I nodded. “She wished Gar to know before Kaeska is accused to Shek Kul.”

Relief was plain on Sezarre’s face. “Gar would not be involved in any such scheme, you must know this for certain.” he insisted. “Not magic, of all things, and never to harm the child.”

“Of course,” I assured him. “Laio never imagined that she would.”

“Magic,” he repeated with an expression of revulsion. “That Kaeska would stoop so low…” Words failed him and he shook his head again.

“They know that I can expose them,” I gestured at my bruises. “They will kill me if they can.”

“Not while I am with you,” replied Sezarre grimly. The thought of his sword arm at my side was certainly a reassuring one. “Can you walk?”

I nodded, stood and followed Sezarre as he walked rapidly to the main gate and summoned the commander of the guard, a thick-set, dark-skinned Aldabreshi I was used to seeing deep in discussion with Shek Kul. I couldn’t follow much of their conversation but the gist was plain enough when the guard on the gate was doubled and liveried retainers with drawn swords went out, four by four, to quarter the grounds of the compound.

“Will they detain Kaeska if they find her?” I asked Sezarre as he strode toward the main residence, face stern, hand on his sword hilt.

“She will be required to explain herself to Shek Kul,” he answered in tones of unmistakable threat.

We went to Kaeska’s reception rooms, where the torn silk curtain flapped forlornly in the breeze and the wreckage of the room gave its own mute testimony.

“Why would she do this?” Sezarre shook his head. “Who is this man that he has such a hold over her.”

“He’s an enchanter who can get inside minds and twist them to his will.” In all justice, I felt I had to keep reminding these people how Kaeska was being manipulated by that bastard Ice Islander.

We left the room through the doors to the garden and watched as the guard commander met a couple of troopers, their shaking heads making it clear there was no sign of the quarry.

“And Kaeska has been killing the fish as well,” I remembered abruptly. “Why would she do that?”

Sezarre reacted with a surprising display of horror at this news. “She wishes to make bad omens for the child,” he spat with disgust. “Show me!”

I led the way swiftly to the poisoned fountain and Sezarre stared at the handfuls of dead fish that now littered the water.

“We will deal with this,” he said with a determined nod.

Seconding a startled gardener with a few brisk words, Sezarre set about getting the fountain emptied and scalded clean while he and I checked the other fish, birds and animals. I couldn’t have told if the lizards were ailing as they sat glassy-eyed and impassive on their rocks and tree branches, but Sezarre was confident they were unharmed, explaining that they had some significance for the Warlord that I have to confess escaped me. Dead song-birds were easier to spot and Sezarre went straight to the steward who soon had a lad picking the sad little corpses from the floor of the aviaries belonging to Laio and Mahli. From the seriousness of the expressions all around me, I gathered this went beyond mere malice toward the other women’s pets on Kaeska’s part, but no one seemed to want to discuss it further.

The steward went to speak to the gate guards and I followed Sezarre to a wrinkled old man who wailed aloud at the tale, his voluble lamentations only shocked to silence when Sezarre told him about Kaeska bringing an enchanter to the island. As more people became involved in frustrating Kaeska’s mean and paltry plot with the animals, the word of her conspiring with a sorcerer spread and with some apprehension I wondered how Laio would react to this. She wasn’t going to be best pleased to learn that the best rune in her hand had already been played without her consent.

On the other side of the scales, I soon realized I had inadvertently earned a good measure of approval among the general household, receiving nods and smiles and incomprehensible remarks that nevertheless carried unmistakable overtones of gratitude and approbation. I even managed to go outside the gates, carrying a basket of dead birds and fish that we spread on a stretch of crab-infested beach. I was discreetly looking around to see if any possibilities that might lead to an escape plan were apparent, when shouts of excitement erupted all around me, everyone looking at the sea with expressions of delight while at the same time backing hurriedly away to the tree line. Caught unawares by this, I found myself alone on the sand, staring at the monstrous form undulating slowly down the narrow strait.

It was a sea serpent. All my mother’s childhood assurances that there were no such things, that they were only tales like the Eldritch kin, went for nothing as I watched the massive, leathery black coils rise and fall, a long glaucous fin running the length of the beast, scattering a shining shower of droplets as it broke the surface of the sea. It was not scaly, like a snake or even a fish; its skin was dull and rough textured, oily-looking as water streamed off it in twisted rivulets. An immense head rose above the turbid waters for an instant, long and blunt-nosed, as thick as the huge body with no suggestion of a neck; a vast mouth filled with yellow needle-like teeth gaped for an instant, tiny black eyes almost invisible against the darkness of its skin. Questing, head raised for a moment as the Islanders fell silent in frozen awe, the great beast abruptly disappeared beneath the roiling waters, the last flick of its tail slapping across the strait.

The excitement all around me was as nothing I had ever experienced, cheers and shouting ringing in my ears, the commotion spreading as the crowd carried me back toward the residence, word spreading in all directions. Still half disbelieving what I had just seen, all I could think was that if I got off this island it wasn’t going to be by swimming.

“What is all this about?” I demanded of Sezarre when I was able to fight my way through the throng to his side.

“To see Rek-a-nul—that is an omen of the strongest kind, a great mark of the day,” he assured me, smiling broadly. “You will have great good luck.”

I’d believe that if I survived all this without my own involvement with magic being revealed or finding an Elietimm knife in my back.

For the rest of that day Sezarre stayed so close to me you’d have thought I was carrying his purse. There was no sign of Kaeska or the Elietimm, to my profound relief. As we made repeated circuits of the gardens, fountains and aviaries, there were no more deaths among the hurriedly replaced birds and fish, brought from Talagrin knows where by a succession of shocked-looking islanders. Mahli continued to labor in childbed; we heard intermittent cries from the top floor of the residence when our paths took us periodically under the high walls and in an exchange of glances that needed no translation shared our rather guilty relief that neither of us would ever be called upon to bear a child. Finally, as the sun was hovering orange and massive on the horizon, a thin, high wail pierced the expectant silence that had descended over the entire compound. The place erupted with cheers and shouting as more people than I had imagined lived there emerged from every doorway.

I followed Sezarre as he forced a way through the throng toward the residence. A question was shouted at him from all sides and he laughed as he nodded his acquiescence. I saw pottery shards being exchanged in all directions and suddenly understood. The Aldabreshi may not drink anything stronger than their piss-poor wine or take smoke or leaf, but they are the keenest gamblers I’ve ever come across. One evening, not so long before, I’d caught Laio and Mahli betting a fortune in gems on the tiny yellow lizards that were climbing the walls of the dining room.