His demeanor was haughty and cold, even when we pa.s.sed through the towering gates that marked the outer ring of the city, and the people began to gather to see their disgraced prince come home. His name rippled through the city like the night wind, stirring the people from the lamplit courtyards, where they sat sipping tiny cups of steaming nazrheel. His name fluttered through the graceful houses and from stone benches around the flower- bordered public wells, where people sat gossiping with friends in the cooling evening.

Though I wore the desert robes, and it was unlikely anyone could see the mark on my face, I could not help but be uneasy as the crowd gathered. I felt their eyes on my back, probing, curious, and found myself searching the sea of faces for eyes that knew more of seeing than ordinary senses. So many Derzhi. A few of the ever-present Manga-nar, who seemed to enjoy the hard work of empire that other warrior races disdained. Suzaini merchants.

Slender Kuvai who gathered around the foundries and art studios of the great cities. Few Thrid, for the dark-skinned mercenaries were not comfortable in commercial centers and tended to stay in their own lands.

Foreboding hung over us like arrows aimed at our backs. I shifted my senses, looking for vengeful Khelid, but it was not a Khelid that brought me up short.

What in the name... ? For one brief moment, I caught sight of a pair of dark slanted eyes, something like those of a fish, set on the surface of a broad face.

Rhys! He was glaring straight at me as if he could see through the scarf that was wound about my face. Why would Rhys come to Zhagad? He was lost instantly in the ma.s.s of bodies as we rode through the second ring of stone into the heart of the city.

Only Derzhi were allowed to live within the inner walls of Zhagad. And the closer we got to the Imperial Palace, the bolder was the crowd. They pressed against Kiril's soldiers. "Murderer ... his kinsman ... for shame ... madman ...

Athos, spare us a monster... kin-murderer... madman."

Kiril and his men held the surging crowd away from Aleksander, and once, when the people blocked the way entirely, the young dennissar shouted angrily. "He submits himself to the Emperor. The Emperor will judge. Not you."

Without moving his head or shifting his eyes from their position straight ahead of him, Aleksander whispered a quiet word to Kiril. The young Derzhi said no more, just forged a way through the churning mob to the Palace steps.

Once there, we dismounted, and Kiril marshaled his men about Aleksander, motioning me to stay close beside him. I was swept up the broad steps and through the vast atrium of the Imperial Palace with the rest. There was no time to stare at the grandeur; I got only a fleeting impression of the soaring height of the ceilings, the brilliant colors of the murals, and the graceful arches that led whispered breezes through the cool stone. I blessed the trailing white scarf I had been given to wrap about my face to keep out blowing sand and prying eyes.

Kiril conferred with a half-naked man of awesome physical perfection, who wore three earrings in one ear and a braid that reached below his waist. He must be the padish, the Emperor's Lidunni bodyguard. I had heard that the Lidunni could snap a man's spine without taking a second breath. On seeing him, I believed it. With a nod the padish led us across a circular atrium, ringed with columns, and he opened a pair of wooden doors five times a man's height.

Ivan sat on a raised dais at one end of a spare, undeco-rated room, a council room as it appeared, for it had several long tables rowed up around the sides with dark cushions piled up behind. No one reclined on the cushions at present. The padish took up a position to the left of the stone-faced monarch. At the Emperor's right hand stood Korelyi.

My stomach constricted. Though he could not have failed to see the danger, Aleksander did not hesitate, but walked into the room and knelt, touching his head to the white stone. He stayed in the submissive posture, awaiting his father's command to rise. Kiril stood beside him and bowed as was proper for a soldier on guard duty. Before a word had been spoken, a flick of the imperial finger had the door closed in front of the rest of us.

Kiril's adjutant, a man named Fedor, formed up the troop of soldiers just outside the doors. He wasn't sure what to do with me, so I indicated that I would wait in a small alcove between a row of fluted columns and the wall. It was a position from which I could watch the doors without being seen myself.

I had told Aleksander truly. I could not hear through walls no matter how hard I tried it. So I had to wait with everyone else until Kiril burst through the door. It had been less than half an hour.

"Fedor!" The young man's voice was tight and urgent. "Aye, my lord?"

"Have the rest of the evidence from the wagon taken to ... G.o.ds, where?" Kiril pressed a clenched fist to his forehead for a moment. "There's an old priests'

room behind Druya's shrine out beyond the west wing. Do it quickly, and don't let anyone see what you're about."

