The Scepter's return

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

"You!" The Banished One's bellow was full of rage and desperation and despair. "You thief! You bandit! You brigand! You have taken that which is mine, that to which you have no right. Do you think you can flout me so?"

In Lanius' dream, he looked at the exiled god. As always, the Banished One's countenance seemed perfectly beautiful, perfectly calm

… or did it? Wasn't that the faintest trace of a frown line by the side of his mouth? It marred his inhumanly cold magnificence as a broken window might have marred a building.

And, no matter how impassioned the Banished One sounded, he wasn't telling the truth, not as Lanius understood it. "Years ago, you took what belonged to Avornis," the king replied. "How can you complain when we do what we have to do to get it back?"

"It is not something mortals deserve to have. It is not something mortals should profane with their touch," the Banished One said furiously.

Lanius shook his head. The motion felt completely real, although, as always when he faced the Banished One, he knew he was dreaming. "You are the one whose touch profanes it," Lanius said. "If you could use it, if you were meant to use it, you would have been able to hundreds of years ago. It is not yours. It does not belong to you. It is not for you."

"It is my key to regaining the heavens," the Banished One said. "It is mine — mine, I tell you! With it in my hands, the so-called gods who cast me down cannot hope to stand against me."

"But it's no good in your hands, is it?" Lanius said. "It's no good at all to you. You can't even pick it up. While a — " He broke off. He did not want to tell the Banished One a moncat could do what the exiled god could not. He didn't know whether Pouncer was still inside Yozgat or had succeeded in escaping the city. No point to saying anything more than he had to, and a great deal of point to telling the Banished One as little as he could.

Luck — or, just possibly, the protection of the gods in the heavens — stayed with him. The Banished One was so agitated; he didn't notice Lanius' hesitation and didn't probe for what might have caused it. "It should be mine. It must be mine. It shall be mine!" the Banished One shouted.

"It belongs to Avornis again," Lanius said. "It always was ours, even if you'd stolen it. We can use it. We can — and we will."

Grus will use it, Lanius thought, there in the middle of his dream. Even then, that irked him. He'd realized Pouncer, who stole kitchen spoons, might steal other things, grander things, if properly trained. He'd had Tinamus build a segment of Yozgat in the countryside. He'd hired Collurio to make sure the moncat learned what it was supposed to do. What had Grus done that compared, that gave him the right to wield the Scepter of Mercy?

No sooner did he ask the question than he also answered it. Grus had led the Avornan army from the Stura south to Yozgat. Without him, Pouncer couldn't have gotten within a couple of hundred miles of the Scepter. That might give the other king a certain claim on the talisman, mightn't it?

"You don't know how to use it," the Banished One said. "I could show you…"

"I'm sure you could," Lanius said dryly. But the exiled god, so sensitive to tone most of the time, did not seem to notice that dryness now. The Banished One eagerly leaned forward — eagerly, that is, until Lanius added, "I'm sure you could — for your own purposes, but not for ours."

The Banished One drew back. More small lines appeared on the visage that was usually smooth as polished marble. "Die, then!" he thundered. "Die, and imagine anyone who comes after you will ever know your name."

Instead of dying, Lanius woke up. As always after facing the Banished One in a dream, he needed a moment to realize he was safe, and the confrontation was over. Sosia muttered something beside him. "It's all right, dear," he said. This time, he dared hope it really was all right.

He'd wondered whether he would know when and if Pouncer stole the Scepter of Mercy. He still had to wait for a courier to come up from the south. That would take a while. This time, though, he had the answer with or without the courier.

He also had something new to wonder about. Grus had always said he cared more about the Scepter of Mercy than he did about capturing Yozgat. He'd said it, yes, but did he mean it?

I suppose that will depend on how well he's able to use the Scepter, Lanius thought, and shook his head in slow wonder. Use the Scepter? Had he ever really believed he would think such a thing? He'd hoped so, yes. He'd done everything he could to bring this moment about. But had he really, had he truly, believed it would come?

