He was not unaware of the ominous events of the preceding evening: sleep wasnever his. He had made a midnight creep through the sewage tunnels intoKadakithis' most private apartments, demonstrating that the old palace wasimpossible to secure, in hopes that the boy-prince would stop prattling about"winter palace/summer palace" and move his retinue into the new fortress Tempushad built for him on the eminently defensible spit near the lighthouse with thatvery end in mind. So it was that he had heard firsthand from the prince (who allthe while was making a valiant attempt not to bury his nose in a scentedhandkerchief he was holding almost casually but had fumbled desperately to findwhen first Tempus appeared, reeking of sewage, between two of his damask bedroomhangings) about the killer mist and the dozen lives it claimed. Tempus had lethis silence agree that the mages must be right, such a thing was totallymystifying, though the "thunder without rain" and its results had explaineditself to him quite clearly. Nothing is mysterious after three centuries andmore of exploring life's riddles, except perhaps why gods allow men magic, orwhy sorcerers allow men gods.

Equally reticent was Tempus when Ka-dakithis, wringing his lacquer-nailed hands,told him of the First Hazard's unique demise, and wondered with dismal sarcasmif the adepts would again try to blame the fall of one of their number onTempus' alleged sister (here he glanced sidelong up at Tempus from under hispale Imperial curls), the escaped mage-killer who, he was beginning to think,was a figment of sorcerers' nightmares: When they had had this "person" in thepits, awaiting trial and sentence, no two witnesses could agree on thedescription of the woman they saw; when she had escaped, no one saw her go. Itmight be that the adepts were purging their Order again, and didn't want anyoneto know, didn't Tempus agree? In the face of Kadakithis' carefully thought-outpolicy statement, meant to protect the prince from involvement and the soldierfrom implication, Tempus refrained from comment.

The First Hazard's death was a welcome surprise to Tempus, who indulged in anactive, if surreptitious, bloodfeud with the Mageguild. Sortilege of any naturehe could not abide. He had explored and discarded it all: philosophy, systems ofpersonal discipline such as Niko employed, magic, religion, the sort of eternalside-taking purveyed by the warrior-mages who wore the Blue Star. The man who inhis youth had proclaimed that those things which could be touched and perceivedwere those which he preferred had not been changed by time, only hardened.Adepts and sorcery disgusted him. He had faced wizards of true power in hisyouth, and his sorties upon the bloody roads of life had been colored by thoseencounters: he yet bore the curse of one of their number, and his hatred of themwas immortal. He had thought that even should he die, his despite would live onto harass them-he hoped that it were true. For to fight with enchanters ofskill, the same skills were needed, and he eschewed those arts. The price wastoo high. He would never acknowledge power over freedom, eternal servitude ofthe spirit was too great a cost for mastery in life. Yet a man could not standalone against witchfire-hatred. To survive, he had been forced to make a pactwith the Storm God, Vashanka. He had been brought to collar like a wild dog. Heheeled to Vashanka, these days, at the god's command. But he did not like it.

There were compensations, if such they could be called. He lived interminably,though he could not sleep at all? he was immune to simple, nasty war-magics; hehad a sword which cut through spells like cheese and glowed when the god took aninterest. In battle he was more than twice as fast as a mortal man-while theymoved so slowly he could do as he willed upon a crowded field which was a meleeto all but him, and even extend his hyper speed to his mount, if the horse wasof a certain strain and tough constitution. And wounds he took healed quicklyinstantly if the god loved him that day, more slowly if they had beenquarreling. Only once-when he and his god had had a serious falling-out overwhether or not to rape his sister-had Vashanka truly deserted him. But eventhen, as if his body were simply accustomed to doing it, his regenerativeabilities remained-much slowed, very painful, but there.

For these reasons, and many more, he had a mystique, but no charisma. Only amongmercenaries could he look into eyes free from the glint of fear. He stayed muchamong his own, these days in Sanctuary. Abarsis' death had struck home harderthan he cared to admit. It seemed, sometimes, that one more soul laying down itslife for him and one more burden laid upon him would surpass his capacity and hewould crack apart into the desiccated dust he doubtless was.

Crossing the whitewashed court, passing the stables, his Tros horses stucksteel-gray muzzles over their half-doors and whickered. He stopped and strokedthem, speaking soft words of comradeship and endearment, before he left to lethimself out the back gate to the training ground, a natural amphitheatre betweenhillocks where the Stepsons drilled the few furtive Ilsigs wishing to qualifyfor the militia-reserves Kadakithis was funding.

He was thinking, as he closed the gate behind him and squinted out over thearena (counting heads and fitting names to them where men sat perched atop thefence or lounged against it or raked sand or counted off paces for sunset'sfunerary games), that it was a good thing no one had been able to determine thecause of the ranking Hazard's death. He would have to do something about hissister Cime, and soon- something substantive. He had given her the latitudebefitting a probable sibling and childhood passion, and she had exceeded hisforbearance. He had been willing to overlook the fact that he had been payingher debts with his soul ever since an archmage had cursed him on her account,but he was not willing to ignore the fact that she refused to abstain fromtaking down magicians. It might be her right, in general, to slay sorcerers, butit was not her right to do it here, where he was pinned tight between law andmorality as it was. The whole conundrum of how he might successfully deal withCime was something he did not want to contemplate. So he did not, just then,only walked, cold brown grass between his toes, to the near side of the chesthigh wooden fence behind which, on happier days, his men schooled Ilsigs andeach other. Today they were making a bier there, dragging dry branches from thebrake beyond Vashanka's altar, a pile of stones topping a rise, due east, wherethe charioteers worked their teams.

Sweat never stayed long enough to drip in the chill winter air, but breathspuffed white from noses and mouths in the taut pearly light, and grunts andtaunts carried well in the crisp morning air. Tempus ducked his head and rubbedhis mouth to hide his mirth as a stream of scatological invective sounded: oneof the branch-draggers exhorting the loungers to get to work. Were cursessoldats, the Stepsons would all be men of ease. The fence-sitters, countercursing the work-boss gamely, slipped to the ground; the loungers gave up theirwall. In front of him, they pretended to be untouched by the ill omen ofaccidental death. But he, too, was uneasy in the face of tragedy without reason,bereft of the glory of death in the field. All of them feared accident, mindlessfortune's disfavor: they lived by luck, as much as by the god's favor. As thedozen men, more or less in a body, headed toward the altar and the brake beyond,Temp us felt the god rustling inside him, and took time to upbraid Va-shanka forwasting an adherent. They were not on the best of terms, the man and his god.His temper was hard-held these days, and the gloom of winter quartering wasmaking him fey-not to mention reports of the Mygdonians' foul depredations tothe far north, the quelling of which he was not free to join....