I stepped out from my alcove, ready to accost the square-faced young Derzhi before he could go back, but he motioned for me to stay where I was. He strode across the atrium and spoke to one of the courtiers who spent their lives hovering outside the Emperor's door, waiting for the chance to perform some service. When he came back to my niche a few moments later, Kiril was trembling with suppressed rage.

"He will die at dawn, and until then is allowed to see no one. Not his mother, not his cousin, not a servant, not a friend."

"G.o.ds' fires!" I said, unprepared for such finality so quickly. "Did he get no hearing?"

"Before allowing either of us to speak, the Emperor demanded proof that Zander did not murder Dmitri. Zander tried to explain about his foolishness and the Khelid, but my uncle wouldn't hear it. 'First the proof,' was all he said. Zander admitted that he had only his word. But the Emperor claimed that Zander had already given his word that he had done the deed, and that if he had no other life to exchange for lhat of the Emperor's brother, then it must be his own." Kiril leaned his head back against the column and spoke through clenched teeth. "At least it seemed to grieve my uncle to p.r.o.nounce the sentence. I thought he might bend the arms of the chair. As you would expect, Zander refused to argue it, but only asked permission to speak of treachery within the realm."

"And what of that?"

"It was not permitted. The Emperor would not hear 'slander created to hide a weak man's crime.' G.o.ds of night... a weak man." Kiril clenched his fists and pressed them against the stone behind his head. "I was required to come out and send notice to the headsman ... Athos have mercy. Then he commanded me to turn over everything seized from the Khelid fortress to the d.a.m.ned, smirking Korelyi. But that I will not do. They'll have to cut off my hands before I'll give it to him. I'll take the letters to every n.o.ble in the realm and make them listen. Zander will have that at least. I'll set this Empire on its-"

"Quietly, my lord." I was afraid he was going to blurt out the treason that was on the edge of his tongue. "Where have they taken him?"

"It won't work this time. You'll not get him out of this one. They've sent him to the deepest dungeon in this pile of rock, and that is very deep indeed. Unless your magic can melt steel and stone, you'll never touch him."

"I won't let him die."

"Listen to me, Seyonne." Kiril clutched my arm and pulled me deeper into the shadows. "I do know this. He'll not welcome your dying alongside him. You have your own work to do. And don't think you've gone unnoticed. Three times, Korelyi asked about 'the Ezzarian slave' and what role he had in my cousin's escape from Capharna. Zander said only that you had done as he commanded, and he'd set you free when he had no more use for you. He said he didn't know or care where you'd gone, but I don't think the Khelid believed him."

"We've got to help him, my lord."

Kiril rubbed his face tiredly, all his anger spent. "I've got a few people to talk to. I sent some messages before leaving Parnifour. Perhaps I've had a reply.

And I'll find out for certain where they've put Zander. For now, you should go with Fedor. You need to stay out of sight."

I nodded and hurried after Kiril's men, leaving the young dennissar slumped against the column.

I spent the next two hours in a small stone room, its walls lined with peeling frescoes depicting the ferocious Derzhi bull G.o.d. We stowed the letters and parchment rolls in cracked stone chests that had once been used for vestments and ritual implements. All the valuable items had been taken away when the earthy Druya had been shoved out of favor by the showier Athos, leaving the priests' room stained with ancient animal blood, and littered with rotting shreds of clodi, burned-down candle stubs, and a large supply of spiders and dead flies.

While Kiril's men carried in the hundreds of weapons from the wagon, I pored over the letters and notes again under the light of a dented bra.s.s lantern. I was looking for anything, any hint of the plot that had brought Aleksander to his knees. It wouldn't have to be much. Ivan doted on Aleksander, and only his stubborn Derzhi head was forcing him to impose this terrible judgment. But as before, I found nothing.

Resigned to a fight, I began poking around in the weaponry for a blade. I needed something fairly new, something that had little legacy of blood and hatred that would make it more difficult to bind with my own enchantments. There was every kind of blade, curved and straight, double-ended gerraws designed to be held in the middle, rapiers, longswords, daggers, short swords, dirks. Many of them had demon spells attached. I had warned Kiril's men not to nick themselves on any of the weapons. Halfway through the pile I came on a long cloth-wrapped bundle tied with cord.

Curious, I cut the cord and unwrapped a magnificent new-forged blade, still coated with oil from its making. Its edge could sliver a moth's wing. I wiped it with the cloth so I could see the engraving. The guard was fashioned in the shape of a falcon's wing, smooth, simple, graceful to curve about the hand, and the hilt-my hand trembled as I moved the lamp closer and examined it.

