A good man but one firmly in the past tense.

'What happened to him?' Kheda reached for a spoon and began eating sailer and the unknown berries, which proved to be refreshingly tart.

Sezarre shook his head. 'That's for Shek Kul to tell you.'

The slave took the other spoon and joined Kheda in eating the moist sailer grain. They had nearly reached the bottom of the bowl when Delai crunched down the pebble path towards them.

'My lord Shek Kul would speak with you again.'

Kheda rose and Sezarre gathered up the dishes and tray. As the slave vanished, Kheda felt oddly bereft.

'This way.' Delai did not take the path to the audience hall but instead led Kheda towards the central keep. They skirted the vast edifice again and Kheda saw he was being taken to the watchtower above the gate.

'Up the steps,' Delai grunted. 'To the top.'

Kheda complied and found himself in a room that took up the whole width of the tower's upper level, wide windows on every side with slatted wooden shutters fastened back. Shek Kul was waiting, looking out over the strait.

'Thank you for the breakfast,' said Kheda politely.

'Delai, guard the stairs. I want no one within earshot.' As the slave closed the door behind him, Shek Kul moved to sit on one of the benches that ringed the room below the windows.

'Events that I do not propose to discuss taught me not to condemn a man merely for the misfortune of meeting with magic' He smiled without humour. 'If that were so, I would have to condemn my wives, my firstborn and myself. But I know the depth and extent of enchantment's malice and I have watched ever since for any omen that suggests that hateful episode has blighted our futures. My neighbours may not agree but I have seen no such sign, so my concern lessens with each turn of the heavens.'

He looked at Kheda thoughtfully. 'I understand your concerns for the Daish domain. I don't know if I'd have had the courage to follow the path that I suspect has brought you here. Nor do I see any clue as to where your future path may lie, and that concerns me. You do realise that setting yourself against these wizards may well see you shunned by other domains, for even daring to risk the taint of magic, even if you save the southern reaches as a result?'

'Unwelcome as such a destiny would be, it would be a worthwhile trade,' Kheda said quietly.

Shek Kul's non-committal noise was an echo of his slave's. He twisted a thick silver ring around his thumb. It was set with an uncut polished emerald that could only be a talisman gem.

'I cannot tell you how to defeat magic that openly stalks the land and sows destruction in its path,' he said abruptly. 'Good fortune as much as good counsel saved this domain from the disaster that ill-starred woman would have brought down on us all. I can set you on a course that may lead you to the lore you seek, though I make no promise of that. I will tell you what I can, if I have your word, your oath to the death, that you will never make it known to another living being that I set you on this path.'

'I swear it,' Kheda answered fervently. 'By the skies that greeted my birth.'

Shek Kul frowned at some memory, not at Kheda. 'The magic threatening this domain and other malice besides was unmasked by a barbarian slave, newly come from the unbroken lands. He was being used somehow, in some plot of the enchanter who had beguiled Kaeska that was my wife with promises of the child she longed for. I don't know quite how this slave was involved and I made it my business not to enquire. That much alone would have warranted his death if there had not been omens in his favour. He was alone on the shore when a sea serpent showed itself in the strait. Any such appearance is a most powerful portent for my domain.' Shek Kul's scowl deepened. 'If it had eaten him, we'd all have known where we stood. As it turned out, the sea serpent passed him by. Just to complicate any interpretation, that was the day of Shek Nai's birth.'

Complication hardly seems an adequate description.

Kheda stayed silent, waiting for Shek Kul to resume.

'As the accuser, this slave was set to trial by combat against the foreigner Kaeska had brought here, the man accused of actually working the magic. She was irrevocably condemned when the wizard used his evil first to try ensnaring the slave and when that failed, to flee unseen.' Anger undimmed by the passage of time thickened Shek Kul's voice. 'So as well as the portent of the sea serpent, I saw this barbarian slave was somehow proof against wizardry, and in denouncing it had done my people and me great service. That should have won him his freedom and my order that some village of the domain provide for him for the rest of his life.' The warlord paused again.

'I gave him his freedom but wasn't about to see him enjoy it within my islands. I took his oath that he would never return and I judged him a man of honour, for all that he was a barbarian. Even so, I made sure I had word of his travels, until he departed the entire Archipelago,' Shek Kul added grimly.

'He did so in the company of a man whom I have long suspected of ill-dealings. He's a vice peddler, trades in intoxicants and pleasures of the flesh, sometimes with willing girls, sometimes not.' Shek Kul shrugged.

'There are always such parasites to batten on the strong. This man is different though and not just because he's barbarian born. He trades dreamsmokes and liquor for information and shares information in turn for goods and services, as he needs them. He's not alone in that but from what I've learned, his ledgers never quite balance and, believe me, I have made it my business to learn all I can about this man since my slave took up with him so readily. What this vice peddler does do is disappear to the north from time to time and not just to replenish his stocks of barbarian vices. He trades information to someone beyond our seas but not in any of those mainlander ports that our galleys deal with, that much is certain.'

Shek Kul twisted the talisman ring around his thumb.

'Vice traders generally only enjoy their rewards until some fellow degenerate sticks a dagger in their back or their offences warrant sinking by a warlord's trireme. Several rivals have tried to kill this man and failed. One died in his sleep of no cause that any healer could determine. Another was knocked from his own deck by a spar that was as sound as any other yet suddenly broke for no reason. This particular man often traded his skills in diving and swimming to repair ship's hulls yet he drowned without lifting a hand to save himself. After that, his enemies went after this vice peddler in several boats together, only to all wreck themselves in an unseasonable fog.'

Kheda saw Shek Kul looking expectantly at him. 'You suspect this vice peddler of working magic himself?'

'I don't know what to think. I wouldn't have spared him more than passing contempt had his path not crossed this barbarian slave's in a meeting that looked suspiciously contrived.' Shek Kul shrugged. 'Now I learn that as soon as rumours of this magic loose in the southern reaches drifted north, this vice peddler pursued them like a shark scenting blood in the water. He sailed south into the teeth of the rains and the fiercest storms of the season, so plainly has no fear of magic but rather some all-consuming interest. If I were you,' Shek Kul loaded his words with meaning, 'I would want to talk to this man.'

You're not telling me all you know. You have some definite reason to suspect this man of ties to barbarian wizardry. You cannot pursue him yourself though, not without doubling and redoubling the whispers that plague you.

'How would I find him?' Kheda wondered aloud.

'I make it my business to know where this man is.' Shek Kul's smile was predatory. 'I don't ever want him entering my waters unseen if I can help it. He stopped to take on water and food at the southernmost trading beach of the Jahal domain some days ago.'