The Fire's Stone

Eight

"I'll meet you at the docks" had been such an easy thing to say back in the quiet of the palace. Chandra shifted her weight and wove the notice-me-not tighter around her. Her un-betrothed and his thief were leaving from the temple, from the prince's "seclusion," so she couldn't leave with them and besides, hadn't she traveled to Ischia on her own?

"I'm a wizard, remember," she'd snapped at Darvish's warnings. "Remaining unseen is one of the most basic of disciplines."

When the prince had looked to Aaron for support, the outlander had studied her for a long moment and said, "There's a row of seven warehouses just in front of the docks, meet us at the western end."

Darvish had protested and Aaron had replied, "She's a wizard." His tone had added, let her prove it.

She'd bridled at the prince's grin and stomped from the room. Then she'd had to return to lift the sleep off the dressers. She couldn't remember the last time she'd been so embarrassed.

"I'll get his stone back for him," she muttered, her voice lost under the screams of a thousand seagulls, "and then he'll be sorry he laughed. He'll see. I am a Wizard of the Nine."

The rough, undressed stone of the westernmost warehouse dug into her back and the docks of Ischia spread out before her.

Sailors swaggered everywhere, rolling their weight from one hip to another as though they still walked decks, gold gleaming in ears and noses and teeth, every second word a curse. Merchants, either comfortably fat or cadaverously thin, spoke with pursers and captains arranging cargoes and payments and bribes. Whores kept heavily kohled eyes open for opportunity and as Chandra watched, a skinny girl,

younger than herself, followed a laughing sailor down between two large piles of rope. Common men and women of Ischia searched the docks for bargains—a bit of silk barely salt stained, a fish not quite freshly dead. Nobles, perfumed sleeves lifted to mask the constantly changing smells of the area and the ever present reek of the less fortunate, searched for thrills, with their guards present in case those thrills got the upper hand. Just at the edge of her hearing, a beggar whined for alms but received, from the shrieks of pain that followed, a less gentle reward.

For over five years Chandra had lived on a quiet country estate with her teacher, her servant, and her old nurse. Once a month her father traveled to her. Once or twice a year she traveled to her father's court.

The docks of Ischia swarmed—there could be no other word for it—with people. Too many people.

In the midst of the procession she had been part of a larger whole. Here, she sat alone. Not that she was frightened. She was a wizard. And a Wizard of the Nine, besides. There was a certain, raw power in it all. There were just so many people...

When the prince and the thief finally arrived, she almost didn't recognize them. The movement of the crowd around them drew her attention, but it took a moment of puzzled staring before she realized who the lithe outlander and his huge hireling were.

Darvish, his hair cropped swordsman short and whiskers a dark shadow along his jaw, looked much less pretty than he had in his long hair and exaggerated court fashions and much larger. The heavy cotton and plain sweat-stained leathers showed well-defined muscles, and the grubby white sunrobe he wore could've been poled to make a tent. He still looked like he drank too much, but he didn't look as weak as he had surrounded by silks and softness. He looked nothing like a prince.

Aaron did. Not a single movement was wasted. He looked neither to the left nor the right, his expression hidden within the shadows cast by the stiffened edges of his sunrobe hood. Chandra knew much of his bearing came from his recent injuries—movements were restricted in many ways by burns not quite healed—but he still looked as if he owned the city. Like he stood alone at the top of a mountain and nothing could topple him from the peak. Chandra was impressed in spite of herself; her father had once been a man that strong.

"There's the warehouse." Darvish waved a hand in its direction, studded wrist guards flashing for a moment in the wide sleeves of the sunrobe. He knew he shouldn't be enjoying himself, that his city and its people were in great danger, but he couldn't help it. For at least a nineday, maybe longer, he was free. Free of the palace, free of the plots, free to prove himself to his father. "Where's that girl?"

"Here."

Darvish couldn't stop the jump back, so he added a glare and dropped his hand to his sword hilt. He was not going to look ridiculous in front of this girl he was not going to marry.

Chandra allowed herself a smug smile. She wasn't fooled. And up close, he still smelled of wine. "Your eyes are brown," she said peering up at his face. "A good idea although I could have cast a stronger spell. I doubt this will hold much past morning."

"It doesn't have to last beyond the docks," Darvish snarled, shifting the weight of his shield on his back. It caught on the small pack he wore and, brows down, he yanked it free. "And there won't be much left of a good idea if you tell the whole city."

"My words were pitched to carry only to you."

