The Chernagor Pirates

CHAPTER THIRTY

King Grus sat on the Diamond Throne, staring down at the ambassadors from Hrvace. The Chernagors looked up at him in turn. “Well?” Grus said in a voice colder than the autumn wind that howled outside the palace. “What have you got to say for yourselves? What have you got to say for your prince?”

The Chernagors eyed one another. Even the Avornan courtiers in the throne room muttered back and forth. Grus knew why. He wasn’t following the formulas Kings of Avornis used with envoys from the Chernagor city-states. He didn’t care. Unlike Lanius, he cared nothing for ceremony for its own sake. He wasn’t sure the polite formulas applied to a city-state with which Avornis was practically at war, anyhow.

“Your Majesty, I am Bonyak, ambassador from Prince Tvorimir of Hrvace,” said one of the Chernagors—the one with the fanciest embroidery on his tunic. He did his best to stay close to the formula, continuing, “I bring you Tvorimir’s greetings, as well as those of all the other Chernagor princes.”

“By the gods, I’ve already dealt with the other Chernagor princes,” Grus growled. “I would have dealt with Tvorimir, too, if it hadn’t decided to rain cats and dogs up there. Do you also bring me greetings from the Banished One?”

“No, Your Majesty,” Bonyak replied. “I bring you assurances from Prince Tvorimir that he has nothing to do with the Banished One, and that he has never had anything to do with him.”

“Oh? And will Tvorimir tell me his ships weren’t part of the fleet that raided my coast? How much nerve does he have?”

Bonyak’s smile was an odd blend of wolf and sheep. “Prince Tvorimir does not deny that his ships raided your coast. But he told me to tell you—he told me to remind you—that a Chernagor does not need to go on his knees to the Banished One to smell the sweet scent of plunder.”

“Sweet, is it?” Grus had to work not to laugh. When Bonyak solemnly nodded, the king had to work even harder. He said, “And you would know this from personal experience, would you?”

“Oh, yes,” Prince Tvorimir’s ambassador assured him. Hastily, the Chernagor added, “Though I have never plundered the coast of Avornis, of course.”

“Of course.” Grus’ voice was dry, so very dry that it made Bonyak look more sheepish than ever. But Grus grudged him a nod. “It could be. And I suppose that what Prince Tvorimir says could be, too. Why has he sent you down here to the city of Avornis?”

“Why? To make amends for our raids, Your Majesty.” Bonyak gestured to his henchmen. “We have gifts for the kingdom, and we also have gifts for you.”

“Wait.” Now Grus nodded to a courtier who’d been waiting down below the Diamond Throne. The man had remained discreetly out of sight behind a stout pillar, so Grus could have failed to call on him without embarrassing the Chernagors. But, since Bonyak seemed conciliatory… “First, Your Excellency, I have presents for you and your men.”

The courtier doled out leather sacks from a tray. Bonyak hefted the one the Avornan gave him. He nodded, for it had the right weight. He also looked relieved—Grus was steering the ceremony back into the lines it should take.

“My thanks, Your Majesty,” the ambassador said. “My very great thanks indeed. Now shall we give our gifts in return?”

“If you would be so kind,” Grus answered.

Bonyak nudged the flunkies, who were busy feeling the weight of their own sacks. They set one heavy, metal-bound wooden chest after another in front of the Diamond Throne. “These are for Avornis, Your Majesty,” Bonyak said. Courtiers leaned forward, waiting for him to open one of the boxes, their faces full of avid curiosity.

At Bonyak’s nod, one of the men who followed him undid the hasp on the topmost chest and opened it. “Fifty thousand pieces of silver, from Prince Tvorimir to Avornis,” Bonyak said. “His Highness will also make an agreement like the ones the princes of Hisardzik and Jobuka made with your kingdom not long ago.”

“Will he?” Grus said. Bonyak nodded again. The Avornan courtiers murmured among themselves. The present wasn’t very interesting— they’d seen plenty of silver themselves—but the news that came with it was good. Grus nodded back. “I am pleased to accept this silver for the kingdom,” he declared in loud, formal tones. “Never let it be said that I did not seek peace between Avornis and the Chernagor city-states.”

“Prince Tvorimir has this same thought,” Bonyak said. Of course he does— for the time being, Grus thought. I’ve made him afraid of me. The Chernagor ambassador went on, “Prince Tvorimir also sends you a personal gift, a gift from him to you, not from Hrvace to Avornis.”