For his very life, he couldn't say for certain.

He got out of bed. Sosia muttered again, but kept on breathing deeply and regularly. Gray predawn light leaked through the drawn shutters. Down in Yozgat, he supposed it would still be dark. Summer days were shorter in the south. By contrast, they had more sunshine down there in the wintertime. Things had a way of evening out. Lanius nodded again. Yes, things had a way of evening out, even if it sometimes took centuries.

The king left the royal bedchamber smiling to himself. He was the only one in the whole city of Avornis who knew what had happened down in the south. That almost made him want to thank the Banished One. Almost. The exiled god hadn't let him know to do him a favor.

I could show you… Lanius shivered. No, the Banished One hadn't had his good, or Avornis', in mind with a suggestion like that.

A sweeper paused and bowed as Lanius came up the hallway. "You're out and about early, Your Majesty," the old man said.

"Not as early as you are," Lanius answered. The sweeper smiled and nodded and went on with his work.

Lanius wandered. When he looked out through the windows, morning twilight brightened minute by minute. Flowers in the gardens went from gray to their proper blues and reds and golds. A few birds began to sing — not as many as would have in the early spring, but enough to sweeten the morning. More sweepers bowed and curtsied as Lanius went by. Distant shouts from the kitchens said the cooks were getting ready for a new day.

Someone came around the comer — Ortalis. "Good morning, Your Highness," Lanius said, adding, "You're up early." It was truer for Ortalis than it had been when the sweeper said it to him; Grus' legitimate son was often fond of lying in bed longer than most.

Ortalis made a horrible face. "Nightmare," he said. "One of the worst I ever had. Everything in ruins." He shuddered.

"I'm sorry." Lanius found himself meaning it, which surprised him. "My dreams were.. not so bad." Had he ever imagined he would say such a thing after seeing the Banished One? He knew he hadn't. But was it true? Without a doubt, it was.

Morning's first sunbeam came in through the window. A new day began.

A new day began. Inside Yozgat, chaos still seemed to reign. Grus wondered whether civil war had broken out among the Menteshe. They'd opened a couple of postern gates and crossed the moat on gangplanks to raid the Avornan works around the city, but hadn't staged the all-out attack he'd feared. Maybe they could see such an assault was hopeless no matter how enamored of the Banished One they were.

That — well, that and a certain thieving moncat — left the Scepter of Mercy in Grus' hands.

He stared at the talisman in… awe was the only word he could think of, but it struck him as much too mild. The reliefs on the golden staff were so fine, he didn't see how any merely earthly, merely human artisan could have shaped them. They showed the gods in the heavens with a liveliness, an intimacy, that had to speak of personal knowledge — and how could any merely human artisan hope to come by that?

The great blue jewel atop the Scepter shone and sparkled with a life of its own. Grus could not imagine a sapphire that size. Besides, the color was wrong for a sapphire, and no sapphire — indeed, no earthly jewel he knew of — possessed that inner fire. Where could it have come from? Probably from the same place as that intimate knowledge of the gods.

Wherever it came from, the staff was plainly solid gold. And a solid gold staff of that size should have made the Scepter of Mercy much, much heavier than it was. How had the moncat ever carried it out of Yozgat? Without much trouble, evidently. And Grus had no trouble lifting it. When he did, in fact, it hardly seemed to weigh anything at all.

Lanius had said something about that. Grus scratched his head, trying to remember. For those who would use it rightly, the Scepter was light — it made itself light. Those who would do otherwise with it couldn't lift it at all. The Banished One himself had never found a way to wield it.

Having it was one thing. Wielding it… But why had it let itself come into his hands, if not for him to wield it? Do I have the strength? Grus wondered. Can I do this? Should I do this?

He hesitated. But if he did not have the strength, why had he — and Lanius, and the Kingdom of Avornis — gone through so much to reach this moment? If these years of effort had any point, it was that he should wield the Scepter of Mercy.