Amid the fine and elegant graving of vine leaves were set the devices of a lion rampant and a falcon. Aleksander's dakrah sword. Carried by Dmitri as he hurried into the mountains, venturing the bandit-ridden Jyb-bar Pa.s.s to bring his beloved nephew a sword worthy of an emperor. If Aleksander's sword was there, then what of Dmitri's own?

. So it was that Kiril came in at the calling of the first hour of Aleksander's execution day to find me examining one sword at a time, then throwing it onto a grim heap in the opposite corner.

"What in Athos' name are you doing?" he said, standing in the doorway with hands on his waist.

"Come here," I said quietly, determined that no word of my discovery should find its way to Korelyi. I showed him the sword, and he took the meaning immediately. He set to work, giving me a description of Dmitri's sword that made our search go faster. After a few minutes he paused. "If they have his sword, they might also have his signet. The d.a.m.nable murdering thieves took that as well."

Immediately I thought of the jewel casket in Kastavan's traveling case, and I rummaged through it while Kiril kept searching for the sword. At almost the same moment, we cried out, "Here!" and turned to each other, Kiril with a well-used broadsword, I with a falcon-crested signet ring.

"We've got him!" said Kiril fiercely. "I'll go to the Emperor at once."

"No. Wait." I hated to hold him back. We both felt the dawn creeping up our backs. "We've got to think. Korelyi will say we've had them all along. That we placed them among the Khelid blades."

Kiril looked stricken. "I'll swear it on my father's grave. On my mother's honor."

"No. We've got to be sure." I sat staring at the ring, racking my brain for some way to convince Ivan of the truth. And, of course, my conclusion was that we couldn't. Korelyi had to do it. And if we were to force him to it, we were going to have to risk everything. The question was whether Korelyi knew that Dmitri's things were in Kiril's h.o.a.rd.

"I'm sure of it," said the young Derzhi. "He's had the Emperor's messengers hounding me all night. He's frantic to get this stuff. I thought it was to prevent the letters getting out, but this makes more sense."

The Khelid wanted Aleksander dead. They had no demons to put in him, and he had shown himself too strong to succ.u.mb to their more ordinary magic.

He would be, a dangerous opponent. I took the two swords and the ring and put them all in Kastavan's case, resealing the Khelid spell and making sure that no trace of my own working remained on the case.

"What are you doing?"

"We're going to give everything back as Korelyi wants," I said.

"Indeed we will not." Kiril blocked the doorway as if I were planning to haul out his h.o.a.rd in my pockets.

"If you wish Aleksander to see another sunrise, you will do exactly as I say."

At one hour before dawn the Derzhi junior dennissar, smelling strongly of spirits, stood in the central courtyard of the royal residential wing of the Imperial Palace pelting cer- tain second-floor windows with stones. He was cursing and weeping at the top of his lungs. "Come out, Khelid pig. Come take your d.a.m.nable belongings and with them the sum of Derzhi honor. What care have I for our beloved Empire, if the most n.o.ble of princes is dead? Take your foul treasury and choke on it.

Do you need weapons to stab at the heart? You can take your pick here in this fine display, though no weapon will be needed when the puking miserable sun takes up its watch this cursed morning." After another handful of rocks, heads were poking out of the unshuttered windows that overlooked the courtyard. "Come out, villain, and claim your blood price!"

Spread out on the carved paving stones, on top of the flower gardens, and in the trickling fountains were every packet of letters, every sword, every book, and every jewel that had been taken from the Khelid fortress ... with the exception of Kastavan's traveling case and the additional two swords it carried. I knew this because I was sitting on the palace roof behind a carved stone cherub that was strangling a snake in its fist. Kastavan's leather case was in my lap.

Three guards ran into the courtyard, but Kiril held them off with his own sword and dagger. "No, I will certainly not leave here. Not until Lord Korelyi comes to claim his belongings and swears to my Emperor that every piece is here. I'll not have my honor questioned by accusations of thievery. Is it not enough that he claims our prince a murderer?"

No one in the palace was likely to be sleeping, not with a royal execution less than an hour in the offing. And from Aleksander's comments over the months, I knew that Kiril was well loved by all, including Ivan and Jenya. So I was not surprised to see the Emperor himself come out to see to his distraught nephew.

"Come, boy. This profits nothing."