As Bonyak had before, he gestured to the burly, bearded men who accompanied him. One of them came forward with an enormous earthenware jug, which he set beside the chests of silver pieces. Bonyak said, “This is a special kind of liquor, which we have in trade from an island far out in the Northern Sea. It is stronger than any ale or wine, strong enough so that it burns the gullet a little on the way down.”

“Does it indeed?” Grus said, his voice as neutral as he could make it.

Bonyak understood what he wasn’t saying. “I will gladly drink of this, Your Majesty. And let your wizards test it, if you think I have taken an antidote,” the envoy said. “By the gods in the heavens, may my head answer if it is poison.”

He did drink, and with every sign of enjoyment. “I will make a magical test anyhow,” Grus replied, “and if it is poison, your head will answer. For now, you and your comrades are dismissed.”

Bowing, the Chernagors departed from the throne room. Grus summoned Pterocles and explained what he wanted. The wizard looked intrigued. “Liquor that isn’t wine or ale? How interesting! I suppose it isn’t mead, either, for mead’s no stronger than either of the others. Yes, I can test it against poisons.” He dipped out a little of the liquid from the mug, then poured it over an amethyst. Neither the stone nor the liquor showed any change. Pterocles added a couple of sprigs of herbs to the dipper. “Cinquefoil and vervain,” he explained to Grus. “They’re sovereign against noxious things.” He murmured a charm, waited, and then shrugged. “All seems as it should, Your Majesty. There is one other test to make, of course.” He fished the herbs out of the dipper.

“What’s that?” the king asked.

“A very basic one.” Pterocles grinned. He raised the dipper to his lips and drank what was in it. He coughed as he swallowed. “Whew! That’s strong as a demon—your Chernagor wasn’t joking.” He paused, considering. “Can’t complain about the way it warms me up inside, though, I wonder how the people the Chernagors got it from made it.”

“Ask Bonyak—not that he’ll tell you even if he knows,” Grus said. “Well, if it hasn’t turned you inside out and upside down, why don’t you let me have a taste, too?”

“I don’t know. Why don’t I?” Pterocles filled the dipper again and handed it to him.

Grus took it. He sniffed. The stuff smelled more like wine than anything else, though less fruity. He sipped cautiously. When he swallowed, he could feel the heat sliding down to his stomach. It spread out from there. “Not bad,” he said after the same sort of pause for thought as Pterocles had used. “A mug’s worth would be plenty to get you drunk.”

Pterocles eyed the jug. “I’d say a mug’s worth would be enough to get you dead—but what a way to go.”

“If you were going to make something like this, how would you do it?” Grus asked.

The wizard laughed. “If I knew the answer to that, I’d already be doing it. Some things you can concentrate by boiling. But when you boil wine, you make it weaker than it was before, not stronger. I don’t know why. But it is so—I know that.”

“Maybe you need to save what’s boiling away instead of what’s left in the pot, then,” Grus said with a laugh of his own.

“Who knows? Maybe I do.” Pterocles kept on smiling. “I don’t know how I’d do that, though,”

“I was only joking,” Grus said. “Probably nothing to it.”

Lanius’ head felt as though some demented smith with a heavy hammer were using it for an anvil. Pterocles insisted the liquor Prince Tvorimir gave to King Grus wasn’t poisoned. But Lanius had poisoned himself with it the night before. His father-in-law had warned him a little would get him drunk. Lanius hated to admit it, bur his father-in-law had been right and more than right.

And because Grus had been so right, Lanius faced the moncats’ room with a wince. The warmth and the smells—especially the smells— were not what he wanted with a tender head. But he had never trusted the servants to take care of the animals. If they didn’t do the work, that meant he had to. Despite the wince, he opened the door, went in, and quickly closed it behind him.

It was as bad as he’d thought it would be. His stomach twisted. He almost had to leave very abruptly. After one gulp, though, he brought things under control again and got to work. Cleaning the moncats’ sandbox was a job nasty enough as things were, and seemed even worse when he was nauseated himself. He was glad the animals used a sandbox like ordinary cats; if they’d done what they wanted wherever they wanted, they would have been much harder to keep.

After he took care of that, he went to the kitchens to get them some meat. The fat cook named Cucullatus grinned at him and said, “Haven’t seen that funny animal of yours for a while now. Did you chain it up?”

“No, but I’m tempted to,” he answered. “Pouncer makes me suspicious when it’s being good—it’s probably up to something.” Cucullatus laughed a sour laugh.