"Next time, O Awesome Wizard, spare me as well."

"Next time..." Chandra looked beyond his bulk, saw Aaron regally indifferent, blushed and fell silent.

"I'm going to find us a ship," Aaron said, his voice as expressionless as his face. "Stay here." He slipped easily into the movement of the crowds although the press of people set his teeth on edge. If they wanted to go on bickering, they could do it without him for a time. Even as a small part of him envied their ability to say what they thought, he despised the waste. Their constant sniping served no purpose, it only wasted time, wasted words.

"One Below, boy, you count out your words like a miser."

Aaron had looked down at the old gem cutter from his perch on her window ledge. "Didn't one of your own poets say that empty words show an empty mind and silence speaks most eloquently of all?"

Faharra had snorted and waved one clawlike finger at the thief. "It wasn't meant to be an excuse for never holding up your end of a conversation."

The pain of Faharra's death had burned down to a gentle ache during his anger at Herrak. His failure to gain the emerald for her tomb, although it still tormented him, no longer weighted every breath. Without it, the walls had weakened and it was getting harder to maintain the void.

"I don't want to know their thoughts," Aaron muttered, deftly sidestepping two whores and a bleeding beggar. He could see danger in that, for what if the thoughts they started speaking began to concern him. If the thoughts Darvish began speaking... I must be out of my mind; I should've told them to find their own Stone, stayed at the palace and been quietly tortured to death. Before Faharra died, I had my life under control. This is all your doing, old lady.

From out of memory, he heard her laugh and he allowed himself a small smile in answer.

Darvish watched Aaron cut his way through the crowds like a sword through silk. He moved with an intensity that easily marked his progress in spite of his lack of height. I could do that, Darvish realized suddenly. Just walk the docks like a normal man. No one expecting a performance from the prince. No one reporting that performance back to the lord chancellor. There were no guards at his back, no spies in the shadows, just him and Aaron and... Chandra. He looked down at the girl who stood arms crossed and foot jigging against the smooth stone of the paving blocks. Maybe a wizard would be a help. The poor kid had her own problems and Darvish had never been good at holding a grudge.

"That's the ship you came in on, over there," he told her, waving a hand at a sleek vessel moored toward the eastern end of the harbor. From her masts, she flew the royal colors.

Chandra glanced briefly at the ship and said, "I know."

So it's to be that way, is it. He grinned and added, "I'm sleeping with the captain's wife."

This time Chandra glanced briefly up at Darvish, her eyes hooded with boredom. "I know," she said again. To her surprise, after an astonished second, Darvish threw back his head and roared with laughter and just for an instant he looked like a very nice man indeed. Chandra found herself smiling in response.

At the sound of the laughter, one or two people turned but when they saw a brown-eyed swordsman, not their blue-eyed prince, they went back to their own concerns.

"Your pardon." Even behind the illusion Darvish's eyes twinkled. "That was a boorish thing to say, wasn't it?"

He was inviting her to share the joke, Chandra realized, a joke at his own expense, and the apology had actually sounded sincere. Her smile broadened, she couldn't help it, but by the Nine he confused her.

Then suddenly, the laughter vanished, and the prince's expression turned inward.

"What..."

He chopped off Chandra's question with the edge of his hand. Something tugged... He almost had it. Something just this side of pain. Eyes narrowed against the red-gold light of the setting sun, he scanned the crowd for Aaron. There... then he jerked, and swore, and raced toward the slight figure who had taken one step too many and crumpled to the ground.

Darvish could feel only the echo of Aaron's agony, not the pain itself, but he knew what Aaron felt and although it eased as he drew closer, the soul-link still screamed though his head like the wrath of all Nine Above.

Scrambling to keep up, Chandra found it difficult to believe that a man of Darvish's size and habits could move so quickly. The crowd scattered, shrieking.

"I didn't touch him, I swear it on the One Below. I never laid a finger on him!" The sailor backed away, hands raised protectively.

Darvish ignored him.

Aaron knelt, forehead resting against the paving stones, body shuddering with each shallow breath. Teeth clenched, he raised his head, then carefully sat back on his heels. A circle of curious faces swam around him and he heard Darvish say, as though from a great distance, "He's not used to the heat." It was a voice only a complete idiot would argue with and no one in the crowd seemed willing.

He tried to rise and the motion sent aftershocks of pain slamming through his body. Strong hands caught him, and held him. Where they gripped, it hurt a little less and then it hurt a lot less and unbidden came the strange thought that,

here, he was safe. His vision cleared. He realized he was resting in the circle of Darvish's arms. He pulled away.

