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At the far end of the lodge, Kirot nodded his head once sharply, then started coming down toward them. Marcus watched him without seeming to. Better for now if Kit could pull information from the Dartinae without interruption, but that was looking unlikely.

“That’s what you do, then?” Kit asked. “Find old stories and match them to bits of landscape?”

“It’s part,” the Dartinae said. “I’ll chase rumors and old tales, or I’ll just head off to places where no one looks and look there. Can’t know what you’ll find.”

“That’s truth,” Marcus said. Kirot was almost upon them. “No luck this time, though?”

“There were a few times I thought we were close. Old stories that made it seem like we were close to something, but nothing came of it. Next time, I’m going further inland. Takynpal. maybe.”

Kirot loomed up behind.

“We put your cart and your horses in the deep stables,” he said to Marcus. “Tradition is you give the host a gift for our kindness. We were thinking one of the horses would be good.”

“Seems fair,” Marcus said.

“Do you truly think there is something to be found?” Kit said, his attention still on the adventurer.

“There’s not,” Kirot said. “No such thing as giants, much less magical fire swords.”

Kit’s eyebrows rose and his head shifted up to Kirot.

“No?” the old actor said, his voice all innocence.

“Not a goddam thing,” Kirot said. “Only thing that comes of your kind coming up to Hallskar is a fat load of bones when the drifts melt.”

“There are always secrets waiting to be found,” Dar Cinlama said, sounding wounded.

“Not here there aren’t,” Kirot said. “But you go on killing yourself trying to chase whatever it is down. We’ll keep your things safe once you’re dead.”

The old Haaverkin turned and trundled away, puffing at his pipe.

“Kirot’s bad-tempered,” Dar Cinlama said, “but harmless if you don’t cross him. Seems like that’s the way for all the Orders. Sour. Your people should come with me. When the storm breaks we can all go down to Borja together. Lôdi’s a real city. You’ll draw real crowds there.”

“I think we’ll stay a bit,” Kit said. “We’ve only just come here after all. You should go on without us.”

The Dartinae shrugged. “Your choice. If you’re warm enough now, you should ask old Kirot for some soup and beer. You’re paying a horse for it.”

“Cheap at the price,” Marcus said.

The evening was spent talking with the Antean men and bringing the players back to themselves. Once they were recovered, Sandr and Kit put on a mock poetry competition that drew a bit of a crowd. Marcus sat by the fire drinking his beer and watching. The Haaverkin laughed at different times than Marcus expected them to, and watching Sandr and Kit respond to that, shaping their performance as they went, had a kind of beauty to it. Dar Cinlama, apart from being a little more impressed with himself than Marcus was with him, seemed a decent man. Eventually the fire burned low and the Haaverkin started bedding down on the floor of the lodge house. Dar Cinlama and the Anteans did the same, and before long the players were also in a little group, curled up under blankets together for warmth and comfort in strange surroundings. With the voices all gone quiet, Marcus could hear the storm still shrieking and ripping at the walls of the place. The glow of the embers and low flames in the great hearth threw ruddy shadows across the ceiling and along the walls.

He waited until he was almost certain that the others were asleep, then took himself through a short passage to a latrine that had been hacked out of the frozen ground. When he came back, rather than pulling the blankets over himself, he went to find Kit. As he’d expected, Kit’s eyes were open and bright.

“Well,” Marcus said. “Seems our friend may not have found the thing he was looking for.”

“No, he hasn’t,” Kit said. “And more, I think he’s close to giving up the chase. At least so far as this part of the world goes.”

“Think he’s wise in that?”

“No,” Kit said, his voice so low it was hardly audible even inches from his lips. “No, I think he’s being kept from it. Kirot was lying when he said there was nothing to be found here.”

“Seems we’ve sung that song before,” Marcus said. “Are you up for another verse?”

“Give us a week in Kirot’s company, and I think I can manage something.”

“Good that we have the powers of chaos and madness on our side sometimes. Still, I don’t know what we’re going to do with another damned magic sword.”

Cary muttered something, turned and stretched out one leg toward the dying fire.

“It isn’t a sword,” Kit said. “And it isn’t a giant.”

“What, then?”

“I don’t know,” Kit said, his eyes bright and merry. “But I believe I can find out.”

Cithrin

Cithrin lay in bed, her eyes focused on the ceiling. Focused on nothing. The pale ceiling looked blankly back down. The cracks in its plaster made shapes and faces. The pillow was too warm or else too cold. Another night without sleep. What did she need it for, anyway?

At last she pulled herself up and went through a rough parody of her morning ablutions. When she came out into the corridor, she was as nearly herself as she was likely to become. And in truth, very few people if anyone would notice how poorly she felt. It was the advantage of living a life of professional deceit that she could choose how much to show and how much to keep to herself. It was one of her primary skills. No one would see how she felt. Or that, at least, was the thought.

“You all right, Magistra?” Enen asked as soon as Cithrin stepped into the dining room. The smell of eggs and fish and peppers assaulted Cithrin’s nose, but she didn’t gag.

“Fine,” she said, sitting across from the Kurtadam woman. “Just didn’t sleep well.”

“Anticipating the Lord Regent’s arrival.”

Cithrin’s smile felt painted on and chipped at the edges.

“I suppose I am,” she said amiably.

The runners said that Palliako was still a day and a half away, and on the march. He was being accompanied by three hundred sword-and-bows detached from the siege at Kiaria for the sole purpose of seeing that he arrived safely on her doorstep. She didn’t know whether to feel flattered. Every day since she’d had Geder’s letter from Kiaria had been a little harder than the one before, but she told herself that once he had arrived and she could fall into the role she’d prepared for herself, it would be better.

“Where’s Yardem?” Cithrin asked, more as a way to postpone getting food than from any genuine curiosity.

“Off doing a little last-minute work,” Enen said. “Making the rounds of all the people we’ve worked with to let them know not to expect anything from us for a time at least. We figured that with the extra soldiery and Palliako himself and his priests lurking in the doorway, it’d be better to wrap up any outstanding business.”

“Probably true,” Cithrin said. It was the kind of thing that she should have thought. There were enough times in her past for her to know when she was drinking too much, and she was drinking too much. The knowledge made her feel slightly more in control of things, though it wasn’t going to have any particular effect on her actions. She would go right on drinking too much.

When her body finally felt it could stand the idea of food, she ate a sliced apple in cream and drank a cup of coffee, and afterward, she kept it down. She felt an unwarranted pride. She was the voice of the Medean bank in two cities. She was responsible for saving hundreds if not thousands of Timzinae from the occupation. And as her crowning glory, she didn’t puke up her food like a newborn babe.