"An ardent and reasonably intelligent young officer," Skirvon replied. "I'm not prepared to evaluate his military capability, beyond what I've already said?I'll defer to your judgment, in that area?but he's obviously observant, and he's done surprisingly well not just in extracting information from these people, but in developing insights into them, as well. Into how they organize themselves, how they think."

"But??" mul Gurthak prompted when the diplomat paused.

"As you say, 'but'." Skirvon sat back in his chair and rested his elbows on the armrests. "He'll probably make a good Andaran duke, one day, but he really doesn't understand diplomacy."

The two men smiled thinly at one another. Skirvon might be of Andaran descent, but his family had been Hilmaran for centuries, and there was still that lingering tradition of hostility between Hilmarans and the northern kingdoms which had once conquered and ruled so much of their continent. The diplomat didn't much care for any Andarans, and particularly not for the Duke of Garth Showma, the most powerful of them all. Most people didn't realize that, largely because Skirvon was of Andaran descent himself, on his mother's side. But mul Gurthak and his … associates had been aware of the man's true leanings for quite some time.

Then Skirvon's expression sobered.

"Quite aside from any other considerations," he said, "young Olderhan doesn't seem to realize that there's only a vanishingly small chance of averting war with these Sharonians. I suppose he has a powerful motivation to find one before still more people get killed, but there honestly wasn't much hope of that even before his own discovery about the things they can do with their minds. Given what we know about them now, about what they are, I'd say the chances of avoiding war are virtually nonexistent. As a Mythalan, you'll appreciate better than many how this news will play at home."

"An entire universe filled with people?non-Gifted people?who read minds and turn thoughts into weapons?" mul Gurthak snorted. "The shakira lords will froth."

"Precisely." Their eyes met, and then Skirvon shrugged. "It's clear Olderhan believes his prisoners are honest and decent people. And they may very well be. On a person-to-person basis, justice and fair play and equality with others are concepts most of us value, after all, particularly as applied to ourselves."

His smile was so tart it could have soured milk, and mul Gurthak snorted a chuckle. "Fair play" and "equality with others" were nasty habits indulged in by dangerously unstable and degenerate societies. Societies whose chaotic habits were a serious threat to the properly regulated, orderly political and religious structure that kept the world in its proper alignment. Not to mention keeping the shakira lords precisely where they belonged: in charge, at the top of a very steep and very narrow ladder of power.

It was so very fortunate that Rithmar Skirvon had been the closest senior diplomat available when this entire catastrophe began to unravel. Of course, there'd been a reason mul Gurthak had requested Skirvon for the arbitration assignment with which he'd been dealing when Klian's first reports arrived. Men who understood the realities of diplomacy?and also where their own best interests lay?were always useful.

"How … pragmatic do you think your young friend Dastiri is going to be about this?" the two thousand asked after a moment.

"Well, he is Ransaran," Skirvon observed with a slight grimace. "On the other hand, he prides himself on being a realist. And he's from Manisthu."

"Ah." mul Gurthak nodded.

The Kingdom of Manisthu dominated the Manisthu Islands off the eastern coast of Ransar. They'd retreated into a self-imposed isolation for several centuries at one point in their history, and even today, they remained somewhat out of step with the rest of Ransar. They were just as irritatingly insistent on individual rights?especially their own individual rights?but they also labored under a sense of being looked down upon by their mainland neighbors. Of being considered rubes, without quite the same degree of sophistication and philosophical superiority to all those other, more backward, irritating, non-Ransaran people the gods had unfortunately and thoughtlessly scattered around the globe. Perhaps as a result, Manisthuans had a pre-Union historical tradition of practicing garsulthan, a Manisthuan word which translated roughly as "real politics." On more than one occasion, they'd proven as pragmatic?and at least as ruthless?in international affairs as any Andaran warlord or Mythalan caste-lord.

mul Gurthak and Skirvon gazed at one another for several moments, while the two thousand considered the implications of what the diplomat had just said. Then Skirvon cocked his head to one side.

"How do you really want us to play this?" he asked, getting down to serious business at last.

"That's the difficult question, isn't it?" mul Gurthak frowned thoughtfully, toying with an antique dagger he used as a paperweight. Not many people would have recognized it as a Mythalan rankadi knife. More modern rankadi knives were far simpler and more utilitarian. "There's no way the shakira lords are going to support some sort of 'peaceful coexistence' with these people, whatever those lunatic Ransarans want. I'm not sure where the Andarans are going to come down, though. If it weren't for the fact that Garth Showma's son is right in the middle of this, I'd expect them to be closer to agreement with us, for a change. As it is, I think it's going to depend on how the story plays out in public opinion back home.

"For the moment, we really do need to keep a lid on this situation, at least until we can completely redeploy our own forces. And we also need someone who's a bit older and wiser?maybe even a bit more cynical?" he smiled quickly at Skirvon, "to make a firsthand analysis of the other side. Someone not quite so blinded by the … intricacies of the Andaran honor code."

"I've always been considered a pretty fair analyst," Skirvon observed.

"Yes, I've heard that about you." mul Gurthak smiled again, but his eyes were very serious as he continued. "Still, don't forget that you're dealing with a complete unknown here. These prisoners of Hundred Olderhan can insist all they want to that their people don't know anything at all about magic. I'm not going to take that as a given without some additional, independent confirmation."

"And if it turns out that they really don't know anything about magic?" Skirvon asked delicately.

"Why, in that eventuality," the two thousand half-drew the dagger, turning it to let the light gleam wickedly on its razor-sharp edge, "our menu of choices would change quite radically, wouldn't it?"

mul Gurthak leaned back in his chair again, once more alone in his office, and grimaced at the ceiling.

Rithmar Skirvon was almost as smart as he thought he was, the two thousand reflected. But only almost. He'd been perfectly happy to enter into certain subsidiary business arrangements with various Mythalan financiers and banks, and he'd always held up his end of any arrangements. But by and large, he seemed to think money and personal power were all that were at stake. He knew he was involved with shakira, but he thought they were acting as individuals, in their own self-interest. He didn't have a clue about the bigger picture … which was fortunate for him. Men who knew too much about the Council of Twelve and its plans inevitably had accidents.

Which didn't do a thing to simplify mul Gurthak's present nasty situation.

The two thousand sighed. As he'd said to Skirvon, he couldn't begin to forecast how the Andarans were going to react to this. The Ransarans?aside from Dastiri's Manisthuans, perhaps?were far easier to predict. They'd want to understand these Sharonians, because Ransarans, for reasons only they could fully comprehend, wanted to understand everything and everyone. It was the second most maddening thing about them, after their obnoxious conviction that everyone else should agree with their mad notions about the total equality of everybody everywhere with everyone.