Of course he would go to Kiril first. Only the matter of Dmitri would delay his bullheaded plan. Catrin had found me a long red scarf in one of the villages where we stopped to buy food. I wrapped it around my head in the Manganar style to cover my short hair, and I raked it to the side to cover the scar on my cheek.

"Transporting a horse for the Derzhi dennissar," I said at the gate. "He's bought it from Drafa, and I'm to deliver it before the summer racing season."

The guards admired the beast, recognizing that it was indeed too fine for a man who looked as if his face had been used to plow a field.

"Run into trouble along the way, did you?" asked one of them, staring at my fading bruises. "Or is it that the beast is high-strung?"

"Bandits," I said. "I wasn't to ride this fellow. But they got my old nag and my gear. Tied me to a thornbush, but then they drank a few too many toasts to their cleverness. When they pa.s.sed out, I got away. Figured I'd have the best chance to stay ahead of 'em if I took this one and rode hard."

"And now you're going to deliver him to his owner?" The second guard was skeptical.

"I've served Lord Kiril's family long enough to know they value their horses above their wives," I said. "It don't do to cross that kind of master. I'll take my payment and be glad of it."

The guards laughed and sent me on, telling me where to find the junior dennissar's house. It was a modest, walled town house near the center of Parnifour. It had probably stretched the funds of a junior dennissar who, though an offshoot of the royal house, was descended from the female line and whose own father was dead.

The gate was open, and I prevailed upon the old man in the gatehouse to take a message to Lord Kiril that a man had brought him a horse suitable for a wager-race from Zhagad to Drafa. The sharp-eyed old man pointed me around to the back courtyard to await an answer. The tree-shaded courtyard had a stable at one end, a workman's shed beside it, and a small garden area near a well house. The enclosed s.p.a.ce made me nervous. I was ready to bolt when a man burst out of the back door of the house. He was a short, square- faced young Derzhi with a blond braid. A dusting of freckles across his long straight nose made him look much younger than I could remember ever being.

"Zander, you've-" He bit off his quiet greeting when he saw me, then whipped his light-colored eyes about the courtyard. When his gaze rested on me again, he examined me so closely I worried that he might see things I would as soon stay hidden. The young Derzhi bit his lip and started to speak, then Musa tossed his head, and the young man laid a hand to quiet him. With an almost undetectable shake of his head, the young man stepped backward and lifted one hand. Five well-armed soldiers ran out of the stables and the corners of the courtyard.

I spread my arms and held still, resisting the urge to break the arm of the soldier who was holding a spear point to my gut. I thought better of resistance when I noticed that three of the five had pale hair and pale skin and hooded eyes. Khelid.

The young man rubbed the horse's neck and crooned to it for a moment as Aleksander did, and only then did he return his gaze to me. His momentary uncertainty was no longer in evidence. "Where did you come by this horse?"

His voice was a chilly reminiscence of a winter morning in Capharna.

"My lord, I was given this beast this morning by a man on the Avenkhar road.

He said to bring it to you and give you the message, and you would pay me for it. Please, sir, I meant no harm."

"And what was the man like?"

"He was a slave, sir." Let the Khelid be unsettled. Chances were that Aleksander would tell them I was living. And if not, let them wonder.

"A slave ... Did you see the master, the owner of the horse?"

"No, sir. The slave said his master had no more need of the horse. I didn't ask more. Didn't want to know. Mayhap he murdered his master. I need the money, so I didn't ask. I would have brought the slave, too, to sell him or take the reward for a runaway, but I had no weapons, no chains ... no way to manage him. Forgive me, sir, if the master was your friend...."

"Not my friend. A heartless, vicious b.a.s.t.a.r.d I once called kin. "He murdered my only father, and I'll have his head for it. To hear he has no use for a horse soothes me, yet rumor is not enough. If he yet draws breath, I will have him.

No one but me. So I am pleased and angry at once."

"I understand, sir." But I was curious. Why then had he come out looking so eagerly for "Zander"? "May I leave, sir? I know nothing else."

Kiril gave Musa's reins to a groom. "I would see his body before I'm easy, so I think you'll stay here tonight. Tomorrow you'll show me where you met this slave, and we'll look for evidence of the master." He jerked his head to one of the Khelid guards. "Tell Lords Korelyi and Kydon that I will be unable to attend their celebration tomorrow. I'm still in search of my bloodthirsty cousin. This could all be a ruse to put me off my guard. Aleksander is not stupid." The pale-eyed soldier nodded and left, while Kiril spoke to the others.

"Bind our visitor and lock him in the shed. I'll see to him in the morning."