He swung the Scepter toward the south, toward the Argolid Mountains, toward the Banished One. It still seemed feather-light in his hands, which encouraged him. This is what I ought to be doing, he thought. He turned the jewel this way and that, like a dowser casting about for water.

And, as a dowser felt where to dig a well, so Grus knew the instant he aimed the Scepter of Mercy at the exiled god. Power crackled up his arms, as though lightning had struck nearby.

The hair at the back of his neck stood up, also as though he found himself in the middle of a thunderstorm. During dreams, he'd known the Banished One was strong. But he'd never understood how strong the Banished One was while he dreamed. Now the king encountered him with all his own faculties intact, and was amazed at what he'd done in those dreams.

Along with that astounding power, he took the measure of the Banished One's hatred — for him, for the material world, for the gods in the heavens who had cast him down to the world. But, under that hatred, the Scepter also showed him the Banished One's fear.

Had he not known of it, he would have had a hard time believing it was there, for his own fear was great as well. But the Scepter's revelation helped him pluck up his courage. "Now we meet while I am awake," he said.

What if we do? the Banished One said sullenly. Grus couldn't hear him the way he did in dreams, but had no trouble understanding what he meant. You are a thief. You will not come to the end you look for, no matter what you do with that. I have told you the same thing before, and told you truly.

Grus thought the Scepter of Mercy would let him know if the exiled god were lying. He got no sense of that now. He shrugged. How much did it matter? Not nearly as much as keeping the Banished One within some kind of reasonable limit. "Hear me," he said, and the Scepter made sure the Banished One did hear him.

Rage came back through the Scepter. Who are you — what are you — to speak to me so?

"I am the King of Avornis," Grus said. "You and yours have tormented my kingdom since time out of mind. I am going to call you to account for it. Do you understand?"

By way of answer, he got back another blast of fury, this one strong enough to stagger him. But that fear underneath it remained. The Banished One was sure Grus could call him to account. If the Banished One hadn't been sure, Grus wouldn't have been so sure himself.

"Do you understand?" he repeated, and something went out with his words, something that said the Banished One had better understand.

I hear you. The Banished One might have been a chained dog running out and discovering, suddenly and painfully, the length and strength of the chain.

"Then hear this. From now on, you will not order or encourage the Menteshe to go to war against Avornis. You will not order or encourage the Chernagors to go to war against Avornis. You will not order or encourage the Thervings to go to war against Avornis. You will not aid any of these folk, or any others, in their wars against my kingdom. By the power of the Scepter of Mercy, I order you to obey."

The Banished One's laugh could still flay. Very well, little man. I shall do as you require of me here. Just as you command, so shall it be. And it will do you less good than you think.

He was liable to be right. The Menteshe, the Chernagors, and the Thervings could find reasons of their own to war against Avornis. They didn't need the Banished One to spur them on. But Grus said, "I'll take the chance. And, by the power of the Scepter of Mercy, I order you to abandon all spells that make men into thralls, or that sap the will of men so they do not know or fully understand what they are doing, such as the ones you used on the Menteshe when Korkut's men and Sanjar's attacked mine together."

You dare demand this? The Banished One said furiously. Do your worst, for here I shall not hearken to you.

"I mean it," Grus said. "That is my command. You will make it so." He exerted his will. He exerted it — and the Scepter of Mercy magnified it. By himself, he couldn't have hoped to prevail. The Banished One would never even have noticed his will, let alone yielded to it. The Banished One hadn't noticed his will, or Lanius', as they mounted the campaign that yielded Avornis the Scepter of Mercy. That the exiled god hadn't was perhaps his greatest failing.

He fought back now with all his formidable strength. Opposing him was like opposing the wind, the sea, the storm. His anger and his power buffeted Grus. The king struck back. Thanks to the Scepter, he could feel the Banished One wincing when his blows landed. It was a contest where the two enemies never touched, where many miles separated them. But it reminded him of nothing so much as two strong men standing toe-to-toe smashing each other in the face until one of them either fell over or, unable to stand the battering anymore, gave up.

