Lander stopped in his tracks, his hopeful mood deflated. "Kadumi won't be coming."

Sa'ar's face fell. "I was hoping you had decided to leave him with the camels for some reason."

"No," Ruha said, stepping to Lander's side. "He's dead."

"What happened?" demanded Utaiba.

"A Zhentarim assassin killed him," Lander explained. "He died defending me."

Sa'ar frowned, as did Utaiba and several other sheikhs. "An assassin?" he demanded. "How could he follow you across the Shoal of Thirst?"

"The Zhentarim can go wherever we can go," Lander answered. "Don't underestimate them."

"You would have seen him from miles away," Sa'ar protested.

"A party followed us for two days, then disappeared," Ruha supplied. "Kadumi and I thought they had all turned back, but Lander kept glimpsing one who hadn't. We didn't believe him, and the assassin caught us at the Sister of Rains."

"Surely you posted a watch?" asked a sheikh Lander did not know. The man had a heavy brow line and a sour expression.

"He used magic to make himself invisible," Ruha replied.

The sour-faced sheikh rolled his eyes. "Invisible," he scoffed. "Were you attacked by an assassin or a djinn?"

"The Zhentarim can do this, Sheikh Haushi," Utaiba said. "Both Sa'ar and myself have seen it."

Haushi shook his head. "I don't believe it."

Lander took the assassin's ring from his pocket and slipped it on. When he disappeared before their very eyes, both the warriors and the sheikhs gasped and stepped away, automatically reaching for their weapons.

The Harper removed the ring and held it up for the sheikhs to see. "Magic. With it, the Zhentarim can do many things you would think impossible." The Harper turned to Sa'ar. "Kadumi's death grieves us all," he said, hoping to change the subject. "But Ruha and I have survived to bring magic to the Bedine. You conceded that we could only do this with the favor of the gods. Here we are. Will you honor your agreement?"

Sa'ar avoided Lander's gaze, looking toward Utaiba. "We didn't think you'd make it."

"That does not change our agreement," Ruha said.

Lander was surprised at how hard the widow was pressing the issue. Before Kadumi's death, she had seemed more interested in joining him in Sembia than in working to save her people. Now, she appeared positively determined to drive the Zhentarim out of Anauroch.

It was Utaiba who finally answered Ruha. "As far as the Raz'hadi and the Mahwa are concerned, you have proven that the gods favor your magic," the wiry sheikh said. "The other sheikhs are not yet convinced."

"No doubt because you did not bother to tell them of our agreement," Ruha observed.

"True," Utaiba admitted.

"We have convinced all the sheikhs to take the matter before the Mother of the Waters," Sa'ar added defensively. "We will take you and your spellbook to the House of the Moon."

"We agreed to take Ruha's magic only," Haushi interrupted, pointing at the ring in Lander's hand. "We said nothing of Zhentarim magic."

"The ring is not important. Do with it what you will," Lander said, holding it out to Haushi.

The sour-faced sheikh backed away as if the Harper were offering him the head of an asp. "I don't want that thing!" he snapped, pointing at the lake. "Magic is for the gods!"

"As you wish," Lander said, spinning toward the lake and throwing the ring as hard as he could. It landed two hundred yards from shore with a barely perceptible splash. "Now let us go to the House of the Moon!"

"You should eat first," suggested Utaiba. "This could take some time."

"We will eat later," Ruha said, casting a hungry look in the direction of the roasted gazelle.

Lander also cast a longing glance at Sa'ar's tent. As hungry as he was, it seemed more important to resolve the issue of whether or not Ruha's magic would be accepted by the Bedine. "My stomach will wait," he said. "The Zhentarim will not."

"Then, by all means, let's go to the House of the Moon," Sa'ar said, motioning toward the lakeshore.

The sheikh led the way down to the lake. Two round boats, made by stretching camel hides over a wooden frame, lay beached on the shore. Sa'ar, Utaiba, Lander, Ruha, and two more sheikhs piled into one of the boats, and six sheikhs climbed into the other.

Paddling toward the small island in the middle of the lake, Lander realized that the tribesmen were not very good boat-makers. Water poured through the stitches, and the awkward craft rode low and clumsy. The Bedine showed no sign of anxiety, but the Harper was glad when they reached the grassy shore of the small island. Had either of the boats foundered, he was sure he would have been the only one who could swim.

The island was a small, grass-covered hill no more than a hundred yards across. The alabaster palace stood on top of the hill. Its three-quarter circle trapped At'ar's light and cast it back with a silvery radiance that immediately struck Lander as unimaginably soft and peaceful. He could easily see why the Bedine had concluded Eldath inhabited the structure. If they were right, Lander hoped the goddess would favor them with a sign.

While two sheikhs returned across the lake to fetch the five who had been left behind, Lander and Ruha followed the others to the palace. When they reached it, a warm shiver of exhilaration ran down the Harper's spine. The building was made of a chalky, translucent desert rock cut so thin that he could see the shapes of a throne and chairs through it.

The small company waited for a few others to cross the lake and join them, then entered the palace through a gracefully curved foyer. The short corridor had been carved from a single stone and shaped without any visible joints. It opened into a circular room, on the far side of which sat a huge throne gilded with hammered copper.

To each side, the throne was flanked by a row of stout chairs of darkly colored wood. The marble floor was so black that, if the chairs and throne had not been sitting upon it, Lander would have sworn it was a bottomless pit. The ceiling was a single slab of translucent rock. Through it filtered a light that bathed the room in warm radiance.

A tangible feeling of tranquillity came over Lander, and he found himself bowing his head to Eldath. Simply entering the palace, it seemed to him, was worth missing the feast now languishing back in Sa'ar's tent.

"I've never seen anything so magnificent," the Harper said. "Who built it?"

The sheikhs shrugged.

"The House of Moon is as old as the gods. It was here before the Scattering."

The words came from Ruha's mouth, but the voice that spoke them did not belong to the widow. The sounds were almost a song, with a peaceful, soothing quality to them that Lander had never heard in any woman's speech. The voice, which could only be described as higher than soprano, seemed to enter his head without passing through his ears.

"Eldath?" Lander gasped. He did not know whether he was hearing the goddess's voice or the effects of one of Ruha's spells.

"What magic is this?" demanded Haushi.

The widow glared at the astonished sheikh. "This is no magic," she answered in the strange voice. She waved to the dark chairs, then sat in the copper-gilded throne herself. "There are sixteen chairs-fifteen for the sheikhs of the fifteen tribes that will fight the Zhentarim, one for the Harper who has risked his life to help you."

When the stunned sheikhs did not move, Ruha-Eldath said, "You do not have much time, Sheikhs. The Zhentarim have made an alliance with the Ju'ur Dai, and even now the traitors are leading the Zhentarim into the hills guarding Elah'zad. Do you intend to make a battle plan or to let the invaders defile the Sacred Grove?"

The sharp words stunned the sheikhs and Lander into taking their seats, then Haushi asked, "What of Ruha's magic?"