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Minutes passed while Anstevic waited, but he heard nothing further, and he finally drifted out of the Lord’s chambers.

When he was back among the rocks in which he had hidden his striderbeast, he pulled back the hood of the slipsuit and laughed with a pure and childish delight. It had been so easy. Brinslevos would insist on buying the Uberfactorial’s wares, and then Brinslevos would die. His guards would hang the Uberfactorial from the battlements immediately — following the odd Pharaohan religious dictum that a victim suffers a year in Hell for every hour that his assassin survives him — and then Anstevic could return to the reliable pleasures of Kobatum, mission accomplished. He would have to wait until that night to confirm the agent’s death, but no matter… the hard part was done. As the dawn washed the mesa top with pale color, Anstevic made himself comfortable under an overhang that would provide some shade at the hottest part of the Pharaohan afternoon.

* * *

In the morning the door slammed back and the hunchback ushered a grim-faced coercer into the cell. Ruiz sat up on his cot and was surprised to recognize Rontleses, from whom he’d bought water his first morning on Pharaoh.

“Greetings, noble coercer,” Ruiz said politely.

“Stand when you speak to me,” answered Rontleses.

Ruiz scrambled from the cot. “As you command.”

Rontleses looked dusty and tired, as though he had just arrived from the catapple plantations. “I’m required to instruct you. Tonight you’ll attend the Lord. He’ll sample your oils, and you’ll accompany him on his journey. Be very careful what you allow him to take. If he becomes ill, he will assume you have poisoned him, and you will suffer a terrible death. The Lord’s executioner is an imaginative man.”

“I’ll bear your instruction in mind at all times,” Ruiz said sincerely.

“See that you do.”

The coercer spun on his heel and left. The hunchback brought in breakfast, which if anything was more unappetizing than supper had been. The rest of the day passed slowly, unenlivened by anything more entertaining than mild gastric distress. Finally Ruiz dozed.

* * *

The rattle of the key in his door woke Ruiz, and he sat up abruptly. His head swam for an instant; then he was ready. The ray of sunlight was gone and the room was dark. He sensed that many hours had passed, that it was very late. Ruiz slid from the bed and over to the wall, poised to deal with any enemies that might appear.

But it was only the hunchback steward, who poked his unlovely head through the doorway. He said nothing, but he grinned and made gestures with his smoky lamp, indicating that Ruiz was to follow.

Ruiz picked up his pack and went with great reluctance. He felt more than ordinarily oppressed by the circumstances; he felt sure that he had exerted less control over the situation than he should have. He might have dragged his feet, except that the hunchback moved briskly and the lamp’s yellow light was the only illumination.

The steward conducted him through a maze of rough tunnels, through echoing rooms, and through hallways of tatty magnificence, until they reached the audience room of Brinslevos Keep.

A hundred torches flared dramatically along the tapes-tried walls, but the hall was empty of courtiers. Threadbare carpet marked a red path across the black porcelain tiles to the gilded throne on which Brinslevos sprawled. Behind the Lord, poised in an attitude of baleful curiosity, stood the Lord’s conjuror and executioner, a short man with a round bland face and a lipless mouth, who wore a black robe and carried an ornate ivory wand.

“Come, come,” Brinslevos called out, in his oddly pitched voice, which vibrated with mad gaiety.

Ruiz paced over the carpet with all seemly haste and went to a knee before the throne. “Your servant,” he said, in low tones.

“Yes, yes,” the Lord said. “Rise. Show us your wares. By the way, what is your name?”

“Wuhiya, great one.” Ruiz opened his pack, and two boys in the nomarch’s livery trotted forth from the anteroom, carrying a table, which they set beside Ruiz. Ruiz nodded his thanks, and laid his vials on the table. They made a fine sparkling display in the torchlight, and the Lord came down from his throne to inspect them.

For an instant, Ruiz looked into Brinslevos’s eyes, which glowed with some unreadable but intense emotion. Ruiz was abruptly terrified, though nothing of his fear reached his face — or so he hoped. Here, he thought, would be a truly dangerous man, were he not mad. And even so…

Ruiz stood back humbly, and the Lord fingered the vials, an artlessly avid smile on his narrow face. “Interesting, interesting.” Brinslevos selected a vial of green latigar. “Describe the effects of this one, good Wuhiya.”

“It is the venom of the latigar dragon, great one, processed by the artifice of the Jings, who range down the slopes of Hell on the north side of the world. The dreams the latigar brings are subtle and introspective, much concerned with the nature of reality. An oil beloved of philosophers.”

Brinslevos dropped the green latigar, chose a vial of blue-purple cansum. “And this?”

“The venom of the cansum constrictor, great one — morphed by a process known only to the cave-dwelling Inklats, who wear no tattoos and feed their snakes on human flesh. Very rare. Very expensive. It brings dreams of mortality; it shows the face of life for what it is, a mask on a skull. The skilled dreamer can learn to value the mask, or so it’s theorized.”

“You’ve never taken this oil?”

“No, great one.”

Brinslevos weighed the vial in his elegant hand. “Then we will embark on a voyage of discovery together, Wuhiya.”

The Lord’s conjuror frowned and gave Ruiz a glance of cold dislike. But he said nothing.

* * *

Brinslevos had gone, leaving Ruiz to wait in the empty audience room. He repacked his vials, then spent a few uneasy minutes shifting from foot to foot. The Keep was uncannily silent, except for the sputter of the torches. When the hunchback steward finally came to fetch him to the Lord’s chambers, he was almost relieved. The hall had a dark ambience, a trembling aura of ancient horror, as though unspeakably ugly deeds had occurred on the black tiles.

The steward took him through another maze of twisting corridors. Ruiz began to think that the Keep was a great deal larger than he had originally estimated. Apparently the majority of its spaces had been carved from the bedrock and the battlements he had glimpsed from the road must be only the tip of these great subterranean works. Ruiz tried to memorize the turns, but by the time they arrived at their destination, he was unsure of the way out.

The Lord Brinslevos had furnished his chambers in eccentric fashion. The walls were hung with hunting trophies — so thickly that the rough stone was almost completely obscured. Some were notable, and Ruiz wondered if the Lord had personally killed them. Here was a pangolin swarter, great-tusked head lifted in red-eyed challenge. There was the hide of a greenback Helldemon, covering ten meters of wall. In the far corner stood an enormous stuffed river lizard, rearing on its hind legs, nightmare jaws gaping. The floors were covered by deep soft carpets that swirled with pale hues, peach, celadon, ivory. Fat cushions, covered in cloth-of-gold and beaded with ruby spangles, were scattered in random heaps; here and there were low tables in red and black lacquer. It struck Ruiz as an odd combination, as though a strong-minded taxidermist had moved in with a relentless interior decorator.

Brinslevos sat upon a cushion by a table covered with the paraphernalia of the oil smoker. The Lord gestured for the steward to leave, then beckoned to Ruiz, who stepped forward.