A shudder — that was what it felt like, anyhow — from the Banished One made Grus shudder, too, in involuntary sympathy. Enough! the exiled god cried. Enough! I will do as you say. That accursed thing you carry is a torment like a lash of scorpions!

He told the truth. The Scepter of Mercy let Grus be sure of it. The King of Avornis let out a relieved and weary sigh. The Scepter had let him win the contest of wills, but hadn't been able to disguise that it was a contest, and a hard one. He felt as though he'd been pounded from head to foot.

"You could do so much good in the world," he said wearily. "Why do you work evil instead?"

Now only incomprehension greeted him. I do good, the Banished One answered. I do that which is good for me. Of other goodness, I know nothing.

Again, the Scepter told Grus he meant it. No man is a villain in his own eyes, the king thought. Much experience with rebels and brigands had taught him as much. It must be the same for gods. Too bad.

He wondered if he could use the Scepter's power to show the Banished One the error of his ways. He tried — and felt himself failing. Nothing he did made the exiled god see his point of view. It was not a matter of giving orders and enforcing obedience. He would have had to change the Banished One's essential nature. And that seemed beyond even the Scepter of Mercy.

Would he be able to figure out how to make the Scepter do more than he had on this first try? Would Lanius? Who could say? One thing was sure — now they would have the chance. For centuries, Kings of Avornis had had to do without.

Since he couldn't change the exiled god's nature now, he decided to work with it instead. "Remember," he said, "the game is more even now. We have the Scepter, and this time we intend to keep it. If we have to, we'll use it again."

I am not likely to forget, the Banished One said. Strength is strength. Power is power. Who would have thought men could do such a thing? He might have been a man talking about moncats.

Who would have thought Pouncer could do such a thing? Lanius had, and he'd made Grus see the possibility, too. Pouncer was less than a man, much less, but Lanius hadn't underestimated the beast. Grus and Lanius were less than gods, much less, but the Banished One hadn't fully taken into account what they could do. And now the exiled god was paying for it. When had he last had to pay? When his ungrateful children cast him down from the heavens?

Grus had always wondered who had the right of that, whether the one who had been Milvago the god deserved to spend — eternity? — trapped down here in the material world. He still didn't know. He doubted he would ever know. But now he had a stronger opinion than he'd had before.

Be thankful you did not push me further, little man, the Banished One said. Even that accursed Scepter will only go so far.

Maybe he didn't realize Grus had already discovered as much. And maybe that was just as well. A lion tamer could put his beasts through their paces, and they would obey him. Did that mean the man, even backed by his whip, was stronger than a lion? Every so often, a lion forgot its training — or recalled what it was. And when that happened, a lion tamer got eaten.

"Yes, no doubt it will," Grus said, not showing the Banished One the alarm he felt. If a lion tamer showed fear, his beasts would be on him in a heartbeat. Still boldly, the king went on, "You would do well to remember you have limits of your own."

The burst of rage that came through the Scepter of Mercy then made his hair stand on end. That was literally true; it rose from his scalp, as it might have done if lightning struck close by. And he knew that what he felt was only the tiniest fraction of what the Banished One sent his way. The Scepter brought it down to a level a mere man might grasp without being left a mindless idiot afterwards.

With what would have been a petulant shrug from a man, the Banished One in effect turned away, breaking the channel between himself and Grus. Grus let him go. The king had done what he'd set out to do. He looked down at the Scepter, which he still held in his right hand, and shook his head. That he held it… If he'd imagined he ever would when he first took the throne, he'd have been sure he was doing nothing but exercising his imagination.

He walked out of his pavilion into the morning sunlight once more. The guards in front of the tent bowed very low. They didn't usually do that for him — they took him for granted. They gave their respect to the Scepter of Mercy. Pterocles waited out there, too, and Collurio and Crinitus, and Hirundo — and Otus and Fulca.

Grus laughed. They were all waiting to see how he'd done — or to see if he'd survived. He held up the Scepter of Mercy. The sun made the jewel sparkle as though alive. When Grus looked at the sun, he was amazed to see how low in the eastern sky it still stood. By the way he felt, the confrontation with the Banished One might have gone on for hours. In fact, though, it had lasted only a few minutes.