Lanius went back to the moncats’ room with the meat. The animals swarmed around his feet, rubbing and purring and acting for all the world as though they really were lovable creatures and not furry opportunists. He knew better. They were as heartless and self-centered as any of his courtiers.

Before dumping most of the food in their dishes, he doled out treats to one moncat or another. He was busy doing that when he noticed Pouncer wasn’t begging there with the rest of the moncats. He looked around the room—and didn’t see it.

“Oh, by the gods, where has the stupid creature gone now?” he exclaimed. But the problem wasn’t that Pouncer was stupid—the problem was that the moncat was too smart for its own good.

The two places where Lanius knew the moncat went were the kitchens and the archives. Pouncer hadn’t gone to the kitchens lately. Did that mean it was likely to make an appearance there now, or that it would keep on staying away? The king pondered. Trying to think like a Chernagor was hard enough. Trying to think like a moncat? He wanted to throw up his hands at the mere idea.

But he had to decide. Kitchens or archives? He took some scraps of meat and hurried off toward the room where he’d spent so much happy time. If Pouncer did show up there, he wanted to kick the moncat for disturbing his peace of mind.

He still didn’t know how Pouncer got into the archives, any more than he knew how the miserable beast escaped from its room. Instead of contentedly pawing through parchments, he had to poke around in dark corners where Pouncer was likely to come forth. Wherever the moncat did emerge, it always looked enormously pleased with itself. Lanius couldn’t decide whether that amused him or infuriated him.

“Pouncer?” he called. “Are you there, Pouncer, you stinking, mangy creature?” Pouncer was as fastidious as any other moncat, and didn’t stink. The beast’s luxuriant fur proved it wasn’t mangy. Lanius slandered it anyhow. Why not? It was no more likely to pay attention to anything he said to or about it than any other moncat, either.

It did, however, pay attention to food. Lanius lay down on his back on the least dusty stretch of floor he could find. He thumped on his chest. If Pouncer was anywhere close by, that noise ought to attract the moncat. It would do its trick, climb up on his chest, and win its tasty reward. It would… if it was close enough to hear.

“Mrowr?” The meow, though muffled, made Lanius want to cheer. It also made him proud—in a peculiar way. Here he was, congratulating himself for… what? For beating the Menteshe? For finding something important about the Chernagors in the archives? No. What had he done to win those congratulations? He’d outthought a moncat.

Of course, what was the alternative? As far as he could see, it was not outthinking a moncat. And how proud would he have been of that?

“Mrowr?” Pouncers meow definitely sounded strange, as though the moncat were behind something that deadened the noise… or as though it had something in its mouth.

And so it did, as Lanius discovered when the moncat came toward him. A rat’s tail dangled from one side of Pouncer’s jaws, the rat’s snout from the other. As it had been trained to do, Pouncer climbed up onto the king’s chest. The moncat dropped the rat right there.

“Thank you so much!” Lanius exclaimed. He didn’t want to grab the rat even to throw it away. And Pouncer, naturally, was convinced it had done him not only a favor but an honor by presenting him with its kill. Pouncer was also convinced it deserved a treat from his hands—it had gotten up on his chest the way it was supposed to.

He gave the moncat a scrap of meat. Pouncer purred and ate it.

Then Pouncer picked up the rat again, walked farther up Lanius’ chest with it, and, still purring all the while, almost dropped it on his face.

“If you think you’re trying to train me to eat that, you’d better think again,” the king told the moncat.

“Mrowr,” Pouncer answered, in tones that could only mean, Why aren’t you picking this up now that I’ve given it to you?

“Sorry,” said Lanius, who was anything but. When he sat up, the rat rolled away from where Pouncer had put it and fell on the floor. With another meow, this one of dismay, the moncat dove after it. The king grabbed the animal. The moncat grabbed the rat. “Mutton’s not good enough for you, eh?” Lanius demanded. This time, Pouncer didn’t say anything. The moncat held the rat in both clawed hands and daintily nibbled at its tail.

Lanius didn’t try to take away its prize. Pouncer was less likely to kick or scratch or bite as long as it had the rat. That remained true even after the chunk of meat the king had fed it.

And yet, even though Pouncer had caught the rat on its own, it hadn’t declined to clamber up onto him for the little bit of mutton. He’d trained it to do that, and it had.

