Li blinked and stared. "But in Telflamm, they said Brin was the last survivor."

"Shows what you know," spouted the Hooded's interpreter. Li growled at her.

"She's right," said Tycho. "If you think Yu Mao might still be alive, why not someone else from the ship?"

Li pressed his lips together and looked down at the scarred man then at Tycho. "Can you heal him like you healed me?"

"Not old scars like these."

"I mean can you wake him up?" Tycho nodded. Li picked up a sword. "Do it."

The bard turned back to the Hooded. Taking a deep breath, he placed his hands over the man's forehead and sang. The song was complex and soft. It was, Li realized, the longest he had heard Tycho sing since they had met-all of the other spells he had cast were short and either jarring or slippery and subtle. For a moment, he lost himself in awe. Tycho's voice wasn't quite as stunning as Veseene's, but it was still astonishing. And he chose to sing in taverns?

The song ended and Tycho stepped back. The bloody cut on the Hooded's head had vanished. His breathing was deep and regular. His eyes had slipped all the way shut.

Tycho reached down and flicked the end of his nose. The Hooded started. His eyes snapped open.

Li made sure that the first thing he saw was the end of his sword. The Hooded's eyes rose to meet his. They narrowed sharply and flicked to the side and found his interpreter. He said… something. The words came out mangled, a harsh string of sounds twisted by a scarred tongue. Li could guess at their meaning though. He hissed and flicked the sword. "She's fine," he said in Common. "You just answer my questions."

The man's eyes narrowed again as if he had not expected Li to speak the language. Li could have cursed himself-all of the silences that he had thought were Yu Mao's stunned surprise were just moments of confusion. The Hooded simply didn't speak Shou. "What's your name?" he said harshly. "No 'Hooded' or 'Stitched Man.' I've had enough of that."

The man grumbled something and, across the room, his interpreter said, "Staso."

Li shut her out, focusing on the scarred man. "You served on a pirate ship called the Sow." Staso nodded slowly. "What do you know of a Shou named Kuang Yu Mao?"

Staso growled and spat. Li caught the spittle on the blade of the sword and flicked it back at him. "I said what do you know-" Staso cut him off with a snarling response.

"I see him in your face. Take your revenge and kill me now because I'm not going to tell you anything about that serpent!"

Serpent? "I came west to kill my brother, not you," Li snarled back. "Tell me what I want to know and you'll live."

Tycho winced. "Li, that might not be such a good idea…" Li ignored him and met Staso's hard gaze.

"When I sent his name up to you," he guessed, "you told your man to get rid of us fast because you were afraid?.

"I fear nothing. Death has already touched me." Staso's scar-stretched lips curled back even further. He held up his chin and turned his head to display his scarred cheeks. " Yu Mao did this." Li's jaw clenched. Tycho caught his eye and gestured, miming a spell. Behind them both, Staso's young woman gasped and called a warning. Staso just laughed, a horrid gobbling sound. He babbled something. The young woman didn't translate it.

Li twisted around and glared at her as Staso repeated his babbling. "What's he saying?"

She swallowed and said, "You don't need magic. I'll tell you what you want to know." Staso smiled. "But if you love your brother, you won't like it."

"I don't like you, Staso" Li spat. He settled into a crouch on the carpeted floor. The sword didn't waver. "Try to surprise me. I know that Yu Mao betrayed his ship to the Sow and murdered the Shou with him. I know that he was your sorceress-captain's lover. Tell me more."

The scarred man's eyes hardened. "How about that he was a merciless savage?" He watched Li intently as if looking for a reaction. Li didn't give him one. After a moment, Staso continued. "Yu Mao was a vicious man, more cruel than any of us-except possibly Brin. The two of them got along well, but the rest of the crew came to fear Yu Mao. He was as likely to put steel into one of Sow's crew as into any enemy we fought. We went to the captain with our concerns, but she was too lust-sotted with her exotic Shou man to listen. That was her error. Yu Mao tired of her before she tired of him. He'd been with us barely a year before he and Brin hatched a plan for mutiny."

"On the eve of Highharvestide in the Year of the Unstrung Harp, after one of the best seasons of plunder we'd ever seen, Yu Mao woke the captain with one of his great chopping swords to her neck in the bed that they shared. He and Brin hauled her out and tied her to the mainmast. Then they called all of the crew out on deck. They had the support of some mutineers already, but not enough. So they offered us a choice: join them or leave Sow, alive but surrendering their share of the booty we'd gathered. Anybody who wanted to fight was welcome to try that, too, but they'd be in for a world of hurt." Staso drew a deep breath. "And to show how serious they were, Yu Mao took the captain's arms, stretched them out above her head, and drove a spike through her hands and into the mast!"

His broken voice dropped low and his interpreter's with it. "There're some in every crew that put themselves and their gold first above all else, and they had an easy choice. But some of us know a good captain is worth more than gold and we knew then that if we left Sow, our captain was going to die a mean death. As soon as we saw the captain stretched out along the mast like a fish for the gutting, the moon rising full behind her, something in us broke." Staso's eyes were bright and wild, and as he spoke his voice rose with fiery passion. "Lord of All Thieves, we put up a fight! There wasn't a man or woman among the mutineers who didn't cross steel or knock heads with us. It was all for naught, though-there were twice as many as cared for gold and blood as cared for shipmates' loyalty, and numbers held the deck. I got closer than anyone to the captain, so close I could see her eyes rolled back and her mouth moving in pain as the blood ran from her hands down her arms. I couldn't get close enough, though. Yu Mao himself stopped my charge."

Staso sneered at Li. "You aren't half the swordsman he was. He fought me all the way back to the ship's rail, knocked my sword from my hand, and would have done me in right then if the captain hadn't opened her eyes and screamed out." He leaned forward, almost spitting himself on Li's blade. "All that muttering and mouthing wasn't pain-madness, it was magic-the last of the captain's magic, all poured out at once."

"Her voice swept down the deck like a cold wind in the moonlight as she turned her soul to working a curse. Everyone stopped and listened-everyone except those of us who had fought for her and lived. We knew a break when we saw it, and we ran for the ship's boats. I gave Yu Mao a good one in the gut and grabbed his swords before I went. While the captain called out her curse, we piled into one of the boats and got ourselves off Sow faster than spawning sea-devils."

"What was this curse?" breathed Tycho.

"It was three-fold," Staso hissed, sitting back. "On the crew that had turned against her, a promise of a cold grave, that the Sow wouldn't sail into spring. On Brin, the mate who had betrayed her, a wish that the sea take him like the pig he was and that he squeal his last in Umber-lee's arms."

"And on Yu Mao?" Li asked. Staso met his eyes.

"An oath on her blood that he would not live to forget Sow" His breath grated. "Those were the last words that she spoke-Brin put his dagger in her throat before she could say anything more."

"And?"

Staso's ruined face went still. After a moment, he said softly, "And the ship went mad. From our boat on the water, we heard Yu Mao first, laughing at the captain's curse, telling everyone it was nothing but a madwoman's words, a spell broken before it was complete. Brin joined in, and the mutineers did too. There was a commotion, and we saw them carry something to the ship's rail. It took us a moment before we realized that it was the captain's body-Bitch Queen's mercy, she was so shriveled she might have died in a desert instead of at sea! They threw her overboard and the water took her without so much as a splash. That might have scared a few of them, but then Yu Mao called for a bow. We rowed like demons, but when Yu Mao had his bow, he nocked an arrow and took aim at us."