"Yes, milord. So it shall be."

"When Alden wakes, he'll know what he has to do. Give him anything he asks for. His words are mine."

As Lord Sixx merged with the shadows and disappeared, Pieraccinni looked down at the pale, blond youth and fell to his knees. He took Alden's head in his lap and caressed it gently as he began to weep.

The journey to Heaven's Lathe, the largest outdoor eatery in Calimport, had taken two hours. Myrmeen and her companions had put up their mounts at a nearby stable and walked the rest of the way as the sun began to sink in the sky, casting a reddish hue on the travelers. Krystin walked beside Ord, the only member of the party who would speak to her. She brazenly wore the emerald locket around her neck.

Reisz had taken Krystin's place at Myrmeen's side. The swarthy-skinned warrior was severely distressed by the growing rift between mother and daughter; the two women now regarded each other as strangers, their familial pretenses no longer worth the effort for either of them. Erin Shandower had taken the point and Lucius had used his magic to become invisible.

The Lathe was nothing more than a series of tents that would be blown down if struck by a severe storm. Under the flaps of canvas lay, as the owners were fond of saying, "a little piece of heaven for the weary traveler." The eatery specialized in exotic dishes, and the clientele was always a vast mixture. Those who ate at the Lathe ranged from the poor, who found the prices for simple dishes within their means, to the rich, who expected and always found some new and delectable meal with an irresistibly exorbitant price. The Lathe also catered to traders from other cities, even other nations, whose faces lit up in delight when they found even the most obscure dishes from their homelands served routinely. On the rare occasion when a dish could not be found at the Lathe, the cooks would listen patiently to the requests of their patrons and create the meal to the customer's satisfaction.

Alden supped here regularly and so it had been chosen as the evening rendezvous four times a week. As they were afraid he would attract too much attention if he came there every night, alternate locations were in place for the other evenings. Lucius had the task of making contact with the lad, who regularly flirted with a particular serving maid. Alden had not, by his own admission, had any luck in persuading her that he was different from the hordes of randy men who propositioned her every night, though she had admitted that he was younger and a bit more handsome than most.

Myrmeen and her companions split into separate groups, with Shandower dining alone, Reisz joining Myrmeen, and Ord staying close to Krystin. Myrmeen was the first to spot Alden. Once again he was speaking to the serving maid with honey-blond hair and soft gray eyes. This time, though, his manner seemed a bit less gentlemanly. The slap he received confirmed that he apparently had grown tired of waiting and had asked directly for what he desired. He laughed as she stalked off.

At a nearby table, several mercenaries from the eastern nations, many of whom could not even speak Common, had understood the boy's plight and had raised their tankards in a friendly salute. Smiling, he approached their table and suddenly stopped, his head snapping back as if someone had taken a handful of his shirt from behind and given his entire body a firm yank. Turning he stumbled away from the table and soon was deposited in a chair a dozen yards away.

Myrmeen lost interest in the sight. She had seen it too many times. Lucius would find out if Alden had learned anything of value, then join her when the conference was at an end. The serving maid who had slapped Alden arrived at her table, and Reisz gestured for Myrmeen to order first.

Within shouting distance of Myrmeen and Reisz, Shandower sat at his solitary table and watched the Lhal woman's light, easy manner. Despite the horrors she had witnessed in recent days, including the deaths of two of her oldest and closest friends, she was able to laugh and smile as if she were back in Arabel, with servants tending to her needs. He did not understand how she could feel so at ease in a city that was infested with nightmares given flesh and form. Shandower wondered if her demeanor was nothing more than a carefully created sham put in place to hide the terror she continued to battle when she tried to sleep.

They all had heard her moans and pleas in the night. By tacit agreement, no one had mentioned this to Myrmeen. She would have been embarrassed and may have lost several nights' sleep worrying about what she might whisper when the nightmares came. He glanced at her again, and for the first time realized what a beautiful woman she was. Gazing at Myrmeen, he suddenly became uncomfortably aware of the great void in his life.

With that thought, he drained the sweet ambrosia that had been delivered to his table in one swift gulp and immediately regretted his rashness. The alcohol shot to his brain and he felt as if he were being lifted out of his chair, his toes and tongue tingling with the touch of a thousand needles. His skin turned cold suddenly, and his heart raced in his chest.

Shandower caught sight of the serving maid that had brought his ale and realized that he had never seen her before. The girl grinned at him, parted her lips slightly, and allowed a forked, leathery tongue similar to that of a lizard to emerge from her mouth. It wriggled slightly, then she sucked it back between her lips. He tried to scream, but his throat seized up and he found that he could not swallow, and could barely breathe. He had been poisoned. Shandower focused his will, and his gauntlet began to glow.

At the table where Krystin and Ord sat, a covered dish was delivered to the table. The fourteen-year-old had been despondent, losing track of their conversation on several occasions as she stared at the emerald locket's hard surface.

"Krystin," Ord said, "am I boring you?"

She glanced up from the locket, her eyes only half open, as she heard a noise from the table. For a moment she thought the serving dish had moved of its own accord, then she dismissed the thought as ludicrous.

"No, of course you're not boring me," she said. "I'm sorry. I must be terrible company. Do you want to sup with the others?"

"You're not getting rid of me that easily," he warned. "I intend to recite the tale of how I was first indoctrinated into the Harpers at our secret base in Berdusk, the Twilight Hall, as many times as it takes to get a smile from you, even if it's one that's totally manufactured."

Without warning, he reached over and gently touched the corner of her mouth, causing her to smile broadly and look down in embarrassment. She heard the lid of the covered dish slide a few inches, then convinced herself that she was hearing sounds from another table.

"I got it the first time," she said. "Storm Silverhand did not realize that the floors had been mopped, and as she approached to pin the symbol of the Harpers upon your breast- the silver harp sitting within the crescent of a silver moon-she slipped and impaled you with it. Thus you earned your first scar in the service of the Harpers."

"It was an auspicious beginning, I was told by Burke."

"I fully agree," she said, reaching for the covered dish. Her mind did not register that the dish shuddered ever so slightly before her hand closed upon the lid's knob. She drew the curved metal covering from the plate and revealed a pair of intertwined, pulsating abominations. The creatures turned their lazy heads in Krystin's direction as she screamed.

Less than a hundred feet away, at the table that appeared to be occupied solely by a young man who spoke discreetly to himself, a second man suddenly appeared. The shock of Krystin's scream had destroyed the concentration Lucius needed to maintain his spell of invisibility. The mage cursed himself for committing such an amateurish mistake and immediately restored the magic that kept him unseen. The momentary lapse was all that Alden had needed. His blade was drawn and already slicing through the air before Lucius had completed his spell. A second after Cardoc disappeared, Alden plunged the blade deep into the man's chest and a spray of blood spattered the clean white tablecloth. Lucius reappeared, his fingers moving, his lips shaking as he tried to complete another spell in a hushed whisper. The blade had missed the mage's heart and was lodged just below that vital organ. Alden reached up and twisted the blade, causing Lucius to bellow in agony as he fell forward, the weight of his body driving the blade deeper into his chest. His hands clawed the tablecloth, which now contained an ever-widening blossom of rose-red blood, and he fell to the ground, the cloth falling upon him like a shroud.