"I can stand," he said, and he did.

After a moment, the world steadied. "Perhaps," he said, pulling the hood of the sunrobe back over his face, "we'd better stay together."

Darvish drew in a deep breath and slowly, very slowly, let it out. "Perhaps," he agreed.

"That's it?" Chandra asked, brows up and hands on hips.

"No, not quite." Darvish wiped damp palms on his trousers. "I need a drink."

Chandra rolled her eyes. "Of course you do," she sneered.

"And your business in Tivolic?" the purser asked, counting out the small pile of silver and copper coins into three stacks, one for each passage. When the young man made no answer, he looked up, his lips parted to repeat the question. The words stuck behind his teeth. The outlander's eyes were very pale, almost silver-gray, and nothing, absolutely nothing, of the man showed within them. He felt completely overwhelmed and it didn't make much difference that, even sitting, the purser was almost as tall.

Aaron held the purser's gaze for a moment longer and then, because the question was one he had every right to ask, he answered it. "We're looking for someone."

It was not an answer calculated to make the purser feel more secure and the outlander's clipped accent made it sound more dangerous still. But they had a cabin empty and the captain liked the Gryphon to travel full...

His gaze flicked back to where the young outlander's companions stood by the door. "A swordsman, you say?"

"Yes."

"And a girl?"

"Yes."

"The swordsman's?"

"Her own."

More emotion in those last two words than all the others that went before it. Which, the purser wondered, did this outlander lay claim to, the swordsman or the girl? Given the strange prejudice of outlanders, probably the girl. "She's a wizard?"

"As I said."

"What discipline?"

Aaron could almost feel Chandra's eyes boring circles into his back as he answered. "She hasn't decided yet."

"You bring no trouble on board."

Aaron nodded once.

"And if we're attacked, your swordsman and possibly the wizard will fight."

"Attacked?"

"Pirates," the purser said shortly.

Aaron nodded again and this time the purser echoed it, scooping the coins off the table and into his belt pouch. "Ship's the Green Gryphon. We sail with the tide. If you're not on board, you get left behind. No refunds."

Aaron nodded again, flipped the hood up on his sunrobe, and silently the three left the warehouse.

The purser watched them go, whistling tunelessly through his teeth. Outlanders, who could fathom them. This one looked honed to a razor sharpness and ready to cut at the wrong word.

"Use my own name?" Darvish muttered as they headed across the docks to the Gryphon. "Are you crazy?"

"I know of four other Darvishes," Aaron told him, "a tavern keeper, a tailor, a gardener, and a blind beggar. They're all about your age. When a prince is named, the common folk are encouraged to use the name as well."

"Why?" Darvish asked. He'd never heard of this.

"To confuse curses. Have Chandra strengthen the illusion that keeps your eyes brown." He almost smiled. "The best lie holds a part of the truth. You'll be just one more Darvish named for the prince."

"What about me?" Chandra pulled on Aaron's sleeve.

"People usually steer clear of wizards. They'll ignore you until they want something."

"Do I use my own name?"

"Is anyone looking for you?"

Chandra thought of the golem waiting patiently for her to return. Of her father who hadn't even realized she was gone. "No."

"Then use the name you'll answer to. It's safest."

Thieves, Chandra realized, narrowly avoiding a pile of fish guts, have a lot of specialized information. "Why a merchant ship?" she asked a few minutes later'as they neared the Gryphon. "Aren't we supposed to be in a hurry?"

"It's leaving tonight," Darvish snapped. He'd been thinking about the blind beggar with his name, trying to compare their lives. "What did you want me to do, commandeer a warship? We're trying not to attract attention."

"Well, maybe," Chandra sniffed, put out by his tone, "you're trying too hard."

Are we? Aaron wondered. Why hadn't they been given, not a warship, but a courier? The crew need only be told they were on a mission for the king, the small, sleek ship could get them to Tivolic in half the time of a merchanter, and it would be there, waiting for them when they needed to escape with The Stone. With a princess of Ytaili in Ischia, royal couriers would frequently go between the two countries. No questions would be asked if one went out tonight.

He supposed someone had their reasons. He would have given a great deal to know who that someone was and what the reasons were.