“Not much of a trick,” Lanius told the moncat. Pouncer didn’t even pretend to pay attention. The rat’s tail was much more interesting, to say nothing of tasty. The king went on, “Of course, I’m not much of an animal trainer, either. I wonder what someone who really knows what he’s doing could teach you.”

“Mrowr,” Pouncer said, as though doubting whether anybody—Lanius included—could teach it anything.

How much could a moncat learn? Suppose a skilled trainer really went to work with the beasts. What could he teach them? Would it be worth doing, or would Grus grumble that Lanius was wasting money? Grus often grumbled about money he wasn’t spending himself. Still, it might be amusing.

Or, just possibly, it might be more than amusing. Lanius stopped short and stared at Pouncer. “Could you learn something like that?” he said. “Are you smart enough? Could you stay interested long enough?”

With the rat’s tail, now gnawed down to the bone here and there, dangling from the corners of Pouncer’s mouth, the moncat didn’t look smart enough for anything. Even so, Lanius eyed it in a way he never had before.

He put it back in its room, knowing it probably wouldn’t stay there long. Then he went looking for King Grus, which wasn’t something he did very often. He found the other king closeted with General Hirundo. They were hashing out the campaign in the Chernagor country over mugs of wine. “Hello, Your Majesty,” Grus said, courteous as usual. “Would you care to join me?”

“As a matter of fact, Your Majesty, I’d like to talk to you in private for a little while, if I could,” Lanius answered.

Grus’ gaze sharpened. Lanius didn’t call him Your Majesty every day, or every month, either. The older man rose. “If you’ll excuse us, Hirundo…” he said.

“Certainly, Your Majesty. I can tell when I’m not wanted.” The general bowed and left. Had he spoken in a different tone of voice, he would have thought himself mortally insulted, and an uprising would have followed in short order. As things were, he just sounded amused.

After Hirundo closed the door behind him, Grus turned back to Lanius. “All right, Your Majesty. If you wanted my attention, you’ve got it. What can I do for you?”

Lanius shook his head. “No, it’s what I can do for you.” Honesty compelled him to add, “Or it may be what I can do for you, anyhow.” He set out the idea he’d had a little while earlier.

The other king stared at him, then started to laugh. Lanius scowled. He hated to be laughed at. Grus held up a hand. “No, no, no. By the gods, Your Majesty, it’s not you.”

“What is it, then?” Lanius asked stiffly.

“It’s the idea,” Grus said. “It’s not you.”

It’s my idea, Lanius thought, still offended. “What’s wrong with it?”

“Why—” Grus started to be glib, but caught himself. He did some thinking, then admitted, “I don’t know that anything’s wrong with it. It’s still funny, though.”

When Lanius went to bed that night, the Banished One appeared to him in a dream. Before that cold, beautiful, inhuman gaze, the king felt less than a moncat himself. The Banished One always raised that feeling in him, but never more than tonight. Those eyes seemed to pierce the very center of his soul. “You are plotting against me,” the Banished One said.

“We are enemies,” Lanius said. “You have always plotted against Avornis.”

“You deserve whatever happens to you,” the Banished One replied. “You deserve worse than what has happened to you. You deserve it, and I intend to give it to you. But if you plot and scheme against me, your days will be even shorter than they would otherwise, and even more full of pain and grief. Do you doubt me? You had better not doubt me, you puling little wretch of a man.”

“I have never doubted you,” Lanius told him. “You need not worry about that.”

The Banished One laughed. His laughter flayed, even in a dream. “I, worry over what a sorry mortal does? Your life at best is no more than a sneeze. If you think you worry me, you exaggerate your importance in the grand scheme of things.”

Even in a dream, Lanius’ logical faculties still worked—after a fashion. “In that case,” he asked, “why do you bother appearing to me?”

“You exaggerate your importance,” the Banished One repeated. “A flea bite annoys a man without worrying him. But when the man crushes the flea, though he worries not a bit, the flea is but a smear. And so shall you be, and sooner than you think.”

“Sometimes the flea hops away,” Lanius said.

“That is because there is very little difference between a man and a flea,” the Banished One retorted. “But between a man and me—you shall see what the difference is between a man and me. Oh, yes—you shall see.” As he had once before, years earlier, he made as though to reach out for Lanius.

In the nick of time—in the very nick of time—the king fought himself awake. He sat bolt upright in his bed, his heart pounding. “Are you all right?” Sosia asked sleepily.

“Bad dream. Just a bad dream,” Lanius answered, his voice shaking. A bad dream it was. Just a bad dream? Oh, no. He knew better than that.