When Grus didn't speak right away, Pterocles and Otus and Collurio all asked, "Well?" at the same time, and in identical anxious tones.

That made Grus want to laugh again. He didn't. This was a serious business, as no one knew better than he. "Very well, and I thank you," he said. "I have met the Banished One, and he has no choice but to obey the Scepter of Mercy." He held it up again. The jewel sparkled once more. Maybe that wasn't the sun glancing off it. Maybe it really did have an inner fire, an inner life, of its own.

They crowded around him then, exclaiming and congratulating him. So did the pavilion guards. Hirundo took the liberty of slapping him on the back. Grus didn't mind at all. The general, a practical man, asked, "What did you squeeze out of him?"

"First, he won't help or incite any of our neighbors to war on us again," Grus answered. Everyone who heard him cheered.

He did wonder whether that pledge was good for all time. He wouldn't have bet on it. If the Scepter was ever lost again, or maybe even if Avornis had a king who lacked the will or the strength or whatever it was that he needed to use the Scepter as he should… In that case, the exiled god might well stir up trouble once more. But Grus did dare hope that evil day, if ever came, lay many years away.

"You said first," Pterocles remarked. "That should mean there's a second, maybe even a third." He waited expectantly

"There is — a second, anyway." Grus nodded, "He will no longer make or back up spells of thralldom, or even the weaker sort of mind-dulling magic he used on the Menteshe this campaigning season."

This time, Otus and Fulca cried out louder than the rest. She threw her arms around his neck and kissed him on the cheek He enjoyed that liberty more than the one Hirundo had taker and squeezed her for a moment before letting her go. He wondered if he could have gotten more from her, and wouldn't have been surprised. A little regretfully, he put the idea aside. He' enjoyed himself with a good many women, before and after he was married, but he'd never tried to sleep with a friend's wife He thought that record worth keeping.

"Is there a third?" Pterocles asked.

"Aren't those two enough?" Hirundo said.

"Those two are enough," Grus said. "The Banished One.. is what he is. I don't think even the Scepter of Mercy can make him anything else. The only way he'll ever change is by deciding he wants to or has to, if he ever does. If he hasn't for this long, I don't suppose he will any time soon."

He looked at the Scepter again. Did the fault lie in it, or in the Banished One, or in his own ignorance of how to use it? He didn't know. Thanks to that ignorance, he couldn't know, no now — maybe not ever. But he wouldn't have been surprised if all three were involved.

"What happens next?" Hirundo asked. "Are you going to go on with the siege of Yozgat? Or is the Scepter of Mercy; enough?" He eyed it with something not far from awe of his own. After a moment, he resumed. "Heading for home might be better. The sooner we can get it back to Avornis, the less chance the Menteshe have of stealing it again." After another pause, he added, "The choice is yours, Your Majesty. I know that. I was just — thinking out loud, you might say."

"I understand. I've been thinking about the same thing — only more quietly," Grus said. Hirundo made a face at him. The king went on, "I think we will go back. I told Korkut he was welcome to this place if he gave up the Scepter, and I meant it."

"It's all right with me," Hirundo said. "I just hope the Banished One doesn't whip the nomads into a fit to get it back, that's all."

"He can't. His Majesty made sure he couldn't," Pterocles pointed out. He also kept staring at the Scepter of Mercy. Some of his expression was awe like Hirundo's; the Scepter naturally brought it out. But his face also showed intense curiosity. He wanted to know what all the Scepter could do and how it did it.

That worried Grus for a moment, but only for a moment. He was sure of one thing — the Scepter would not let itself be used wrongly. If the Banished One hadn't been able to do that, Pterocles wouldn't be, either. Grus said, "We'll need to be careful no matter what. The Menteshe will probably strike at us whether the Banished One whips them on or not. They really do worship him."

