The doorway was framed by leafy vines, within which a keen observer might glimpse movement, and now and then a tiny form of man or woman, running along a stem, or peering from a half-hidden window the size of a stamp. From within the club came music-accordion, fiddle, flute-and the drowsy chatter of the patrons. It was always late at the Orfuin Club; by daylight the tavern’s many entrances could not be found.
“Safety from the world without,” corrected the potbellied man, “but if you bring your own doom within these walls, you can hardly expect them to protect you. What is that thing in your hand, wizard?”
“A product of a sorcery beyond my knowledge,” said Arunis, displaying the shiny, slightly irregular metal cube. “Ceallrai, it is called, or mintan, batori, pile. The lamp you keep on the table on the third floor draws its fire from some source within the metal. It is a feeble sorcery and does not last. This one is dead; the goat-faced creature who wipes your tables gave it to me.”
“That is why he is always opening the lamp.” The man called Orfuin chuckled. “It was in his sack of trinkets, when he came to me so long ago, fleeing assassins in his own world. He loves that ugly lamp. Arunis, you resemble a human being; did you begin life as such?”
Arunis scowled, then hurled the metal object into the darkness beyond the terrace. “What can be keeping her? Does she think I have all night?”
Orfuin took a languorous sip of tea. He moved the paperweight, glanced briefly at the parchment. “You are not a frequent guest,” he said to Arunis, “but you are of long standing. And in all the time you have been coming here I have observed no change. You are impatient. Never glad of where you are. Never cognizant that it may be better than where you are going.”
Arunis looked directly at the man for the first time, and there was no love in his glance, only pride and calculation. “You will see a change,” he said.
The little animal scurried under Orfuin’s chair. The innkeeper looked down into his tea with an air of disappointment. Then he lowered his hand and scratched the little creature along the edge of its shell.
“I thought all yddeks had been exterminated,” said the mage, “but now I see that you welcome them like pets.”
“They were here before us, in the River of Shadows,” said Orfuin. “They come and go as they please. But they’re rare today, true enough. This one swam out of the River while you were inside. He’s quite a bold little fellow.”
“He is a masterpiece of ugliness,” said the sorcerer. Then, with a sharp motion of his head, he added: “I am leaving; I have urgent work on the Chathrand. You will inform the woman that Arunis Wytterscorm cannot be kept waiting, like a schoolboy for his coach.”
Orfuin took another meditative sip of tea, then rose and walked to the edge of the terrace.
There was no rail, and no wood or garden beyond. There was only the sheer stone edge, a few vines curling up from below, and beyond them a roaring darkness, a torrent of rising wind little illuminated by the club’s lamplight. Orfuin leaned out expertly, gazing down into the void, and the blasting air held him up. When he pulled himself back from the edge, he had not even spilled his tea.
“She is here,” he said.
Even as he spoke three figures shot past the terrace from below. They were spectral, blurred; but when the gale had carried them fifty feet above the terrace they spread their arms and slowed, and descended weightlessly, like beings of cinder. Arunis watched them with an expression of nonchalance, but his body was rigid from head to foot. The three figures alighted without a sound.
They were ghastly to behold. Two bone-white women, one black man. All three were tall-one might even have said stretched-with long, gaunt mouths and cheekbones, staring eyes like dark searchlamps and grasping, spindly hands. They wore finery fit for court, but it was tattered, filthy, with an air of the tomb. The nearest woman trailed yards of faded lace. She pointed a lacquered nail at Arunis and shrieked: “Where is the Nilstone, traitor?”
“A delight to see you again as well, Macadra,” said Arunis. “The centuries have left you quite unchanged.” He turned his gaze on the other two: a stocky woman clutching a dagger in each hand, and a black man, coldly observant, fingers resting on the pommel of a sword. “Your friends are younger, I think? But not too young to have heard of me.”
“Oh, you’re not forgotten,” said the black man. The woman with the daggers sneered.
“They must depart at once, of course,” Arunis continued. “You promised to come alone.”
“Promised!” said the tall Macadra. “That word should burn your tongue. Ivrea and Stoman are here as witnesses. Though if you forget whom you serve, your punishment will be too swift for trial.”
Then Arunis walked forward, until he stood one pace from the woman. “I serve no one-or no one you dare to contemplate,” he said. “You may have gained power over brittle Bali Adro, but your Order has stagnated. I have not. Think of that before you speak of punishments again.”
Macadra’s upper lip curled incredulously. Arunis let the silence hold a moment, and then continued in a lighter tone, “But if you refer to my cooperation-well, really, Macadra, how could I have done more? You dispatched me to Northern Alifros without gold, or guardians, or allies of any kind. Yes, you helped me escape the old regime. But at such a price! You bade me shatter two human empires, to prepare the world for its grand reunification-under the Ravens, of course.”
“Under Bali Adro,” snapped Macadra. “The Ravens are merely advisers to His Majesty.”
“And a conductor merely advises his orchestra to perform.”
For a moment the woman checked her rage. She looked rather pleased with the analogy.
“You have not yet killed the girl,” she said. “Are you that afraid of her?”
“Afraid of Thasha Isiq?” said Arunis, and this time he won a smile of amusement from all three of the newcomers. “No, Macadra, I do not fear her. She will die at the appropriate time, as will all of her circle. But why should I rush to kill my greatest accomplice?”
Macadra laughed aloud. “You have not changed either, Arunis Wytterscorm. Still working with puppets, are you? Painting in their faces, tying your invisible strings.”
“Shall I tell you something, madam?” said Orfuin suddenly, looking up from his tea. “Life is finite. That is to say, it ends. Why not spend it pleasantly? There’s gingerbread fresh from the oven. Leave off this scheming and be my guests. Hear the music. Warm your feet.”
His gaze was mild and friendly. The newcomers stared at him as if unsure what sort of creature he was. Then Arunis went on, as if Orfuin had never spoken:
“I have been splendid, Macadra-that you cannot deny. I took a harmless madman and built him into the Shaggat Ness, a slaughtering messiah, a knife upon which both Arqual and the Mzithrin are preparing to throw themselves. And I managed to let the Arqualis believe the entire affair was in their interests-indeed, that they had devised the plot, alone. What general with legions at his fingertips ever accomplished so much? Either Northern power could mount a fight to try the strength of Bali Adro-together, they might even have bested you. Instead they think only of killing one another, and will soon begin to do so with more determination than you have ever seen.”
“Your Shaggat is dead!” screamed the woman with the daggers. “A peasant boy turned him into a lump of stone!”
“The Pathkendle boy may have started life as a peasant,” said Arunis, “but he is now a Smythidor, magic-altered, blood and bone. The great Ramachni entrusted him with Master-Words, and one of these he used against the Shaggat. But Ramachni’s gamble was a losing one, for in so arming Pathkendle he exhausted himself, and had to abandon his friends. And for what? They wish to kill me; they cannot. They seek a new and safer resting place for the Nilstone; they will not find one. And the Shaggat-he is not dead, merely enchanted. He will breathe again, mark my words.”