The salt sea air, the smell of tar and sun-warmed wood giving up its heat into the night—Chandra drew in a deep breath and let it sigh back out in pure contentment. Below her feet she could feel the gentle slap, slap of waves against the hull. Above her head, rope and canvas creaked and billowed as the great square sail trapped a bit more wind. As far from any of the ship's lights as she could get and remain on board, Chandra leaned back and watched the Nine dance across the sky. She would have preferred a faster ship, a ship that could dance across the water, but this would most certainly do.

She would return The Stone to Ischia. A Wizard of the Nine was greater than any single discipline even if she couldn't figure out what exact discipline they faced. Even if—she pushed aside a moment of doubt—the wizard who stole The Stone could do things with mirrors she'd never heard of. That would put an end to any stupid marriage plans and give her time to deal with the problem of her cousin and the inheritance.

For the present, she would learn what she could of her companions, their strengths and weaknesses, so she could put them to the best use when the time arrived.

Darvish leaned against the stern and looked back at the lights of Ischia, breathing in the last scents of his city as the offshore breeze pushed the Gryphon out to sea.

I'll make you proud of me, Father. The thought had more the tenor of a threat than a promise.

He lifted his wineskin in salute, then half drained it to drown the fear that even returning The Stone and saving the capital would not be enough.

Up in the bow, Aaron stared into darkness, remembering the way the pain had eased in the circle of Darvish's arms.

It was the soul-link, he told himself. The soul-link made it safe. Nothing more.

Out of the darkness came voices from his childhood, stern priests who invoked an unforgiving god. Man and man is a sin and a blasphemy. That way lies the fire.

What kind of god makes love a sin? Faharra had asked. Too little of it in the world as it is.

It was the soul-link, Aaron told them both. The soul-link made it safe. Nothing more.

"Not another bloody letter."

The page shrugged and handed the small leather pouch embossed with the royal seals of both Ytaili and Cisali to the courier's captain. "I don't know what it is, ma'am. I was told to emphasize," he stumbled a little on the unfamiliar word, "that it had to be in Tivolic as soon as possible. That you're supposed to catch the evening tide."

"I can see the urgent cord, boy." She tapped one callused finger on the red silk string sealed around the pouch. "And don't tell me how to sail. I've been doing it for longer than you've been alive."

"Yes ma'am. I mean, no ma'am." He skipped back as the captain barked an order, the ropes were tossed clear, and the courier slipped the dock. Shoving his hands deep in his trouser pockets, he lingered for as long as he dared. That was the life; racing across the ocean, daring wind and wave, getting the message through whatever the cost. He sighed and headed back up the innumerable terraces to the palace. Maybe he should apply to the navy. Nothing ever happened in Ischia.

Safely clear of the harbor, the captain turned the package over and frowned at the royal seals. "Well, all I can say is, if it's from Her Most Blessedness, and if she wants more bloody peacocks, she can find another ship to carry them."

"Tired of beating on the crew?"

Darvish threw himself down by Aaron in the shade and grinned at Chandra. "Nine, no," he answered, "I got tired of them beating on me." The last two mornings, Darvish had picked out the largest men in the crew and challenged them to spar. He said he did it to stay in training, but his companions suspected he did it for fun, the no-holds-barred, gouging, biting type of fighting the sailors did couldn't be called training by any stretch of the imagination. The last two nights, he'd gotten drunk with them, having passed rapidly from landsman to compatriot.

"I know he's supposed to be pretending to be a swordsman," Chandra had sniffed at Aaron, "but does he have to do it so well? He's still a prince and he should act more like one."

The demon wings had risen. "Why?" Aaron had asked. "You don't."

"I am a Wizard of the Nine," she'd replied haughtily.

Aaron had gestured at the prince, surrounded by sailors, teaching them a soldier's song with impossibly lewd lyrics. "This is what he is."

Aaron and Chandra, the crew ignored. They returned the lack of interest.

Mopping his face with a double handful of his sunrobe, Darvish shot a questioning glance at the small silver bowl tucked into the curve of Chandra's crossed legs. "Have you found The Stone yet?"

"Not exactly," Chandra frowned. "I can tell it still exists and that we're heading toward it, but any details it burns out." When she'd last tried, just before sunrise, the power surge almost destroyed her scrying bowl. But she wasn't going to tell Darvish that. Nor was she going to mention the touch that had stroked lightly across her focus and diverted it. This was between her and that other wizard.

"At least we know we're going in the right direction and that it hasn't been destroyed."

"I keep telling you, no wizard in his right mind would destroy The Stone of Ischia."

"What if this wizard isn't in his right mind?"

Chandra snorted. "You're just saying that to be annoying!"