"I'll do everything I can, Your Majesty," Hirundo promised. "I suppose it's possible they can beat the whole army. You can have my head, though, if they catch us by surprise."

If the Menteshe caught the Avornans by surprise, they would probably have Hirundo's head, and Grus', too. Grus didn't point that out. Instead, he gestured with the Scepter. By the way everyone's eyes, even his own, followed it, he couldn't have found anything more effective to do. He said, "Let's get ready to go home."

The soldiers wouldn't be sorry to break off the siege. Most of them liked having campaigned much more than they liked campaigning. Since Grus felt the same way, he couldn't get angry at them for that. And they would likely stay healthier on the move than settled down here. Fluxes of the bowels and other sicknesses cut short more sieges than enemy soldiers did.

"When we first met — when you were a river-galley skipper and I ran a troop of horsemen — did you ever dream it would come to… this?" Hirundo asked.

"No," Grus answered. If he tried to say yes, Hirundo wouldn't need the Scepter of Mercy to know he was lying. He pointed at the general. "How about you?"

"Me? Back then, all I worried about was driving the Menteshe out of the kingdom. It seemed like plenty, too — plenty and then some."

"It did, didn't it?" Grus agreed. Hirundo sketched a salute and went off to start readying the withdrawal from Yozgat.

"Your Majesty?" Otus asked, and then paused. Only when Grus nodded did the former thrall go on, "Did you really mean that, Your Majesty? Thralldom is gone? All the thralls are themselves again?"

"I… think so," Grus answered cautiously. "When we go back, we'll send out riders to villages where our wizards have never gone. We'll find out for sure then. But that was the promise I got from the Banished One. I don't believe he can break a promise he makes through the Scepter."

"This is good. This is gooder — better — than anything I can think of." Otus looked at the Scepter, then toward the south. When his eyes swung back to the king, they had a twinkle in them. "I would kiss you, too, but I know you like it better from Fulca."

Grus laughed. "Well — yes," he said, and Otus laughed with him. The world seemed fresh and new and wonderful. When was the last time he'd had that feeling? After his first girl, maybe. He shook his head. As far as he could see, this was even better than that, and he'd never imagined anything could be.

What's left for me to do? he wondered. In the short run, several things needed taking care of. He knew what they were. He intended to deal with them. But after that? Once he'd recovered the Scepter, wasn't everything else an anticlimax? I'll worry about it when I get back to the capital, he told himself. I've had plenty of worse things to worry about, by the gods.

One of the things that needed taking care of now was a talk with Korkut. He approached the moat under flag of truce, but with enough shieldsmen and other guards to make sure the Menteshe couldn't hope to break the truce and kill him. When he called for Korkut, one of the defenders who understood Avornan shouted back, asking him to wait. He waved to show that he would.

The Menteshe prince came up onto the wall half an hour later. "What do you want?" he called in his fluent Avornan. "You know I have the Scepter," Grus said.

"I know it, ah, disappeared," Korkut answered bleakly. "If you say you have it, I will not call you a liar, though you could show it to me."

"No," said Grus, who'd left it in his pavilion under guard. Bringing it anywhere near the wall would have been all too likely to tempt the Menteshe to attack to get it back. "I have it. Believe me or not, as you like. The Scepter is what I came for. I told you that before. Since I have it, I'm going home. As far as I'm concerned, you're welcome to Yozgat. Your loving half brother may have a different idea about that, but the two of you are welcome to each other, too."

"You are — going home?" Korkut sounded as though he couldn't believe his ears.

"I said so from the beginning," Grus answered. "If you'd handed me the Scepter then, we never would have had a siege to begin with. But you need to know I'm leaving because I want to, not because I have to. We've won every stand-up fight against the Menteshe. We can win one more — or three or four more — if we have to."

"Can you fight the Fallen Star, thief?" Korkut asked.