In the nick of time—in the very nick of time—the king fought himself awake. Grus sat bolt upright in bed, his heart pounding. “Are you all right?” Estrilda asked sleepily.

“Bad dream. Just a bad dream,” Grus answered, his voice shaking. A bad dream it was. Just a bad dream? Oh, no. He knew better than that. The Banished One had been on the very point of seizing him when he escaped back into the world of mundane reality. And if the Banished One’s hands had touched him, as they’d been on the point of doing…

He didn’t know what would have happened then. He didn’t know, and he never, ever wanted to find out.

Little by little, his thudding heart and gasping breath slowed toward normal. The Banished One had come too close to scaring him to death without touching him. But Grus had also learned more from that horrid nighttime visitation than the Banished One might have intended.

Fortified by the thought the exiled god had never come to him more than once of a night, he lay down and tried to go back to sleep. Try as he would, though, he couldn’t sleep anymore. He let out a small sigh of frustration. The dream the exiled god had sent remained burned on his memory, as those dreams always did. He wished he could forget them, the way he forgot dreams of the ordinary sort. But no. Whatever else the Banished One was, he was nothing of the ordinary sort.

Estrilda muttered to herself and went back to sleep. Grus wished again that he could do the same. Whatever he wished, more sleep eluded him. He waited until he was sure his wife was well under, then poked his feet into slippers, pulled a cloak on over his nightshirt, and left the royal bedchamber. The guardsmen in the corridor came to stiff attention. “As you were,” Grus told them, and they relaxed.

Torches in sconces on the wall guttered and crackled. Quite a few had burned out. Why not? At this hour of the night, hardly anyone was stirring. No need for much light. Grus walked down the hall. He was and was not surprised when another guarded door opened. Out came Lanius, wearing the same sort of irregular outfit as Grus had on.

After telling his own guards to stand at ease, Lanius looked up and down the corridor. He seemed… surprised and not surprised to discover Grus also up and about. “Hello, Your Majesty,” Grus said. “You, too?”

“Yes, me, too… Your Majesty,” Lanius answered. Grus nodded to himself. Whenever Lanius deigned to use his title, the other king took things very seriously indeed. As though to prove the point, Lanius gestured courteously. “Shall we walk?”

“I think maybe we’d better,” Grus said.

Behind them, guardsmen muttered among themselves. The soldiers no doubt wondered how both kings had happened to wake up at the same time. Grus wished he wondered, too. But he had no doubts whatsoever.

Neither did Lanius. The younger king said, “The Banished One knows we have something in mind.”

“He certainly does,” Grus agreed.

“Good,” Lanius said. “Next spring—”

Grus held up a hand. “Maybe next spring. Maybe the spring after that, or the spring after that. As long as the Menteshe want to keep doing part of our job for us, I won’t complain a bit.”

“Well, no. Neither will I,” Lanius said. “We ought to use however much time we have wisely. I wish we could lay our hands on some more ordinary thralls.”

“So do I,” Grus said. “But we’d have to cross the Stura to do it, and I don’t want to do that while the Menteshe are still in the middle of their civil war.”

“I suppose you’re right.” Lanius sounded regretful but not mutinous. “Pterocles should start teaching other wizards the spell he’s worked out. When we do go south of the Stura, we’ll need it.”

“We’d better need it,” Grus said, and Lanius nodded. Grus went on, “I have had work for Pterocles up in the Chernagor country, you know.”

“Oh, yes.” Lanius did not seem in a quarrelsome mood. After facing up to the Banished One, mere mortals seldom felt like fighting among themselves. The younger king continued, “But he’s not up in the Chernagor country now. And he can teach more wizards here in the capital than anywhere else in Avornis.”

“More of everything here in the capital than anywhere else in Avornis,” Grus said.

Lanius nodded again. This time, he followed the nod with a yawn. “I think I can sleep again,” he said.

“Do you?” Grus looked inside himself. After a moment, he gave Lanius a sad little shrug. “Well, Your Majesty, I’m jealous, because I don’t. I’m afraid I’m up for the rest of the night.”

“Sorry to hear that.” Lanius yawned again. He turned around. “If you’ll excuse me—”

“Good night,” Grus told him. “Don’t snore so loud, you wake up my daughter.” Laughing, Lanius headed back to his bedchamber.