"Probably," he admitted, unrepentant. He prodded Aaron gently with a bare foot. "You put that salve on yet?"

"Hmm?" Deep in the protection of his sunrobe hood, Aaron's eyes were closed. The motion of the ship and the heat of the sun had filled the void and it just wasn't worth the effort to empty it out again. He was warm, he was comfortable, nothing even hurt very much.

"The salve?" Darvish repeated.

He'd brought the small pot up on deck, but, no, he hadn't applied it. He managed a single shake of his head.

"Do you want me to do it?"

A lazy flick of a pale finger seemed to indicate that Darvish should go ahead.

Shaking his own head, Darvish knelt and pried the cork from the pot. "There isn't much left," he warned, flicking Aaron's sunrobe open. The yellow silk trousers—"If I have to look less like a prince, you have to look less like a thief."—were low on Aaron's hips and he hadn't bothered putting his shirt on at all. And a good thing, too, Darvish thought with a wry smile. I don't think I'm up to undressing him. And stopping. He watched the brown of his fingers against the white of Aaron's chest and tried not to think of anything in particular.

The salve was cool against the scars and the gentle circular motion was the final thing Aaron needed to relax him completely. He felt like he didn't have any bones.

"You know what you need, Dar?" he murmured. "You need a war."

It took Darvish a moment to get past the diminutive. No one had called him Dar since his grandmother had died. He ran a line of salve carefully down the join of new skin and old, taking enough time for the lump in his throat to dissolve. "I thought it was war, amongst other things, we were trying to prevent," he said at last.

"No, no, you personally need a war." Darvish got the impression Aaron was speaking almost to himself. "I had a cousin like you once, a great fighter; soldiers, common people would follow him anywhere. Father said Joshua was the best kar kleysh he'd ever had."

"Kar kleysh?"

Eyes still closed, Aaron frowned. "You'd call it a war chief, uh, a commander." One corner of his mouth twitched upward. "Of course, the tricky part was commanding Joshua. You're like him, Dar. You need a war to be appreciated."

"Maybe I should start one when we get to Ytaili?"

The same corner twitched upward again. "Maybe."

"Kar kleysh," Chandra repeated thoughtfully. "I've never heard that language before. Where exactly are you from?"

Aaron sighed deeply. "A very, very long way from here."

"But where exactly? And why did you leave? And why become a thief, for the Nine's sake? You're an intelligent man, wellborn, I can't imagine anything so drastic that it would force you to make that kind of choice."

Between one heartbeat and the next, stone walls slammed back into place, muscles tensed, and Aaron returned to the real world. No, he thought, I don't imagine you can. Ruth was three years younger than you when she died. In one fluid motion he gained his feet and without speaking turned and walked to the bow where he could be alone with the memory of the screaming.

Darvish savagely shoved the cork back in the pot and thought about how much he'd like to wring Chandra's neck. "That was just brilliant," he snarled.

"What?" Chandra protested. "I just asked him some questions."

"Well maybe next time, O Awesome Wizard," Darvish stood and glared down at her, "you'll think about the answers you might get and then you'll think again about asking. And now, just so you have ample time to disapprove, I'm going to get drunk."

Alone, Chandra chewed her lip and picked at the tarred end of a piece of rope. The rules governing people made the most difficult wizardry with its chants and measurements and potential for disaster look both easy and safe. At least the rules of wizardry never changed. "It wasn't my fault," she told her shadow. Her shadow didn't look convinced.

"Courage, little sister." In the red-gold light of The Stone, the man's expression appeared deceptively kind. "Win through, prove yourself worthy, and you need never be alone again."

"I feel sorry for her," Darvish said, as the two men leaned on the rail and watched the sun extinguish itself beneath the horizon. "She's so busy saying, If you don't need me, then I don't need you to her father that she's never acknowledged how much he hurt her."

Aaron grunted and Darvish continued. "She's hiding that hurt behind anger." He grinned. "And occasionally an obnoxious personality." The light of the sun gave his skin a ruddy cast and turned the brown illusion over his blue eyes almost purple. "I wish there was something we could do to help her."

Aaron turned, looked steadily at Darvish for a moment, then shook his head in disbelief. "The blind leading the blind," he snorted and walked away, still shaking his head.

The gentle roll of the ship sent the huge figure crashing into a wall, where it rested for a moment before going on. It squinted against the night and the fine misting of rain, spotted its destination, and lurched determinedly forward. Two tries opened the door and, ducking under the low lintel, Darvish fell into the tiny cabin.