"Please, sir, I have urgent business in the city. My wife is ill. . . ."

Kiril caught the front of my shirt in his fist and spoke through clenched teeth.

"She will survive a brief time without you. Once you've done what I want, you'll be free to go. This is necessary. Do you understand me?"

I believed I did. I hoped I did. Though as they trussed me like a goose and locked the hasp of the dirt-floored shed crammed with crates and ash bins, broken furniture, dented pots, and rolls of mouse-chewed canvas, I fully imagined what Catrin could say about stupid men who couldn't be trusted to think straight about strategy. Like a naive child, I had been so sure that Aleksander would go to Kiril and convince him of his innocence.

Fifteen minutes later, about the time I had worked out a few enchantments, including the one I would need to break the hasp on the shed, the door opened and a man slipped from the waning daylight into the dark shed. When the door was closed again, he uncovered a lantern and showed proper shock to see me quite unbound, leaning against a pile of rotted carpet.

"Shall I tell you why your cousin always sends your letters sealed with red wax?" I said, since he seemed to be at a loss for how to begin.

He yanked the red scarf from my head and stared at the scar, then gestured at my hands. I pulled up my sleeves and showed him the marks of slave rings.

"So you are the one he told me of," he said at last. "I thought it was but another aspect of his madness ... to think a slave would come looking for him."

"I am a free man, my lord. And I must find your cousin. He is in such peril I cannot begin to explain it."

"I wanted to kill him."

"But you didn't."

"No. What satisfaction comes from killing a man who hides in the shadows, unwilling to show his face in his own city? He coujd scarcely speak, and he had blood on his hands and face, though he said he was not injured. If he'd not reminded me of things only the two of us would know, I would not have believed it to be Aleksander. He tried to tell me that he/didn't kill our uncle, while in the same breath speaking of demon plots, and slaves who are sorcerers, and mustering troops to protect the city. Then these Khelid come looking for him, saying the Emperor has declared him mad. They claim they are here to protect me, as my cousin has sworn to kill me as he did my uncle.

Everything I saw confirms their charges. What am I to believe?"

"Believe everything your cousin told you, my lord. He did not kill the Lord Dmitri, only felt the guilt of his own folly. The Khelid did the deed. It is your warning, your misgivings and those of Lord Dmitri about these Khelid, that helped convince him of what was happening. The threat is real. The danger beyond your imagining. And Prince Aleksander will likely not survive it if he's taken by the Khelid. The Khelid are joined with demons, and they plan to make him one of them. If they succeed and your cousin is made Emperor, there will come such a rule of terror over this land that there has been no equal of it in all the past ills of the world."

"I don't believe any of this."

I tried to hold patience. We might need Kiril. "Please, my lord. Do you know where he's gone? We must go to him now. It may already be too late."

"He said he had business with Lord Kastavan. I told him that Kastavan wasn't in the city, but that he'd be here by tonight. They're building a temple on the Watch Mount. Kydon and Korelyi and their priests are going to dedicate the foundation stone tonight at moonrise, and Kastavan is to attend."

"I must go, then," I said, trying to rein in my excitement. The moon was rising early, just after sunset, but that meant there was still an hour. "And you must do as he asked you. I don't know how much he told you, but the Khelid may try to take the city by force. If it happens, it will likely be six days from this.

There will be no warning, so you must be ready for it."

"And if they don't?"

"Then, I would take anyone I cared for, run as deep into the mountains as I could, and never come out again."

"b.l.o.o.d.y Amos."

"Now can you tell me how to find this temple?"

Aleksander's cousin was an una.s.suming young man, his manner as unlike the Prince as was possible, considering they had been raised in the same house by many of the same people. He was not comfortable taking advice from a "barbarian slave," and I watched him wrestle with the demands of breeding and duty, faithfulness and doubt. But he either had to accept that Aleksander was mad or do as his prince had bid him. Because he loved Aleksander, he grasped at the explanation that held him innocent, and from his first moment of acceptance, he never questioned my authority.

"I'll take you there," Kiril said firmly. "As you've seen, there are a great many eyes watching my house. In case any- one asks. I'm taking you to visit your sick wife, but I have no intention of letting you go until tomorrow."

I nodded, allowed him to bind my hands loosely with rope, then he steered me firmly out of the shed, across the courtyard, and into the street. We'd gone no more than fifty paces down the lane when I leaned my head close. "There's a man following us who's got teeth like a badger. Is he one of yours?"

"No."

The light was failing. A few of the public houses already had torches lit outside them, and laughter and music of skirling pipes and sc.r.a.ping strings came from inside. Fifty plans raced through my mind, but when I saw a hunchbacked woman stumble out of an alley just ahead of us, I nodded toward the dark lane and said, "Shall we take him aside and see what he wants?"