Grus wandered down the hallway. The soft leather soles of his slippers scuffed over the floor’s mosaic tiles. How many times had he walked along here, not noticing the hunting scenes over which so many craftsmen had worked so hard and so long? Tonight, he noticed. Tonight, he had nothing to distract him.

Another man’s footsteps came from around a corner. Grus realized he had not even an eating knife on his belt. Had the Banished One come to Otus as he’d come to the two kings? Was the thrall on the prowl? Would his guards let him go because they thought him cured?

Did he have murder on his mind? Did he have a mind, or was he but a reflection of the Banished One’s will?

The other man came into sight. For a moment, in the dim torchlight, Grus thought it was Otus. Then he saw with his eyes, not his late-night fears. “Hello, Pterocles,” he called. “What are you doing up at this ghastly hour?”

“Your Majesty?” Pterocles sounded as surprised and alarmed as Grus had felt. “I could ask you the same question, you know.”

“Well, so you could,” Grus said. “I couldn’t sleep. I… had a bad dream.”

He knew Pterocles had dreamed of the Banished One. That the Banished One took Pterocles seriously enough to send him a dream was one reason he was chief wizard in Avornis these days. As far as the king knew, though, the Banished One had visited Pterocles only once in the night.

Until tonight. The wizard jerked as though Grus had poked him with a pin. “Why, so did I, Your Majesty.” Pterocles nodded jerkily. “So did I.”

“One of—those dreams?” Grus asked.

Pterocles nodded again. “Oh, yes, Your Majesty. One of—those dreams.” He mimicked Grus’ tone very well. “I haven’t had one of— those dreams for years now. I wouldn’t have been sorry not to have this one, either.”

“I believe you,” Grus said. “Nobody wants a visit from the Banished One.” There. He’d said it. The ceiling didn’t fall in on him. The name didn’t even raise any particular echoes—except in his own mind. Gathering himself, he went on, “It’s an honor of sorts, though, if you look at it the right way.”

“An honor?” Pterocles frowned. “I’m not sure I see… Oh. Wait. Maybe I do.”

Now King Grus was the one who nodded. “That’s what I meant, all right. Most people never have to worry about seeing the Banished One looking out of their dreams. He never needs to notice them. If he notices you, it’s a sign you’ve done something, or you’re going to do something, to worry him.”

“He visited both of us tonight, then?” the wizard asked.

“That’s right.” Grus gave him another nod. “And he visited King Lanius, too.”

“Did he?” Pterocles said. “Do you know why he visited the, uh, other king?”

Grus smiled a slightly sour smile. Even after he and Lanius had shared the throne for a good many years, people still found the arrangement awkward every now and again. He chuckled. He still found it awkward every now and again himself. But that was neither here nor there. He told Pterocles why he thought the Banished One had paid the nighttime call.

“Really?” Pterocles said when he was done. “You surprise me, Your Majesty. When was the last time the Banished One sent three people dreams at the same time?” Pterocles wondered.

“I don’t know,” Grus said. “I don’t know if he’s ever done anything like that before. Interesting, isn’t it?”

“It could be.” Pterocles cocked his head to one side as he considered. “Yes, it could be.”

“That’s what I thought,” Grus said. “And so I don’t mind wandering the hallways here in the wee small hours of the night quite as much as I would if I’d gotten out of bed with a headache or a sour stomach.”

Pterocles grunted. Then he yawned. “It could be so, Your Majesty. But whether it’s so or not, I’m still sleepy. If you don’t mind, I think I’m going to try to go back to bed.”

“King Lanius did the same thing. I envied him, and I envy you, too,” Grus said. “Maybe I’ll nap in the afternoon, but I can’t sleep more tonight. I’m sure of that.”

“I’m off, then.” Pterocles sketched a salute to Grus, turned around, and went back the way he had come.

Grus wandered the hallways aimlessly—or maybe not so aimlessly, for he ended up at the entrance to the palace. The guards there needed a heartbeat or two to recognize him. When they did, they sprang to attention all the more rigid for being embarrassed. His wave told them they could relax. He walked out into the night.

It was cold on the palace steps, but not cold enough to drive him back inside. When he looked to the east, he saw a faint grayness that said sunrise was coming. He stood and waited, watching the gray spread up the dome of the sky, watching the stars fade and then disappear, watching pink and gold follow the gray. All around him, the bricks and stone and slate roof tiles of the city of Avornis took on solid shape and then, a little at a time, color as well.

Lanius had had an idea that worried the Banished One. The more Grus thought about that, the better he liked it.

A new day dawned.