Ghort jogged out and intercepted the animal. It did not resist his guidance. It had no spirit left.

Hecht and Renfrow followed Ghort. Something bad had happened. Horse and rider alike were covered with dried blood, not all of it their own.

Ghort said, "It's Ogier. Three-fourths dead."

"They lied to us," Hecht said.

"Priests? Tell lies? You must be joking. But, no. That's not it. Look at these wounds."

Hecht and the Imperial walked round man and beast. The horse's nose practically dragged on the pavements. Hecht untied Ogier. Ghort and Renfrow lowered him to the ground. Hecht said, "He might've run into a rabid bear. Or a hungry lion."

"Lion? Excuse me, Pipe. There ain't been no fuckin' lions in these parts since Old Brothen Imperial times."

Renfrow agreed. "The ancients used them up in their blood games. Once in a while one would cross the Escarp Gibr al-Tar back then, maybe, but they were even hunted out on the far coast of the Mother Sea by the time of the Praman Conquest."

"More than I needed to know." Hecht's amulet was responding to the residual shadow clinging to the deserter and his steed. They had fallen foul of something powerful.

Gawkers from the Knight of Wands began to gather. Hecht and Renfrow kept them back while Ghort tried to question the deserter.

Ogier was not hurt as badly as all the blood made it seem. But he would need luck to survive. Claw wounds always festered.

One client of the Knight of Wands confessed to having some small skills as a healer. Once he was satisfied that no one would denounce him to the Church he went to work on the deserter.

The Episcopal Chaldarean Church suffered from a schizophrenic attitude toward powers derived from the Instrumentalities of the Night. It railed against congress with sorcerers and witches, yet some of its greatest dignitaries were among the most powerful mages known. Talented folks not on the inside frequently suffered persecution. Particularly where the Witchfinders of the Special Office roamed.

"Well?" Hecht asked when Ghort finally came away. "Did he have a story?"

"Fraught with irony."

"I'm surprised you even know two of those three words."

"All right. Hang on. I'm going to do this all in one long blast. Then we need to get on down the road."

"So, go."

"Ogier and Aubero ran into robbers. Who robbed them. While the robbers were arguing over whether they should kill them it suddenly got icy cold. A mist closed in. The moonlight faded away. Men started screaming. Something with claws and rotten breath mauled him but got distracted before it finished him off. He passed out. He woke up at daybreak. Some of the horses were missing. The rest, along with his brother and all the robbers, were dead, some torn to pieces. He headed here because it was the only place he could think of. He kept passing out. He hid out whenever he felt that coming on. He remembers our three priests charging past. He tried to warn them but they didn't hear him. A while later screaming broke out back the way he had come. He kept moving. He found a saddled horse grazing in a field. He caught it and calmed it, mounted up and tied himself on in case he passed out again. Something in the woods roared and started crashing toward them. The horse panicked. It ran till it couldn't run anymore. Then it kept walking. And here he is."

"What happened to the money?" Some things of the Night had an abiding loathing for silver. Iron bothered a lot more, though those daunted by the ignoble metal were mainly minor entities.

"Whoever had the coins would've stood the best chance of surviving." He went back to Ogier briefly, then returned to Hecht looking puzzled. "He had some silver on him that the robbers didn't find. Their captain took the money. But he and the rest all ended up dead. The money must still be there. Somewhere."

Though Ghort kept his voice down, he was overheard. Members of the crowd began to find interests elsewhere. Despite complete ignorance of how much might be involved.

"Ain't that amazing?" Ghort beckoned the one-eyed man, whispered briefly, then said, "We got to get on the road, Pipe. Trouble ain't gonna wait on us down there."

And so they did, turning their backs to a sudden flow northward. Hecht muttered, "They're idiots. Eight or ten men have just been killed by a monster and all they can think about is there might be money on the corpses. What were you whispering about, there at the end?"

"About him taking care of Ogier till he can get on his feet again. I explained about the money Ogier has. And how things will turn nasty for the Knight of Wands if he don't do right by Ogier."

"I see." And saw more than Ghort perhaps intended.

Ogier and Aubero might have been family after all.

Princess Helspeth, Grafina fon Supfer, Marquesa of Runjan, and so forth, had come to Alten Weinberg thinking the Emperor meant to celebrate her twentieth birthday. She went to her knees three times before her little brother, Lothar, Emperor of the Grail Empire. In the presence, now, she suspected his summons had nothing to do with her birthday. The hall was filled with the ravens and vultures who orbited Lothar these days. And Katrin had come, too.

But not Ferris Renfrow. She would have been more comfortable if Renfrow were visible. You could call Ferris Renfrow the conscience of the Empire.

Helspeth did not like bending the knee but her brother was acting in his official capacity tonight. Probably reluctantly. In front of Omro va Still-Patter, Grand Duke of Hilandle, first among equals in the Council Advisory, styled the Protector. Accompanying Hilandle, interposing themselves between the Emperor and the lesser lights in the hall, were the Master of the Wardrobe, the Master of the Privy Purse, and the Lord Admiral Vondo fon Tyre, whose fleet was almost entirely imaginary. These men had gotten their claws into the Imperial power simply because Lothar was still five years short of his majority.

Helspeth's older sister Katrin, Grafina fon Kretien and Gordon, Princess Apparent, also knelt. She did not disguise her irritation, nor her loathing, for Hilandle and his cronies. Lothar was her baby brother, her beloved "Mushin." She had pampered him through countless illnesses, spoiling him terribly. Helspeth did not like or think well of her sister but she ould not deny that Katrin loved, nurtured, and indulged her brother selflessly. And, like Helspeth, she loathed the grasping old men who had seized control of the boy.

Tall, lean, blond, and beautiful, clad simply in dark clothing, Katrin Ege seemed cold and remote. She had her father's stubborn will but little of the magnetism that had served him so well. That lack, her sex, and the ambition of so many nobles put her in a weaker position than she liked. But the Protector and his cronies were blinding themselves willfully, seeing either of the Ege daughters as a weakling.

All the children of the Ferocious Little Hans were in weaker positions than they liked.

Johannes had compelled the Electors to fashion an Act of Will and Succession that enacted, published, and ratified by the Patriarch and Collegium would withstand every possible challenge. But Johannes Blackboots had not anticipated his own death in battle. He had expected to outlive his sickly son and see the Imperial throne passed on through Katrin and her sons. He had hoped to forge powerful alliances through both daughters.

Negotiations had come and gone before Johannes fell at al-Khazen. No arrangements had been finalized.

Helspeth had been included in the succession almost as an afterthought. Johannes was thorough in everything. After Helspeth, the sons of his sister Anies were named in the Act.