Amaltar’s assembled advisors ceased bickering as Tol and Egrin entered, but their expressions could hardly be termed welcoming. The crowd parted, revealing Amaltar seated at the head of the long table.

The soon-to-be emperor looked even less well than he had when Tol had seen him just days before. His skin was ashen, a sickly color only made more obvious by the deep scarlet of his robes. His dark eyes, once so intelligent and penetrating, stared out from deeply hollow sockets. High cheekbones, once the envy of many a noble lady, now stood out in such sharp relief his face resembled a skull.

Tol knelt, as he’d been told to do when last presented to Amaltar. Egrin’s astonishment at the action was plain. Warlords of the empire knelt to no one! But he too slowly went down on one knee.

“Your Imperial Highness,” Tol said. “Thank you for receiving us.”

“Lord Tolandruth, welcome. Egrin Raemel’s son, welcome. Come before me.” Though his chest rattled slightly with phlegm, Amaltar’s voice was still strong.

Tol rose. Egrin trailed him through the line of glaring councilors: Chamberlain Valdid; Oropash, head of the White Robes; Red Robe leader Helbin; Lord Rymont, commander of the imperial hordes in Lord Regobart’s absence; lesser lords of the hordes based in the capital; and Prince Nazramin.

Amaltar’s younger brother sat at the end of the lengthy table. Turned partly away, Nazramin’s posture was more proof of Amaltar’s weakness. Such casual contempt would never have been dreamt of in the presence of Pakin III. The Prince Amaltar Tol remembered wouldn’t have allowed it either.

Nazramin was dressed in impeccable white, but his attire was so stylishly cut and so lavishly sprinkled with pearls and sparkling diamonds it could hardly be called mourning dress. He ignored Tol’s progress through the room, blithely studying his nails.

Mandes was there as well, hovering behind the emperor’s chair. Though Amaltar’s personal physician and seer, Mandes did not have the status to sit at the council table. Hands clasped across his belly, the sorcerer kept to the background, one of many aides, assistants, and servants of the great men gathered around the Emperor of Ergoth and his high councilors. Unlike Prince Nazramin, however, Mandes met Tol’s gaze. The sight of his bland countenance filled Tol with unexpected fury; he clenched his jaw to keep the emotion from showing on his face.

Tol and Egrin halted by Amaltar’s right hand. They saluted, warrior-fashion.

“Marshal,” Amaltar said, smiling at Egrin, “it has been a long time. You look well.”

“As well as a warrior half my age, Your Majesty,” Egrin joked. “How fare’s Your Majesty’s health?”

Several courtiers gasped at the impudent question, but Amaltar said, “While I was regent, I ruled with the vigor of three men. Now they’re about to put the crown on my head, I have the strength of less than one. Why is that, I wonder?”

“It’s grief,” Nazramin called out from the other end of the council table. “Grief for our noble father, isn’t it, Your Majesty?”

This was obviously a jibe. Amaltar and his father had not been close. In fact, Pakin had cared little for any of his sons, preferring the gentler company of his wives and daughters.

Ignoring his disrespectful brother, Amaltar asked, “What weighty matter brings you here this day, Tolandruth? Surely you did not enter a closed council session to present Marshal Egrin, close though he is to our heart.”

“No, Majesty.” Tol looked to Egrin briefly. The older man urged him on with a slight nod. “There was a spree of riots in the city this morning.”

“There have been many riots,” Lord Rymont said haughtily. Tol’s age but blond where he was dark, Rymont had never fought in a major battle. “Malcontents from all over the empire have come to Daltigoth to air their petty grievances. They will be found out and punished.”

“One already has.”

Rymont thrust out his broad, clean-shaven chin. “Indeed? Who?”

“The leader of the gang that wears blue kerchiefs over their faces,” Tol replied.

“Skylanders,” said Helbin, leader of the Red Robe wizards.

“Provincial scum!” exclaimed Rymont’s aide.

“They’re not scum,” Oropash countered, mopping his round, sweaty face with a handkerchief. “The gentry have many legitimate grievances-”

The city-based warlords shouted him down. They rallied around Lord Rymont, denouncing the Skylanders and their sympathizers as traitors to the empire.

Before things grew too heated, Tol said, “This band of malcontents, as Lord Rymont calls them, attacked the market square near the Quarry district this morning. It so happened I was there with my Dom-shu companions. The chief of the Blue Masks sought me out.” He folded his arms. “He now lies dead in the cellar of my house.”

Tol watched those in the room carefully for any reaction. Mandes’s benign expression twitched as he turned away. Oropash seemed relieved, but Helbin looked alarmed. Nazramin picked up an apple from a tray on the table and bit into it loudly.

“We’ll find out who he was,” Rymont declared. “His confederates will be rounded up!”

“No need. We know who he was,” Egrin put in, “and he is familiar to everyone in this room.”

A heavy silence fell, broken only by the sound of Nazramin devouring his apple.

“Well, speak his name, Marshal, and be done with it!” Rymont prompted peevishly.

Egrin allowed another instant of silence to pass then complied. “His name was Pelladrom Tumult.”

All of them, including Prince Nazramin, were thunderstruck for the space of two heartbeats, then the council chamber exploded into noise. Rymont’s aides all but called Tol a liar and a murderer. They recalled the clash of wills between him and Pelladrom the day Tol had returned to Daltigoth. He had manufactured this story, they said, merely to get back at the proud young noble. Besides, no well-born Rider of the Great Horde would put on a mask and brawl in the streets, especially not on behalf of a band of ragtag bumpkins like the Skylanders.

Angry at their insinuations, Tol looked to the emperor for support. However, Amaltar was clutching his chest with one hand. His face had gone utterly white, and his lips were blue. He gasped for breath.

“Your Majesty!” Tol cried, effectively silencing the uproar.

Chamberlain Valdid hurried to his master. He summoned Mandes with a quick flick of his hand. The sorcerer came forward and laid white-gloved fingers on the great vein in Amaltar’s neck, checking his pulse. Snapping commands to two lackeys, Mandes had a potion compounded on the spot. He was about to administer it to Amaltar when Tol stayed his hand.

“My lord, the emperor needs his medicine,” Mandes protested.

“You drink it first,” Tol said.

Several courtiers gasped. The wizard tried to laugh off the demand, but Tol’s unflinching gaze and hard grip on his right wrist doomed that ploy. Shrugging, Mandes took the vial in his left hand, raised it to his lips, and sipped.

Tol stared. Two hands. Mandes now had two working hands. He’d somehow replaced his lost left arm. Was his healing magic that powerful? He watched Mandes intently for any adverse reaction to the brew he’d been forced to drink.

When nothing happened, Tol released him. Mandes held the remainder of the potion to Amaltar’s lips. Moments after he swallowed it, color flooded back into the emperor’s face. His chest heaved, and he drew a stronger breath.

“His Majesty suffers from asthma. The condition was brought on by too much work and too little rest,” Mandes explained, tucking his gloved hands into his sleeves. Though others whispered, he seemed in no wise upset by Tol’s rude treatment.

“When did you become his physician?” asked Tol coldly.

“I have tended His Majesty in many roles for the past eight years.” Mandes smiled, adding sweetly, “You haven’t been at court, my lord, so of course you wouldn’t know that.”