"Ah, honored sire," said Kiril, dropping a knee even while keeping his sword and dagger positioned to fend off the guards-a most difficult feat for a man so drunk as he seemed. "Will you not weep with me? Will you not save my honor so that something of good will come from this black day?"

"There is nothing of honor here, Kiril," said the Emperor harshly. "I have commanded you to return the Khelid possessions that were taken illegally from their residence. You are doing as you must. As every Derzhi warrior must do, no matter how painful."

"Then, have him come examine these things and say I have not withheld anything. Please, my liege, my uncle. Save one life this day, for I swear I will not see the ending of it if I am named thief on the same day as my cousin is named dead."

As I had hoped, the purple-cloaked Korelyi swept out of a vine-draped gallery below me. "So your nephew has decided that obedience must be drowned in wine, Majesty? Not a good lesson for one in the diplomatic service of his Emperor."

"I have no time for foolery, Korelyi," growled Ivan. "Collect your belongings and be done with it."

I did not stay to hear the rest of it, how Kiril would insist that Korelyi inventory everything before taking it, how Ivan would bl.u.s.ter, yet would surely take every moment's reprieve he could from his dreadful duties of the morning. As I scrambled back through the attic window and down the narrow steps that led to the upper corridor and the Khelid's apartments, I could not allow myself to think of anything but what I was doing. I had given enough thought to Aleksander in his cell, his fine clothing replaced with a coa.r.s.e gray prisoner's tunic, his hair unbraided, waiting for the black-hooded man who would lead him to the prisoner's courtyard and the bloodstained block waiting there.

There! Two Khelid stood outside the next door. Summoning the enchantment I had created over the past hours, 1 conjured an apparition that, in the dim light, would look very much like Korelyi. The apparition beckoned the two guards and disappeared down the stairs. The guards ran after, and I hurried to the door. Quickly, before my head cracked with the strain of two simultaneous workings, I dis- cerned the lock spell and countered it. I set the case inconspicuously beside Korelyi's own wardrobe. Then I stepped out of the door, reset the seal, and retreated to my position on the roof.

Korelyi was screaming at Kiril. "... also be separated from your head this day, for aiding a treacherous murderer. Your cousin took my Lord Kastavan's life unprovoked, unmanly, and now you have stolen his belongings, those things which are his children's legacy, jewels that have been in his family for generations. This sobbing clamor is nothing but a screen for your knavery."

"Enough," said Ivan. "Is there no respect in either of you? What mockery do you make of this most wretched day? You may both hang for all I care." Ivan turned to leave the garden.

No. No. No. That was not the way it was supposed to go.

Kiril, still brandishing his weapons, glanced up and caught my signal. He pressed his back against a stone obelisk and sheathed his sword, using his hands and his suddenly sober voice to stay the guards. "Your most gracious Majesty, I seek only to defend the honor of our name-your name. Grant me this hearing for the love of my Lord Dmitri. He was my only father, sire, and I will not have his memory sullied by this foreigner's lies. You must judge why this man feels it necessary to drag our family's honor through the mire."

Ivan paused ... and so did my heartbeat.

Kiril pressed his moment's advantage. "My lord, this Korelyi claims that I have withheld a case belonging to Lord Kastavan, but why would I desire anything from those I believe have slain my likai. I would rather rot in slave rings before possessing one jewel, one trinket, one gold coin that crossed the palm of Lord Dmitri's murderer. I'll wager my life that these 'treasures' are in my Lord Korelyi's possession already. I think he seeks to have all males of the House of Denischkar disgraced or dead."

The dawn light slipped from gray to red as the sun sent its first warning, and every eye in that courtyard turned up- ward. Korelyi laughed. "Does this boy, this murderer's hireling, think to thwart his Emperor's judgment by such a pitiful show? If these weak accusations are the best intrigue he can deliver, I fear for the future of the Derzhi." It was perhaps not a good time for the Khelid to laugh.

"We will settle this now," said the Emperor. "Take me to the Khelid's apartments." Ivan strode into the palace by way of the door beneath my perch.

Remember, Kiril. Remind the Emperor that your men burned their fingers on the case. No one but a sorcerer could open it. Remember to guide, not lead.

Let the guilt unfold. Let Korelyi's c.o.c.kiness ruin him. Keep things moving, so the Khelid doesn 't have time to speculate on how this has happened.

