People were scurrying around like panicky mice when Croaker recovered. The Radisha knelt over her brother. The more collected bystanders had dragged the attackers away. Two seemed to be dead, a third badly injured. Croaker got to his knees, pressed fingers against his ribs. Pain answered but it was not the pain of broken bones. He’d gotten through it with bruises. He pushed toward the Radisha, asked, “How bad is he?”

“Just unconscious, I think. I don’t see any wounds.” She did not look at him. There was shouting way up the street. Belated help was on its way.

Croaker looked into the coach.

Soulcatcher was gone.

Howler was gone.

“He took her?”

The Radisha looked up. Her eyes widened. “You! I thought there was something familiar...” Soulcatcher’s spells had perished? He was himself now?

“Where is she?”

“That thing that attacked us...”

“A sorcerer called the Howler. As powerful and nasty as the Shadowmasters. Working for them now. Did he take her?”

“I think so.”

“Damn!” He lowered himself gingerly, recovered the lance, used it to support himself. “You people! Get out of here! Go home. You’re in the way. Wait! Did anyone see what happened?”

A few witnesses confessed. He demanded, “The thing that fled. Where did it go?”

The witnesses indicated the alley.

Using the lance as a crutch-he had a badly twisted ankle to go with the bruised ribs-he hobbled into the alleyway.

Nothing there. The Howler was gone and Catcher with him.

As he headed back he realized what the absence of Catcher’s spells meant. He was free. For a while he was free.

The Prahbrindrah Drah was sitting up. The onlookers, realizing their prince had been attacked, were turning ugly, threatening the attacker who had survived. Croaker bellowed, “Back off! We need him alive. I said go home. That’s an order.”

Some recognized him now. A voice said, “It’s the Liberator!” The title had been bestowed by public acclaim when he and the Company had undertaken to defend Taglios.

Some went. Some stayed. Those moved back.

The racket of help too late drew nearer.

The prince looked up at Croaker in amazement. Croaker offered him a hand. The prince accepted it. On his feet, he whispered, “Is the disguise part of some grand strategy?”

“Later.” The prince must think he had masqueraded as Ram all along. “Can you walk? Let’s get off the street before more trouble finds us.”

Help arrived in the form of a half dozen palace guards. They had been summoned by someone with enough presence of mind to go for them.

The prince asked, “Someone snatched Lady?” Bemused, he muttered, “I guess that was the whole point, else we’d all be dead.”

“That’s my guess. Are they in for a surprise. Let’s get moving.” As they started walking, surrounded by the guards, Croaker asked, “Where was your pet wizard while all this was happening?”

“Why?” the Radisha demanded.

“That little shit has been on the Shadowmasters’ payroll for weeks. Ask him about it.”

The prince said, “I’d love to. But a demon tried to kill him and almost succeeded. He’s in a coma. Won’t come back.”

Croaker glanced back. “Somebody ought to bring the prisoner. He might tell us something useful.”

He would not. He had died while no one was looking.

Croaker was amazed at himself, taking charge the way he was. Maybe it was pressure from so many months of helplessness. Maybe it was urgency brought on by the certainty that he would not have long to grab hold of his destiny.

The prince had to be right. Lady had been the object of the attack. That meant the bad boys had lost track of her somehow and had thought Catcher was her. He smiled grimly. They would not be prepared for the tiger they had caught.

How long would Catcher toy with them before revealing herself? Long enough?

Count on nothing. Hurry.

He by damned had to grab for all he could get while the opportunity existed.

Croaker finished his story. The prince and his sister had listened agape. The Radisha recovered her poise first. She’d always had the harder edge. “Way back, Smoke cautioned us that there might be more going on than met the eye. That there might be players in the game we didn’t see.”

All eyes turned to the unconscious wizard. Croaker said, “Prince, you used that sticker pretty well tonight. Think you’d have trouble pricking him if he asked for it?”

“No trouble at all. After what he’s done the trouble I’ll have is not sticking him before we get a story out of him.”

“He’s not all bad. He walked into a trap trying to do what he thought was right. His problem is, he gets an idea in his head and he can’t get it out if it’s wrong, no matter what evidence you hit him with. He decided we were the bad guys come back for general mayhem and he just couldn’t change his mind. Probably never will. If you execute him he’ll die thinking he’s a hero and martyr who tried to save Taglios. I think I can waken him. When I do, you stand by to stick him if he tries any tricks. Even a puny wizard is deadly when he wants.”

Croaker took an hour but did tease the wizard out of life’s twilight and got him to choke out his story.

Afterward, the prince asked, “What can we do? Even if he’s as contrite as he says, the Shadowmasters have a hold we can’t break. I don’t want to kill him but he is a wizard. We couldn’t keep him locked up.”

“He can stay locked up in his mind. You’d have to force-feed him and clean him like a baby but I can put him back into the coma.”

“Will he heal?”

“His body should. I can’t do anything about what the devil did to his soul.” Smoke’s past cowardice looked like outrageous courage now.

“Do it. We’ll deal with him when there’s time.”

Croaker did it.

Shadowspinner’s shadows remained blind to my whereabouts. He did not seem able to adjust. And his bats were useless. Were in fact extinct in that part of the world where my band stole through the night.

I signalled a halt a mile from where my scouts said Spinner had established his camp. We had come a long way in a short time. We needed rest.

Narayan settled beside me. He plucked at his rumel, whispered, “Mistress, I’m of a divided mind. Most of me really believes the goddess wants me to do this, that it will be the greatest thing I’ve ever done for her.”

“But?”

“I’m scared.”

“You make that sound shameful.”

“I haven’t been this frightened since my first time.”

“This isn’t your ordinary victim. The stakes are higher than you’re used to.”

“I know. And knowing wakens doubts of my ability, of my worthiness... even of my goddess.” He seemed ashamed to admit that, too. “She is the greatest Deceiver of all, Mistress. It amuses her sometimes to mislead her own. And, while this is a great and necessary deed, even I, who was never a priest, notice that the omens have not been favorable.”

“Oh?” I had noticed no omens, good or bad.

“The crows, Mistress. They haven’t been with us tonight.”

I had not noticed. I had grown that accustomed to them. I assumed they were there whether I saw them or not. He was right. There were no crows anywhere.

That meant something. Probably something important. I could not imagine their master allowing me freedom from observation for even a minute. And their absence was not my doing. And I doubted it was Shadowspinner’s.

“I hadn’t noticed, Narayan. That’s interesting. Personally, it’s the best omen I’ve seen in months.”

He frowned at me.

“Worry not, my friend. You’re Narayan, the living legend. The saint-to-be. You’ll do fine.” I shifted from cant to standard Taglian. “Blade. Swan. Ready?”

“Lead on, my lovely,” Swan said. “I’ll follow you anywhere.” The more stressed he became the more flip he was.