"Are you planning to work some sorcery?"

"No need."

But no sooner did we dodge into the alley and turn to grab the badger-faced man than he was joined by the hunchbacked woman, who confronted us, poised to throw a very long knife. "Give him over," she said to Kiril, "or this knife will find a home right in your throat. I'm quite accurate." Somehow the voice didn't fit with the slack, lumpish face.

Kiril pushed me behind him. "I am the Emperor's den-nissar. Who are you and what do you want with my prisoner?"

The badger-faced man used a short sword to motion Kiril to his knees and made as if to cut his throat. In the time it takes for a hummingbird to flit beyond reach, I slipped my hands from the rope, shoved the young Derzhi to the ground, and twisted the sword from our a.s.sailant's grasp. Then I lunged, kicked at the woman's hand, and raised my hand, on course to break the man's neck and the woman's arm, when they yelled together, "Seyonne!

Wait!" I aborted the move at the last instant, stumbling into the wall and shaking my head as I watched the two faces slide into more familiar lines.

Catrin and Hoffyd.

Kiril gaped, and I sagged against the wall. "You should give me a little more warning," I said.

"We saw him bring you out with your hands bound," said Catrin. "We thought..."

Well, it was clear what they thought. I explained quickly, and introduced them to Kiril, who merely looked from one of us to the other repeatedly, squinting and widening his eyes. Catrin's illusion had been amazingly good. A transformation of appearance was extraordinarily difficult to sustain for more than five minutes. And for two of them ... It was no wonder she looked tired when we took off again.

The temple site was on a rocky height in the center of the city. Watchtowers, built by the same ancient stoneworkers who had crafted the foundation of the city, had stood on the heights for as long as anyone could remember. These builders had left their work scattered, not just in Parnifour, but throughout all the lands that had become the Empire. There were those among my people who claimed we were somehow related to these ancients, for their ruins were strong with melydda. Our ancestors had certainly modeled our own temples on their works.

The Khelid had taken possession of the land and torn down the old towers, so Kiril said, and it was there they planned to build the temple, to introduce their G.o.ds to the people of the Derzhi Empire. A single narrow track zigzagged to the top of the rocks.

It was impossible to go up by way of the road. Khelid guards were posted, preventing anyone from pa.s.sing without being identified. As Kiril had written Aleksander, there were hundreds of Khelid in Parnifour. I was almost sick with the aura of demon. "We've got to find another way up," I said as we mingled with the townspeople who stood on the fringes of the Khelid crowd watching the goings-on.

"Come this way," said Kiril, leading us through crowded lanes around to a deserted saddle-maker's shop on the far side of the bluffs. "There's another path up, but it's wickedly steep. I've been trying to keep an eye on the Khelid for a while, and Jynnar, the man who owns this shop, showed me this way."

"I'll wait down here," said Hoffyd when we reached the deserted shop. "I don't do well with heights in the dark since I lost the eye."

"I'll wait here, too," said the Derzhi. "It would be well to guard your rear.

There's no other way down save through the middle of the Khelid, and if you were to bring Aleksander ..."

"I've got to go," I said, chafing at the delay. The sun was sagging toward the horizon, and the hints of demon music that hung in the still, warm air had my nerves quivering.

"I'll go with Seyonne," said Catrin. "Someone has to keep him from going off and doing something stupid."

"Watch yourself," said Kiril. "The path is tricky."

So Catrin and I started up the crumbling goat track. Pebbles and rocks rolled out from under our boots and crashed down the hillside. In some places the track was only wide enough for one foot, and in others it was missing altogether and we had to stretch over a sheer drop to reach another foothold.

We grasped at twigs and stunted trees that grew out of the rocks, and more than once I ended up flattened against the rock with a mouthful of dirt, clinging for my life with fingertips and boots. It was too slow. I wanted to scream at the delay. What was Aleksander doing?

It took us over an hour to get up the path. The moon was up by the time we crawled over the edge onto a k.n.o.b of rock overlooking the flat top of the bluff.

We lay flat and scooted to the edge to peer down. There must have been five hundred Khelid on the rocky promontory, standing in a ring about a flat gray stone set into the ground. I could scarcely breathe from the weight of demon enchantment in the still air. Every heartbeat was a struggle; every moment pa.s.sed slowly and with effort, as if you were running in chest-high water.

Catrin pressed her hands to her ears, but I knew how futile was the attempt to block out the grinding noise. The horror pulsed in the veins until it seemed as if the only way to be rid of it was to cut the vein and let it bleed away.