I waited in breathless silence, then from the room beneath me came such a roar of anguish that it shivered the red tiles on which I sat. Ivan. Was it only the sight of his dead brother's belongings drew such agonizing grief from him? Or was it the revelation of the dreadful mistake he was about to commit?

Or had he ... oh, G.o.ds ... had he given the final execution order before he came out, lest in some moment of weakness at Kiril's sorrow he might relent?

A beam of red light glanced off a metal facing on a chimney across the courtyard. Without caution I leaped up and ran across the sloping tile roof, faster, up and down, leaping from one roof edge to the next. Slip, grasp for a fingerhold. On my feet again. Summon the wind. I had no wings, but 1 needed anything to speed my feet, to bear me up. I had memorized the way across the roof from the residential courtyard to the prisoners' court. Why had I waited?

Because I had never expected Ivan would fail to witness his son's execution. I had thought him irredeemably hard, but he was only a father trying to live through terrible necessity. I leaped from the east wing roof, across the gulf to the barracks, up the steep rise and down to the wall of the prisoners'

courtyard. "Stop! In the name of the Emperor!" I cried.

The burly, black-hooded man blocked my view of Alek- sander. All I could see were his hands bound behind his back and the long bare legs sticking out from the gray tunic as he knelt, bent forward, on the steps. Was he dead or living? Would the gray-clad figure slump and fall? The broad ax rose slowly into the air. Unbloodied.

"Stop!" I cried again, this time in Ivan's voice. "Your Emperor commands it!"

The executioner paused and looked around, wondering where his sovereign stood that he could hear him so clearly.

"Do not let this ax fall, headsman," I said, "or you will be the next under its blade. This prisoner has my reprieve. He will not die this day."

Chapter 37.

The rumor got about the Empire that Ivan zha Denischkar once touched the hand of Athos, and that was why he kept to himself so much in the last years of his reign-to contemplate it. It was said that on the day he saved his son from the Khelid conspiracy, he was able to transmit his voice throughout the Imperial Palace, and because it was at the moment of dawn, it must have been Athos that gave him the power.

I was well content with such rumors. As Aleksander had learned, Ezzarians are, of necessity, shy of fame, and need no reports of miracles to complicate their lives.

I sat on the roof and watched as Ivan ran into the prisoners' courtyard and found his bewildered son still kneeling at the headsman's block, and his son's executioner gaping about in search of the body that went with his liege's voice. A few moments later, as the Emperor held the Prince in a fierce embrace, I took pleasure in the brilliant grin that blossomed when the searching eyes of amber came to rest on a particular gargoyle beside the guard barracks waterspout. Kiril was the one who had the sense to cut the bindings from Aleksander's hands, and after a cousinly embrace, he also turned a smiling face to the roof... or the sky, as rumor would have it.

Had it been anywhere but Azhakstan in early summer, I might have stayed on the roof, content to find a shady spot out of anyone's line of vision and sleep away the daylight But I had no wish to be broiled, so I crept back across the red-tiled vastness, then dodged running slaves, excited ser- vants, and a platoon of guards to make my way back to the old priests' room behind Druya's deserted shrine. There I drained a water jar left from our long night of preparation, curled up in the cool darkness, and slept.

Inevitably someone came to wake me up before I was ready. "Seyonne, come on. Time to go."

It was Kiril, cleaned, trimmed, and polished like a new sword. Candlelight illuminated the eager young face and the gold chain work that hung over his dark red tunic. "He told me you'd be holed up somewhere sleeping." Though I'd have sworn I'd been asleep less than an hour, it seemed to be after dark already.

I sat up, dry enough to spit dust b.a.l.l.s. "Didn't see much else to do." I wasn't about to set out through the Derzhi stronghold during the scorching daylight after a night with no sleep. I still wore marks that could get me in serious trouble.

"Well, you must come with me now. Here, put this on." It was a long, flowing white robe such as some of the more traditional heged lords wore. "We've got to get going. I'm expected elsewhere." I threw on the robe over my clothes and allowed him to drag me through courtyard after courtyard, through lamplit galleries and breezy cloisters.

"Is all well?" I managed to hold him still while we waited in a doorway for a wide stair to be clear of people.

"Very well. Lord Marag arrived an hour after dawn. I'd sent for him to witness to what he'd seen in Karn'Hegeth. Almost an hour too late, but he did what was needed, and he brought reports from other garrisons. Zander and the Emperor have been in war councils all day."

I grabbed Kiril's arm before he could take off again. "And what of Korelyi?"