had betrayed and the rivals he'd had purged. None of it was reliable or novel enough to report to Llawan.

To avoid submitting another rehash of conflicting hearsay about Laquatus, Veza had at last resorted to magic. She was not an expert in any one particular discipline, but she did have a solid command of water- to-air breathing incantations and other basic seagoing survival spells. She was extremely adept at research, however, and she soon discovered a spell that could help her. It was a knowledge immersion ritual practiced by some of the more contemplative cephalids in the empire.

It was designed to expand one's capacity to process information. Properly prepared and cast, the spell allowed scholars to read and retain a library full of scrolls in the time it took a hot bath to cool. In a sense, you gathered your data and poured it into a small body of water. Then you climbed in to soak up that data with every pore.

Veza had made all the preparations and readied herself to carry them out. If it worked, she'd have something of value to share with the empress. If not, she had lost nothing but some time.

She choked down a vial of the briny potion and grimaced. She scattered a mixture of herblike seaweed, powdered pearl, and dried fish entrails over the surface of her sleeping tub, then pronounced the words to the immersion spell. She blew on the carved driftwood effigy of Laquatus in her palm, then lowered herself into the churning, bubbling water. As her eyes sank beneath the surface, she experienced the flash and crack of lightning in her mind, and her body went rigid as steel.