"Get off me, you ox! You're all wet!"

Slowly and carefully, Darvish stood and then reached out and considerately stopped the wild rocking of Chandra's hammock. "Though you'd be a... sleep."

"I was until you landed on me!"

Darvish thought about that for a moment. "Oh," he said. "You asleep... Aaron?" He peered into the dark shelf of the cabin's narrow bunk.

The thief's pale eyes glimmered eerily. "I was."

"Oh."

As Darvish continued to loom over him, Aaron stirred uneasily. "You stink," he said. "Go to bed."

The prince sighed and straightened. "Go to bed," he repeated morosely, somehow managing to find his hammock and get into it. "Go to bed alone. I'm in the... middle of th' ocean. Risking my... life... an' I'm witha virgin ana stone. Aaron doesn't like boys," he added after a second, "an' I respeck that."

You're not a boy, Aaron thought.

And the priests said, "Man loving man is foul in the sight of the Lord."

"An' Chandra's justa child. A baby. Only sixteen. S'okay to be a... virgin when you're still a baby. I unnerstand. Really."

"Look," Chandra said suddenly, "it's nothing personal." Maybe if she explained, he'd drop it. This might not be the best time nor place, but the darkness made it easy so she continued. "It's because I'm a Wizard of the Nine."

"Wizards," said Darvish, from the shadowed depths of his hammock, "don't have ta be... virgins. I know tha fer a fact. Four facts, in fact. Five if you figger... one of'em was twice."

"But not all wizards are the same." It had become very important that they understand. "Wizards make themselves a focus for external power, channeling it into the forms they choose. Most wizards can focus only a small amount of the power available and the forms they can channel to are limited by the discipline that makes them Wizards of the First or the Second or the Ninth. Wizards of the Nine are capable of focusing all available power and the forms are limited only by their level of training."

"But virgins..."

"I'm coming to that. To focus that kind of power, the wizard must be strong. Sex weakens you. Marriage weakens you. Love weakens you most of all. I won't lose my strength, myself, in another person. I won't do it. I won't."

"Then don't." Aaron's voice was steel and stone and ice.

"We'll get The Stone," Darvish said around a yawn, "and that'll show them all." He yawned again and almost instantly after his breathing slowed.

Chandra took a deep breath of her own and shakily released it. As much as his habits disgusted her, she found herself liking Darvish much more than she'd have ever liked the pretty princeling she'd expected. We'll get The Stone, he'd said. We. Her and Darvish and Aaron. If Aaron wanted to be part of a we...

Then, over the prince's gentle snores she heard him say, "Good night, Wizard."

She smiled. We'll get the stone.

"Good night, Thief."

"... but Gracious Majesty, if you want it done away from the harbor—we search for a single ship and the ocean is large."

King Harith stabbed a beefy finger down on the map, a square cut ruby flashing deep red in the lamplight. "How hard can it be?" he demanded. "The Gryphon sails from here," the finger moved, "to here. You tell a ship to wait here, and when Gryphon sails by it's ours. Simple."

"Most ships, Gracious Majesty," the Lord of the Navy tried again, "cut over to the north current somewhere along here..."

"Good." The king nodded his heavy head. "The perfect place for an ambush."

"But, Gracious Majesty, we have no way of knowing where they will cross to the current."

"Of course we do," the king snorted. "Take a Wizard of the Seventh along, find out where the winds blow tonight. You can have a couple of ships in the area by tomorrow morning?"

The lord nodded. It hadn't really been a question.

"Good, anyway, have the wizard find out where the winds would put the ship onto the current and be there. Seventh is a god of storms, after all, he should be able to figure out a few One abandoned winds. I want that ship and everyone on it destroyed completely. Take a Wizard of the Fourth along as well, they're good at that sort of thing."

The Lord of the Navy took a deep breath and said in the most innocuous voice he could manage. "Could that not be interpreted as an act of war, Gracious Majesty?" Not only could Ytaili not afford a war at this time, but to break a treaty just less than a year old would panic other treaty partners and start something they couldn't hope to control.

"Of course it could be interpreted as an act of war, you One abandoned idiot," King Harith growled. "And that's why," his eyes glittered in the lamplight and he smiled, "you're leaving no witnesses." One way or another, treaty or no treaty, he would get Cisali, if not by the war his people refused to fund, then by less overt means. To that end, he had helped the wizard Palaton steal The Stone and now, he would prevent Ischia's heroes from stealing it back.