“No one is to step foot into the street until the beginning of Festival. Anyone leaving your Houses will be arrested, their spells stripped from them, and barred from Festival.”

“Try to take my people’s spells and you’ll have a war,” Kirlen snapped, and Tulan nodded in agreement as if the Brown Master was now his closest friend and under attack.

“We’ll withdraw from Festival,” Tulan announced, and Kirlen looked over at her enemy, who suddenly nodded in agreement.

“If we boycott, you won’t have Festival and you won’t earn a thin copper on the betting.” With that, Tulan snapped his fingers at the Grand Master and laughed.

Zarel looked back and forth at the two, sputtering, unable to speak for a moment, the two moving closer to each other as if all past hatreds were now forgotten.

“Get out, both of you, get out, and so help me if there’s another incident, my fighters are ordered to kill on sight! Now get out!”

The two walked out of the room together though as soon as they had cleared the doorway, they fell back into bitter recriminations against each other.

Zarel watched them go, his face purple with anger. Storming over to his desk, he picked up a small bell and rang it. Seconds later a diminutive hunched-over form appeared in the still-open doorway.

“Get in here, damn you.”

Uriah walked slowly into the room, head bent low.

“You approached Tulan last night, didn’t you.”

“As you ordered, Master.”

“And?”

“I offered him a hundred gold for the head of One-eye. He didn’t even have to turn him over, simply send him out the front door after dark and we’d take care of the rest.”

“And his response?”

“He laughed and told me to get out.”

“But did he seem willing?”

Uriah nodded.

“I think he was seriously considering it.”

“So what happened this morning?”

“Master, he must have slipped out of a secret entry. You know that as quickly as we find one they go and make another. Beneath the Houses is a warren of tunnels and a watch could not be kept on all that we know, let alone all that we don’t know.”

“What else did you find?”

“I’ve sent out inquiries. The Baron of Gish arrives the night before Festival and I shall make sure he’s asked if he knows any fighter who claims to come from his land. All we know about One-eye is that he arrived in the city two nights ago, fought an Orange and killed him, disappeared with a pickpocket, and then appeared at the door of the House of Kestha the following morning.”

Zarel sat silent for a moment.

“The pickpocket, do we know who he is?”

“Hammen is his street name. One of the heads of the brotherhoods that control the vice and crime in the city. He’s well thought of and has connections.”

“Obviously not so well thought of that you couldn’t find a traitor.”

“Money always talks with that sort.”

“How did this Hammen fall in with One-eye?”

“The pickpocket was mastering the fight.”

Zarel cursed softly, annoyed at what was an infringement upon his rights, even if it was by a lowly scum out to make a few coppers. Mastering the fights was the sole prerogative of the Grand Master. Even in the old days of Kuthuman and before him the role of the fight master was an honored position. And now pickpockets were presuming to the right.

“Where are they now?”

“They were last seen during the fight this morning and then disappeared, the same as the Benalish woman. It’s believed the three were killed in the fight and their remains devoured or blasted apart.”

“Too much of a coincidence that all three would disappear into death like that,” Zarel said quietly. “I want more inquiries run. Start with this pickpocket. Send some warriors and fighters to track down his lair. He must have accomplices. Use the usual methods.”

“Yes, Master,” Uriah whispered.

“Remember, Uriah, either the Gray or you will join the Walker for some entertainment, so do your job. Close and bolt the door on the way out.”

Trembling, Uriah withdrew from the room.

Zarel sat in silence for a moment, looking down at his beefy hands, which were folded over his more than ample waist.

What to do?

Again this morning there was the sensing. It had hit him with a terrible urgency when he had first laid eyes upon the one-eye. Now this morning it had come again, when he had first ridden out into the Plaza to put down the fighting. There was a sensing that something terrible was lurking, and for a moment he thought he had found it. And then the sensing had drifted away.

On the eve of Festival far too much was going wrong. The tension had been building for years, he thought. Under Kuthuman, especially in the final years of his quest to pierce the veil between worlds, all had lived in fear of him and his power. After he had become a Walker all still feared him, even more so. And yet he was present but for one day of the year. The old balance of power, between the fighting Houses and the Grand Master, had been a finely tuned one. The Grand Master was not as powerful as the combined might of the Houses, but the Houses, by the very nature of their competitiveness, would never unite against him. In turn he had to keep a semblance of order in the lands so that the mana would grow, and to prevent chaos.

Now it was shifting. The Houses were becoming increasingly competitive with each other and against the Grand Master there was increasing defiance. Zarel sensed that by the very nature of the system he had created, the increasing bloodiness of the Festival to satiate the mob and generate even more betting had helped to create this. Yet the increasing number of death fights in the arena served as well to keep the power of the Houses down since each year they lost more and yet more fighters in the fights, thereby sapping their strength.

And there was the other dark dream as well. That ever so slowly he could hoard his own mana and in the process one day do as Kuthuman had done and become a Walker in his own right. That was the dark secret, for he knew with a grim certainty that if Kuthuman ever truly understood that part of the plan, he would kill him out of hand and replace him with a new Grand Master. It was a numbing game of plans within plans, the striking of a balance, the keeping of the House Masters off guard, the gathering of the mana tribute for the Grand Master, and, above all else, survival.

Somehow he could sense that this One-eye had become a wild card in the deck of the game. It would have to be addressed.

Though he dreaded the thought of it, Zarel now realized that Kuthuman would have to be summoned and told, if only as precaution, and with the hope that he might even know the answer.

Sighing, he finally stood up and walked across the room, stopping before what looked like nothing more than a paneled wall. He raised his hand and the wall slipped back, revealing a small room within. Zarel walked into the middle of the room, stepping into a circle traced in gold, which shone brightly against the jet black rock though there was no torch or lamp present. The hidden door closed behind Zarel and he lowered his head, his hand slipping into his satchel, clutching the bundles of mana of all the colors of the rainbow. Shafts of light began to swirl around him, coiling and twisting, rising up in a cone around him.

He waited long minutes in silence, his eyes closed against the brilliance of the unearthly light that bathed him. Finally he sensed the presence coming, as if it were an avalanche racing down the side of a mountain. Zarel Ewine, Grand Master of the Arena and High Baron of the City of Kush, fell to his knees.

The Walker was before him.

“Why summon me?” the voice whispered, filled with annoyance and what might be rage. “Festival is still three days away and I have other things to concern me now.”

“It was necessary, my lord,” Zarel whispered.