Llawan clicked at him. He clicked back, though his voice was low and ragged. Llawan clicked, offered him her tentacle, and he kissed it.

"Aboshan is dead," she said. A nervous cheer went up, then faded into uncertainty. Llawan smiled. "And the Mirari is gone from Mer.

We are not yet certain who has it, but we are certain of two things. Aboshan does not have it, and neither does Laquatus."

A heartier cheer went up among the members of Llawan's party. When the empress held up a halfhearted tentacle for silence, the cheer redoubled.

"The emperor is dead," someone shouted, "long live the empress!"

Veza watched the other guests take up the chant.

"Long live the empress! Long live the empress!"

Veza herself was relieved, but she didn't feel like cheering. She wondered if Llawan meant the things she'd said back in Breaker Bay about removing all the oafs and knaves. Some of each were currently onboard.

As she looked at the room full of ambitious nobles and greedy oligarchs, Veza hoped she'd have a chance to find out. She quietly edged out of the room, away from the celebration and back toward her room.

Chainer stood in the courtyard of Skellum's academy, carefully twirling a censer around his head with his new arm.

"Say that again," he said.

"You asked me for an update about the Mirari. I told you. It destroyed Pianna, destroyed Aboshan, and flooded half the continent."

Chainer whistled. "Which half?"

"Okay, a third," Skellum admitted. "Everything between the upper border of the Krosan and the southern edge of Cape Paradise is now underwater."

"And the Mirari?" he said, as casually as he could.

"At this precise moment in time-" Skellum made a show of looking at the sun's position in the sky- "Caster Fulla is bringing it back here to Cabal City."

Chainer kept spinning the censer, trying to get used to the pseudo-sensations his prosthetic arm was reporting to his brain. He had heard of Fulla. She was merely a caster, as Skellum would say, but one of the best. Chainer had never seen her compete, but he had spoken to a few who had fought against her. They were all glad to have survived the experience. Fulla brought out some frightful beasts, they said, but Fulla herself was scarier still.

"So the First was right," Chainer said. "All who seek the Mirari are destroyed by it." He slowed the censer and brought it to rest by his feet. It continued to pump smoke into the air around Chainer. "Except me."

"And don't think he's pleased by it," Skellum said. "The First liked dealing with Pianna. She was a rarity among Order officers. She kept her word, even when she gave it to hedonistic infidel criminals like ourselves."

"Is the Order broken?" Chainer could not keep the hopeful joy out of his voice. He nodded to Skellum, and his mentor tossed a copper coin into the air. Chainer snapped the artificial arm forward and created a lashing chain that struck the coin cleanly and bent it in double.

"Not really," Skellum said. "Bretath is still the highest-ranking officer on Otaria. Pianna's absence creates a power vacuum in this region, however, and there are a number of lesser officers looking to fill her shoes."

"Do we at least get to bury the bird-man who stole Kamahl's victory?" Chainer practiced sending short lengths of chain out of his metal palm and drawing them back in again.

"Kirtar? Yes. Dead, dead, dead. In fact, if he were still alive, which he isn't, he would have been named Pianna's replacement by acclamation."

The air around Chainer was still thick with smoke. He concentrated, shuddered, and positioned his hands for a casting. A two-headed wolf sprang out from between his hands, its tail a spitting cobra that hissed back at Skellum. Chainer nodded, waved, and the wolf evaporated in mid-growl.

"The arm seems to be working fine now." Chainer flexed it and examined his own wiggling fingers. "I've got to get used to the new feel of things, but I can do all the things I did before."

"Let's hope you can't point projectile weapons at your own body anymore," his mentor said. "That's a skill you can do without." Skellum came forward and held out his hands. "Let me see."

Chainer presented the arm, and Skellum looked it over, poking his fingernail into what would be muscles and pressure points on a flesh and blood arm. Except for the fact that it was made of metal and the fingers came to needle-sharp points, Chainer's arm was extremely lifelike. Between the steel gray of the arm itself and the polished black chrome of the brace he wore to keep it in place, it looked like he was wearing a basic warrior's gauntlet instead of a replacement limb.

Affixing the arm had been torture. The arm, which the healer kept calling a "golem limb," had to be magically infused with part of Chainer's life force before it could be grafted on. The golem arm had then been fused to the remaining bones and flesh of his stump, and despite the pain, Chainer was obliged to sit perfectly still for three hours while the graft took root.

"You can scream if you want to," the healer had said, but Chainer denied him that particular pleasure. Cabal healers were well known for their ability to get maimed or dying people back on their feet and into the pits. They were not known for their comforting bedside manner.

Skellum released Chainer's arm and Chainer looked it over again himself. Cabal healers were also not known for their aesthetic sensibilities. Chainer had seen some hideous patch jobs in the pits. People with lobster claws instead of hands, legs fused or amputated to make room for stingers or spinnerets, heads that in no way matched the bodies they were attached to. Chainer counted himself lucky to get his new limb. It'd be just like Skellum to stick him with some dead bastard's reanimated arm. Zombie replacement limbs were far cheaper, easier to graft, and quicker to master than the metal one he was sporting. They tended to rot and stink, however, and had to be replaced at least twice a year.

Chainer grunted suspiciously. His mentor was not above childishly taunting him to put him back in his place. But Chainer had missed a lot while he was convalescing, and Skellum had so far been stingy with details. Chainer had felt something shift each time the Mirari changed hands, but his senses weren't refined enough to tell him as much as the Cabal's informants could.

"It looks good, Chainer. And try not to lose this one. Real arms are expensive enough, but the cost of replacing this one would be ruinous." He shook his head sadly. "You just don't have the silver."

Chainer saw him sneak another look at the sun, then suddenly say, "All right. Ask me what the surprise is."

Chainer had spent enough time with Skellum to become used to his mentor's rapid changes in subject. Politely, he said, "Master Skellum, what is the surprise?"

Skellum waited, listening. Then the warning bell from the guard tower that overlooked Cabal City's port started ringing, audible even at Skellum's academy six blocks away.

"The surprise is… Fulla and the Mirari are arriving now, right on schedule. And your barbarian friend has been in the city for the past two days, waiting for them to return." He produced a small black towel from under his cape and offered it to Chainer. "Why don't you wipe off some of that sweat you've worked up, so you can go greet them?"

Chainer snagged the towel on the end of his pointed fingers. Careful not to dig the sharp tips into his face, he wiped his brow and cheeks with the towel and dropped it lightly onto the floor. "Thank you, Master. Are you coming to the docks?" "No, I'm going to see the First. Once he receives Fulla and the

Mirari, he wants to see me and the Master of the Games. Once he's done with us, he wants to see you."