We were too late. Aleksander stood in the center of the ring, the livid crescent moon hanging low in the east behind him. A man knelt before him, laughing uproariously-a strange gurgling laugh mixed with strident breathing. But it was not to do the Prince honor that the man knelt. Rather it was only a transient pose before he toppled onto the gray stone, his face purple and distorted, and a knife hilt protruding from his chest. Kastavan. Aleksander had guessed the surest way to get the result he wanted.

If there had been a word I could say that might change what was to come, I would have said it. If it would have made any difference, I would have leaped from my rock for Aleksander as I had leaped from the precipice for Galadon, wings or no. But the Khelid host was dead, and therefore his demon was savoring his last unholy terrors, licking his lips and belching in a surfeit of hatred and l.u.s.t, as it began the search for a new home. It would not have to look far. For there stood before him a vessel: waiting, prepared, nurtured by the demon enchantment.

Hear me, Aleksander, I said, willing my thoughts to penetrate the grotesque din. Hold onto yourself. You are not alone. You will not be abandoned when you fall into the abyss. I'll come for you. Never doubt it. Never.

I would have sworn the Prince looked up at me and smiled in that moment, just before he went rigid and fell to his knees, his fists pressed to his temples.

Then there came from him such a cry as would shrivel the stoutest heart. It was the essence of pain and uttermost desolation, distilled from the fullness of the world's nightmares. Every childhood fright, every midnight disturbance, every mother's pain as she watches her child in torment, every father's despair as he buries his last son, a young wife barren, a young husband impotent, a scholar blind, a musician deaf, a gardener condemned to everlasting desert. . . such was the agony that welled from Aleksander's bright center as he was drowned in darkness.

Hold, my prince. I will come for you.

This time when he gazed to the top of the rocks where I lay, two beams of frigid blue gleamed from the eyes that should be bright amber. What voice is this? Come... and we will see who has him in the end.

My skin grew clammy and my throat constricted. My heart tried to claw its way from my body to escape the hissing voice that crept into my thoughts, hungering to know who I was. Every mark of hatred on my body screamed with fire. And as the demon music soared in h.e.l.lish symphony, Aleksander yanked his knife from the dead Khelid and began to cut out his victim's heart.

"Come away." Catrin's voice stung like ice on burned flesh. "You can do him no good here. It is the battle will set him free or not, and it is time to prepare."

Chapter 33.

When we rejoined Kiril and Hoffyd at the saddle maker's shop, three men lay on the dirt floor, immobilized by Kiril's sword and Hoffyd's magic. They were townsmen, known informants who were in the habit of watching Kiril's house. They had seen the incident in the alley and were following us, hoping to profit from such a strange occurrence. Kiril shipped them out of Parnifour that night in a wagon he designated as tax revenues bound for Zhagad. By the time they woke up, the three spies would be abandoned in the heart of the Azhaki gra.s.slands fifty leagues from anywhere.

It would be too dangerous for us to stay with Kiril, so we took shelter with one of his friends in a stable just outside the city walls to the north. It was a large, well-kept place, centered in rocky pastureland that rose gently toward the mountains. But all the stable lads had been taken away to work on the Khelid temple or the old Derzhi fortress, where Kydon the legate had taken residence, so most of the horses had been sent back to their owners. The stable owner came out for a few hours each day to care for the remaining horses. He would bring us food and supplies and ask no questions.

I watched as the spies were taken away, listened as the arrangements were made, walked out of the gates, down the rutted road, and up the wooden stairs to the dormitory above the deserted stables, carrying whatever was put in my hand. I made my bed where I was told and lay on it unsleeping. But all I could hear in those hours was Aleksander's cry, and all I could see was his face in the instant the demon took him, the moment he realized what he had done and what was to come.

However terrible my dreams were going to be when I slept again, they would be no match for his.

"I'm sorry we were late," said Catrin, handing me a cup of hot wine and sitting on the straw pallet beside me, picking at the dirty canvas ticking.

"I was supposed to protect him. He thought this was what I wanted."

"Grandfather was right, wasn't he? This is not just about your oath anymore, not about saving the world from demon chaos. This is about Aleksander."

"I would give my life for him-a stubborn, arrogant, murderous Derzhi. I think I've lost my mind."

"You sound just as he did, cursing you for an insolent barbarian ... just before he went dashing off to Avenkhar to find you. It took me a while to understand how you could care so much for one so absolutely opposite yourself in background, feelings, and beliefs. I thought him handsome and charming, but little more. Only in those last days did I begin to see it."

"There's so little time."