“A neat spell,” Hammen gasped, struggling to keep up with Garth.

“It helps sometimes, especially if the searcher is not concentrating,” Garth announced matter-of-factly.

“What now, Master?”

Garth looked back at Hammen.

“Master, is it?”

“After what you pulled off back there. It was beautiful.”

“What do you mean?”

“Triggering that fight.”

“I didn’t do anything,” Garth replied.

Hammen hawked and spit in reply.

Crossing the Great Plaza, Garth moved straight toward the Ingkara House. The front of the House was packed with scores of fighters, who were watching the confusion at the other end of the plaza and roaring with appreciative delight.

Garth moved straight toward them and for a moment they barely noticed that he had crossed the line of paving stones and was now on the semicircle of purple that arced out around their House.

“Hey, a one-eyed Gray. Are you running away?”

Garth turned toward the speaker, who stood laughing.

“I want to join Ingkara,” Garth said, his voice cool and even.

Several of the fighters started to laugh and taunt him.

“A little too hot over there, isn’t it? Might get hurt. And now you can’t go back since you ran.”

Even as he turned and started to extend his hands a young Purple fighter, his tunic blackened and singed, came racing up to the crowd. He slowed and, turning, looked at Garth.

“That’s him. He’s the one that started it!” the new arrival shouted.

The fighter preparing to challenge Garth looked over at the scorched messenger with surprise.

“He started the whole thing. He took down Naru and then fought a dozen of them to a standstill,” the young Purple gasped.

Garth’s challenger looked around in confusion and Garth made the defiant and self-confident gesture of lowering his hands.

“Naru?” his challenger asked.

“He needs a new set of teeth,” the messenger announced excitedly as if he had somehow performed the feat himself, “and he’ll have to fish somewhere up under his ribs for what’s left of his manhood the way this one-eye kicked him.”

The Purple fighters looked first at the messenger and then back at Garth, several of them slowly breaking into grins of delight. The crowd started to part, the fighters lowering their heads in respect as a lean, angular form moved toward Garth, his purple robe made of the richest velvet and covered with heavy rope like coils of gold embroidery.

Garth lowered his head in a respectful manner.

“Jimak, Master of Ingkara,” Garth said.

Jimak slowly looked Garth up and down as if examining some minor work of art that he might consider buying if the price was right.

“You bested Naru like Balzark over there said?”

“It is as he said,” Garth replied.

“And fought a dozen Browns until help arrived.”

“I had some help from a Benalish woman but, in general, yes.”

Jimak nodded as if pondering a deep thought.

“Why come to us? I should send you back to Tulan for punishment for breaking the peace of Festival.”

“Because if I beat Naru I can beat others and your House will profit. Besides, I am not fully initiated into Gray yet so technically I am free to leave when I please. Those are the rules as you know and frankly I’d prefer to skip the punishment coming out of the little incident over there.” He nodded back across the Plaza, which was now wreathed in coiling smoke illuminated by bright flashes of flame.

“I daresay Ingkara now has a couple dozen less fighters to compete against come Festival thanks to my effort and I wish to profit from that. Beyond that you can profit as well, so this could be to our mutual benefit.”

Jimak looked haughtily at Garth and then the thinnest of smiles broke his skull-like features.

“BOTH OF YOU SHUT UP!”

Tulan and Kirlen, Master of Bolk, looked over angrily at the Grand Master.

“You might be Grand Master,” Tulan said coolly, “but you have no right to address us as if we were your servants.”

“I have the right to address you any way I might please,” Zarel Ewine replied haughtily. “You are in my city, and both of you, in fact all four of you, should remember that I do know certain things about you that would best not be known by others.”

Tulan shifted uneasily. Zarel smiled inwardly. Tulan was a coward who could always be intimidated.

“If you’re referring to the massacre of Turquoise, you were the instigator of that,” Kirlen replied smoothly, the rings on her bony fingers flashing in the lamplight.

She looked up at him with a cool disdain, leaning heavily on her staff for support. Her face was always disturbing to Zarel, for it was the face of death, the face of a fighter who had extended her life through the use of spells to the very edge, until flesh and bone were held together by the slenderest of threads. Her skin was yellowed, like old rotting parchment, and hung from her skull in loose, wrinkled folds as if it were about to peel away in corruption. There was always a faint smell to her, the smell of moldering graves, decay, and darkness.

Zarel looked at the Brown Master coldly.

“But I am the Grand Master and I did it at the behest of Kuthuman. As for the four of you, no one knows of your parts.”

“So go on and tell the mob, I don’t give a damn,” Kirlen cackled. “Besides, it is ancient history now and those idiots on the street don’t give a copper. All they care about is what will happen in the next Festival, so don’t threaten us with that old line.”

“Did your man break the rules of oquorak?” Zarel asked, deciding it was best to shift ground.

“Does it matter? She wasn’t even a fighter, just a mere warrior, a Benalish woman at that.”

“Duels of magic are supposedly forbidden here,” the Grand Master snapped angrily, “but oquorak is legal and the mob expects the rules to be observed.”

“Are you ruled by the mob?” Tulan sniffed.

“No, damn you. But I’ve got half a million people living in this city and at least another million pouring in for Festival. If they riot, it’s my property that’s damaged, my taxpayers who go and get themselves killed. Oquorak, at least, keeps them entertained until the Festival, but if it gets out of hand, next thing you know fighters are using magic spells on the street and things get ugly.”

“I’ll run an inquest into this if that will make you happy,” Kirlen finally replied in a bored tone. “Witnesses have to be found and questioned. The Benalish woman has disappeared and so has your One-eye.” The Brown Master looked over with a smirk at Tulan.

“Your people murdered him and I expect compensation,” Tulan snarled back. “He was one of my best, easily eighth-rank, and a score of your fighters ganged up on him. We couldn’t even find the fragments of his body.”

Tulan looked back sharply at Zarel.

“You’re worried about oquorak rules and ignore the fact that one of my best fighters was attacked viciously and murdered.”

“He was on our property. He cheated one of my ninth-ranks and worse yet, that man’s satchel was stolen.”

“If he’s still a man,” Tulan chuckled.

“Damn you, I want compensation!” Kirlen roared. “My House is damaged, four men and a woman fighter are dead, damaged, or simply devoured so that no spell could revive them, and another score are injured. Nearly a dozen satchels are missing as well, including Naru’s, one of my best fighters.”

“You started it,” Tulan cried angrily, slamming the table before him with his beefy fist. “I lost eight dead and thirty injured and satchels as well. Compensate or by the Eternal I’ll burn your House to the ground!”

“Both of you are under injunction!” Zarel shouted.

The two House Masters looked over coldly at the Grand Master.