Yder stepped past Malik to where Aris was sitting. Tall even for a prince of Shade, he barely had to tip his head back to meet Aris's gaze.
"Aris, why are you starving yourself?"
Afraid the prince would force an answer with the same magic Telamont used, Aris looked away and said the first thing that came to mind-well, the second, since the last thing he wanted to do was admit the truth.
"The food is not to my liking."
"What?" Malik said. "Have I not offered to prepare anything your heart desires? Have I not brought whole boars from your own home in the Greypeak Mountains and roasted them under your nose, only to see the entire beast vanish down a rubbish chute when you could not be enticed to eat one bite?"
Aris's mouth watered at (he mere memory of the smell.
"I have never been fond of swine." His stomach growled its protest of the lie, but he added, "I am more fond of yaddleskwee."
"For the thousandth time," Malik demanded, "how can I serve yaddleskwee when you refuse to say what it is?"
This drew a sharp-fanged grin from Yder. "I see," he said. "I think I know what this "yaddleskwee' is."
Aris gulped, sincerely hoping the prince did not. A favorite of fire giants, yaddleskwee was the food he most hated in the world. Somehow, he had just never developed a taste for pickled beholder brains.
"You do?" Malik asked.
Yder nodded. "It is not that difficult to figure out." He raised his gaze back to Aris and said, "You refuse to eat because you are unhappy with Malik as a master."
Aris breathed a sigh of relief, and nodded. "He was once a friend-"
"As I am still! Had I not asked the Most High to make you my slave, who knows what would have become of you?"
Malik paused there, fighting against his curse, then continued, "Though I doubt your fate would have been much worse, for Shade values your art too highly to execute you out of hand."
Aris ignored the protest and said, "But now he betrays me at every opportunity." Aris glared down at Malik, and allowing the bitterness of his tone to give voice to his very real anger, said, "And he betrays my art."
"Betray your art? Ungrateful giant! How many times must I save your life before you show thanks?"
Malik met Aris's glare with a fierceness born of his own injured feelings-then he seemed to recall the prince he was trying to impress and grimaced, no doubt mortified at how badly matters were going. He took a breath and composed himself, then turned to Yder.
"Pay no attention to the prattling of a temperamental artist, Prince Yder. I will deal with my slave later-and I assure you he will eat." Malik shot Aris a look of pure venom, then dared to touch the prince's elbow and gestured toward the nave. "For now, however, allow me to show you the rest of the temple."
Yder remained where he was and said, "I think not" He glared down at the hand on his arm until Malik removed it, then looked back to Aris. "It pleases me to hear you are unhappy in Malik’s service."
Malik's eyes widened in alarm and he said, "If you think you can steal my slave-"
"Silence." Yder’s hand was on Malik’s throat, squeezing until it appeared the little man's eyes would pop from their sockets. "When I wish to hear your obscene voice again, I will break something and let you scream."
Given the shade of purple Malik’s face was turning, Aris doubted the seraph could have protested had he dared try.
Aris asked, "Why should a slave's feelings interest a prince of Shade?"
Yder’s yellow eyes glimmered in amusement
"Because it would have been a great waste to eliminate you," he said, "and now I know you will not-"
The sentence ended in a screech as Malik drew the dagger he kept hidden beneath his robe and brought the curved blade up into Yder's wrist
The prince's hand opened, and Malik wasted no time gathering his wits or getting his breath back. He fled through the nave and vanished into the darkness between two columns.
Yder flung his arm forward, and showing no apparent concern for the hand flapping at the end of his bleeding wrist, cried, "After him!"
Yder's escorts swept past in a dark rush, leaving Aris alone with his two guards and the prince. It was only a moment before the temple was filled with shouted commands and the chime of blades probing beneath black pews. Though Aris could not decide whether he was glad for Malik's escape or sorry for it, he was not worried about what happen to the little man once he was caught. The seraph had an uncanny-Ruha insisted god-given-ability to vanish the instant he was out of sight
Still trying to figure out why Yder was chasing Malik, Aris asked, "You did not come here to convert?"
"Hardly."
Finally paying attention to his injury, Yder grabbed his flopping hand and pressed it back to his wrist. The bleeding ceased immediately, and black shadows began to swirl over the wound.
Yder continued, "It was bad enough when the worm stole the ear of the Most High, but this-" he rolled his eyes across the temple's vaulted ceiling-"this could not stand. It is good you were not a part of it."
Aris glanced up at the relief he had been working on and wondered how much the prince really knew about what he had been doing.
"You're no Cyricist, I mean," Yder said. "Your disappearance would have been difficult to explain."
Aris asked, "And Malik's won't?"
"No one will notice. You will finish his temple, but Malik will become a recluse, never to be seen by anyone except his personal servants-personal servants who are loyal to the Hidden One."
Aris did not have to ask who the Hidden One was. Though Shar had no temples in Shade-at least none he had ever noticed-the Mistress of the Night was popular enough in the city that Aris, gifted with the acute ears of most giants, seldom went more than a few hours without overhearing a whispered prayer to her.
At length, one of Yder's escorts emerged from the nave and dropped to a knee.
"High One, the blasphemer has vanished."
"Vanished?"
Yder glanced over to Aris's guards, who, already trembling in fear of their own fates, could only shrug and shake their heads. His golden eyes deepened to stormy brown, and he looked back to his escort
"You have used the Hidden One's Gift?"
"We have, and still we could not find him," the warrior said. "He must have escaped."
"Escaped?" Yder's voice was cold and level. "How did you let that happen?"
The escort's gaze remained fixed on the floor.
"It is a mystery-" this was a favorite phrase of Shar's worshipers-"the exits remain blocked, and we've searched every vestibule and chapel."
Yder cursed under his breath, and it dawned on Aris how much the prince was risking. Malik had bragged many times about his relationship with Telamont and how his strategy to lure Galaeron back to Shade had earned the Most High's undying gratitude. If only half of what the seraph claimed was true-and Aris knew that Mystra's curse prevented him from telling a He-then all Malik need do to save himself was reach the Palace Most High and report what had happened.
If Yder survived Telamont's wrath at all, his political base would be greatly weakened.
Having learned the hard way from Malik's treachery, Arts thought he saw a way to turn the situation to his advantage. He could not volunteer the information too readily. Malik had taught him that the surest way to manipulate someone was to remind him of his problem, then let him think you knew a way to solve it.
"I may know where he went," Aris said.
Yder spun on him. "And you remain silent?"
"It didn't occur to me that you would want the opinion of a slave."
"You are a slave by the Most High's decree," Yder said. "There is nothing I can do about that."