"Yes," Grus said bluntly. "I can, and I have, and if I need to I will again." That made the Menteshe who understood Avornan stir on the wall, as he'd hoped it would. The rest would stir, too, once they'd translated it. Having said what he'd come to say, he went back inside the Avornan palisade. When he looked toward Yozgat again, Korkut was still up on the wall, staring out after him. Well, well. Grus smiled. Now he has something brand new to think about. Good.

More waiting. Lanius had always thought he was a patient man. He'd had to be patient. He'd been shoved into the background several times in several different ways. Even if Pouncer had succeeded down in Yozgat, he would stay in the background. Grus would get the credit, and Grus would deserve… a good deal of it, for he would be the one who wielded the Scepter of Mercy.

But he never would have had the chance to wield it if Lanius hadn't had the idea to train Pouncer to steal it.

Things had happened down in the far south. The dream the Banished One had sent made him sure of that. But he still wanted a human source for the news, a source he could pass on to others. Not having one yet made him itch worse than sitting in a bathtub full of fleas would have.

He buried himself in the archives so he wouldn't snap at whoever was unlucky enough to run into him. He expected that Grus and Collurio and Pterocles and Hirundo and Otus — maybe especially Otus — were rejoicing down there outside of Yozgat. He wanted to have a palpable excuse to rejoice himself. He wanted to run through the palace corridors whooping and waving his arms and kissing everybody he met — old men with brooms, serving girls (if Sosia didn't like it, too bad — but he would kiss her, too), fat cooks, Chernagor ambassadors (not that any Chernagor ambassadors were around right now, but the longer he waited for a letter, the more chance they had to show up), his children. Ortalis? He had to think about that, but in the end he nodded. He'd even kiss Ortalis.

But he couldn't, not just on the strength of a dream. He needed something written down in a man's hand. He ached for that — and he didn't have it.

As long as he didn't, he buried himself in tax registers that would have stupefied him in ordinary times — and he didn't stupefy easily. While he was concentrating on them, though, he wasn't thinking about anything else.

He learned that his great-great-great-grandfather was a thief and a cheapskate and a man any reasonable person would hate on sight. There were several uprisings in those days. Lanius' ancestor put them down with ferocious brutality and then taxed the rebels even more to make them pay for the cost of suppressing them. The king thought that, if he'd been alive in his multiple-great-grandfather's day, he would have wanted to revolt, too.

And yet his own father — a stem, hard man himself — would have probably put down the uprisings about the same way. And Mergus was a pretty good king, as far as Lanius could judge. The more you looked at things, the less simple they got.

One afternoon, someone knocked on the heavy doors that closed the archives off from the rest of the palace. Lanius jumped and swore. He'd trained the servants not to bother him in here unless it was the end of the world. Maybe it was.

With that in mind, Lanius didn't shout at the apprehensive servant waiting outside. "Yes? What is it?" he asked in his usual tone of voice.

Relief blossomed on the man's face. "Your Majesty, there's a courier up from the south waiting to see you."

"Up from the south? From south of the Stura?" Lanius asked, and the servant nodded. "Well, you'd better take me to him, then," the king said.

The servant took him to the courier, who waited in an anteroom with a cup of wine and a chunk of brown bread. The man jumped to his feet and bowed. "Your Majesty, I was to give you this first," he said, and handed Lanius a rather crumpled scrap of parchment.

Lanius recognized Grus' firm hand at once. Please don't eat the man who carries this if he bothers you while you're in the archives, the other king wrote. The news he carries will be worth the hearing. A flush rose all the way to the top of Lanius' head. Grus knew him much too well.

"All right. You're eating here. You're not being eaten," Lanius said, and the courier managed a nervous smile. Lanius held out his hand. "Give me this news King Grus says you have."

His fingers trembled as he broke the seal on the letter the courier took from his tube. Now it would be official. Now the world could know. There was the other king's script again. The moncat fetched it, Grus wrote without preamble. I have it. I've used it. It's even more astonishing than we hoped it would be. I'm bringing it back to the city of Avornis. It belongs to the kingdom again. Lanius didn't run and whoop after all. He knew too much joy for that. He just stood there, smiling while tears ran down his face.