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Rogala nodded. "Would you say the Emperor and Misplaer are trying to embarrass the fat man?"

Gathrid shrugged. "I don't know. Probably. When a Red says black, a Blue usually says white."

Rogala grinned at Mulenex. "He does go on, doesn't he? Taking it personal, too."

"Honsa Eldracher is the Brotherhood's crown prince. He takes over if anything happens to Misplaer.

Mulenex doesn't like it, but there isn't anything he can do. Eldracher is supposed to be the greatest thaumaturge ever produced by the Brotherhood. He don't want to lock horns."

Rogala nodded thoughtfully. He didn't waste much attention on the pyrotechnic Red Magister. He scanned the faces of the audience instead. Gathrid wondered what he read there.

"Politics have fettered this army," the youth muttered. He made the word "politics" a curse.

"They're going to sit here till Ahlert stomps them like bugs. And they'll die squabbling and intriguing."

Rogala asked, "You under the impression Katich would be in friendly hands if it weren't for politics?"

"No. What gets me is, nobody cares what happens in Gudermuth. It's just an excuse to grind their own axes."

"That's what it's all about, son."

"And Ahlert is going to take advantage."

"He'd be a fool if he didn't." The dwarf sneered. "He'll sit over there, scrupulous about respecting frontiers, and laugh his tail off while these clowns use Gudermuth as a counter in a power struggle that may tear their Alliance to shreds. And when the moment ripens, he'll jump all over them. I'm beginning to find human greed, duplicity, weakness and dearth of imagination boringly predictable."

"You shouldn't play games with human lives."

Rogala gave him a strange look. "You're serious, aren't you? You really are as naive as you put on. You're really offended."

"Of course I am!" Gathrid glared at the dwarf. "Enough!" he shouted, breaking in on Mulenex. "A

compact was made. If Gerdes Mulenex and his toadies want to renounce it so they can forward their personal ambitions, let them say so. If the rest of you want to use an ally as a piece on a political chessboard, say so. Stop the hypocrisy. Show your true colors. Repudiate the Treaty of Beovingloh. And be accursed by the dying while Ventimiglian brigades trample your fools' dreams."

Rogala threw him a series of savage looks. He was being too forthright. He was not supposed to make enemies, he was supposed to goad these men into accepting a will not their own. Of course, Gathrid did not know that. Suchara did not confide in her Swordbearer.

The dwarf did not care a fig for Gudermuth, except insofar as its fate could be used to twist someone's arm in accordance with Suchara's desires.

Gathrid's speech drew scattered applause. Kargus Scanga, King of Malmberget, responded. "Your shaft strikes near the mark, Swordbearer, though I find your phrasing too bold and your companion boorish."

"Boorish?" Rogala squealed, stamping his feet. He grinned as attention focused on him again. "I'm not a great man, I admit. Nor do I stand as tall as some. Yet I ask you, is boorishness strictly a province of class? Are the high and the mighty above common courtesy? Is gentility a cruel fiction foisted on the masses by monsters such as this?" He indicated Mulenex with a thumb jab.

"That's entirely possible," Scanga replied. His grin was as broad as the dwarf's. "When I see him in these councils I certainly think so. To the matter at hand. I think we'd all agree we made a mistake at Torun. Not in hammering out an Alliance, but in forging it in such unwieldy form.

Swordbearer, it's unfortunate, but we agreed unanimity was a prerequisite for armed action.

Naturally, that leaves the decision-making process at the mercy of opportunists." His scowl transfixed Mulenex. There could be no doubt that his accusation was specific. "Opportunists?"

Mulenex howled. "You dare denounce opportunists when just last month your cousin seized the Red livings in Dharsyn and had three Red Brothers put to death? Shame!" Scanga replied, "That isn't relevant here." Arnd Tetrault shouted, "Sit down, fat man. You come into my domain and you'll get the same. I hang thieves no matter who they are."

Shifting his ground, Mulenex snapped, "You're obscuring the issue here. ..." The mood of the council jelled. He made no headway. Who was and who was not obscuring issues was obvious. Even more obvious was Mulenex's increasing unpopularity. The others shouted him down.

Tetrault's voice broke through the uproar. "Let's impale the pig. He's tied us up for the past three days."

Gathrid doubted that Mulenex alone was responsible. Some mechanism in the group unconscious had tripped and, suddenly, the Red Magister had been elected to bear all their sins.

Mulenex turned bright red. He roared. He fumed. He howled and threatened. And every twist of showmanship only dug the hole deeper.

Gathrid suffered a dismaying insight. The debate had a foregone conclusion. The parties were toying with one another, playing for a position of vantage. His intervention, his anger and indignation, were not germane.

Mulenex was stubborn. He invested an hour in verbal attack and grudging retreat before he yielded to the inevitable. By then Gathrid knew he wanted war as much as did his adversaries. He was simply looking for a payoff in return for abandoning his negative stance.

He got in the last word. He thrust an indicting finger Gathrid's way. "I warn you," he cried, voice dramatically atremble. "If we take up this instrument, it will turn in our hands. As well grasp an adder."

Rogala nodded as if conceding the argument.

The Emperor's representative rose. The uproar declined. "My Lords. Magisters. Envoys of principalities great and small. The thing is decided. We march. As it was agreed in treaty, I'll command in,the field. Now I want to propose a temporary mechanism whereby we can smooth the functioning of the Alliance, in the face of an implacable, malignant force totally indifferent to our customary squabbles and differences. Till we agree that the eastern peril has abated, let us all acknowledge the supremacy of the Imperium and unite behind the Emperor's standard as though we were Anderleans of old. Let's show this Ventimiglian pestilence a single face crimson with righteous wrath."

Snickers and incredulous whispers fluttered about the assembly. It was a transparent ploy. The Emperor would never yield a single ounce of power acquired.

Gathrid suspected the man's suggestion was offered at the command of his liege, that he had no real hope for the proposal.

"Anderle is dead," Rogala countered, startling everyone. "Your empire is a political fiction, a specter that won't lay still in its grave-though you people seem to find it a useful ghost.

Ventimiglia is no fantasy and no spook. Anyone here fool enough to believe Ahlert is going to be satisfied with Gudermuth? Step up here. I'll kill you so the rest of us can get on with our job."

"Here's a reality for you, buffoon," growled the King of Calcaterra, one Arnd Tetrault, a cousin of Kargus Scanga, the King of Malmberget. "The morning despatch from our agent in Gudermuth says that besides himself, his Toal, Nieroda, and his sorcerer-generals, Ahlert now has him a witchwoman who can manipulate the moon-magic. A renegade Gudermuther, at that, and a strong one, though supposedly she isn't yet trained. That puts two elemental powers inside Ahlert's purview.

What do we have to face that? The feckless support of Suchara? These shiftless Orders? I'd sooner trust Ahlert than the likes of Mulenex or Ellebracht. The Mindak comes out and tells you what he wants."

Ellebracht was, apparently, the Blue representative. Gathrid recalled having heard the name. A

relative of the Emperor, closely allied with Klutho Misplaer and Honsa Eldracher.

Mulenex rose to protest. His peers shouted him down. Their language was brutal and offensive.

A Gudermuther woman turned renegade? Gathrid thought, appalled. After what Ahlert had done?

Impossible. "Who is she?" he demanded. He pictured some gap-toothed crone. Some peasant malcontent eager to requite Gudermuth's nobility for fancied slights.