Chapter Fourteen

 

 

Gard clutched the howdah with one hand and waved with the other. Not that the people of Apsurakand were cheering for him, but he earned some legitimacy by sitting beside Vijay, and could at least bask in reflected glory.

The cavalry thundered beneath the huge gates of the citadel, sending beggars scurrying for cover. The elephant, eyes rolling amid freshly applied paint, lumbered behind. The Apsuri gathered along the avenue inside cheered, probably more for the splendor of the procession than for the Ferangi visitor. Gard saw several helmeted officers moving through the crowd, handing out paise; the people and their zeal melted away after he passed.

“What do you think?” Vijay asked, his turban bobbing like a tulip in a breeze.

“What? Oh-ah—oddly enough, Apsurakand reminds me of Iksandarun. Rather the worse for wear after the Khazyari invasions.” The street down which they advanced was lined with decent brick and stone buildings, but behind them, glimpsed down alleyways, were shacks built precariously upon rubble.

“The Khazyari sacked Apsurakand forty years ago,” Vijay said. “It just shows you how incompetent the Apsuri are, that they have not yet rebuilt.”

“Rebuilding takes wealth,” murmured Gard. But Vijay did not hear him; he was waving to a pretty girl.

The elephant plodded toward a battlemented building painted in garish colors. A group of officials saluted the approaching visitors and turned to a prisoner lying prostrate before an elephant. Just as the Ferangi beast slowed and stopped, the Apsuri elephant responded to its mahout’s command by raising a mighty foot and casually stepping upon its victim’s head.

Vijay winced. Gard gulped and his daemon groaned. How amusing for Menelik, to remind us of his power.

They were surrounded by horned helmets and spears, and marched not unlike condemned prisoners themselves into the palace. Gard’s wary glances revealed serviceable flagstone floors, whitewashed walls, a monogrammed banner or two. Tall wooden doors creaked open to reveal a columned chamber with brightly frescoed walls and an open hearth in the center. Several young warriors held bits of spitted meat over the fire; in the eddying smoke they looked like demons around a pyre. The scent of burning flesh filled the air.

Vijay was whisked away down the room, to bow courteously before the stone throne of Apsurakand.

So that burly form was Menelik, the self-styled Padishah, leader of the Alliance, perpetrator of the Last Rites of the Innocents. The man sat poised on the edge of his khaddi, hand grasping the hilt of his dagger, with the smug assurance of a gladiator facing a pair of rabbits. What a contrast with feeble Jamshid, with urbane Rajinder, with winsome Vijay. Gard skidded to a stop at Vijay’s heels and echoed his bow.

“Welcome,” said Menelik. “I am pleased that my dear friend Jamshid has sent his son to visit Apsurakand.”

Vijay murmured something appropriate in response to the words. Gard considered the tone. Menelik delivered the banality as if he spat vinegary wine between his lips. Wherever his lips were. The man’s beard curled luxuriantly over the lower half of his face, its upper corners barely contained by the rim of his starched white turban.

Several warriors rose from their perches on the hearth and sauntered to Menelik’s side. Gard shrank—they were huge, as tall as Andrion, almost as broad as Jofar. Menelik’s personal guard, no doubt, choreographed to impress. But there was no prickling of his neck; Tarek was not here. That was, somehow, disappointing.

Vijay stood unconcernedly returning Menelik’s scrutiny. Bravado? Or was Vijay, as usual, merely oblivious to the currents beneath the surface? The shah placed his massive, bejeweled hands on the arms of his throne and stood. The deep voice boomed another formality. Gard was more interested in the man’s eyes, smoldering as smokily as his hearth-fire. In his flat nose, nostrils flared. In his high brow, unfurrowed by doubt. The dragonet peered through slitted gray eyes; no, Menelik had no aura, not the least ripple of amber or crimson. His power was, if considerable, temporal.

And there was the boy, the man, Jofar, striding forward to Menelik’s right hand, his face made even more unwieldy by a grin, the amazing shield shining on his arm. Gard could see himself reflected in it, a thin, ineffectual form trussed in gold. He tensed—here it comes . . .

“Gard!” exclaimed the young warrior. And, babbling excitedly to the Shah, “It is he, Father. The wizard who did so many wonderful things in Ferangipur. He trained at Dhan Bagrat, like me.”

Skewered by dozens of eyes, Gard felt his face spread into an idiot’s meaningless smile, his cheeks flame the same color as his beard. Surely he would melt under that scrutiny, become a little puddle of grease, run down between the flagstones and drip into the dungeons beneath, gratifying the starving prisoners . . . The dragonet grinned inanely and bobbed up and down.

“Indeed,” thundered Menelik. “I would like to see some of your tricks, Imparluzi wizard. At the banquet tonight?”

So this is what it is like to have a reputation, thought Gard. No wonder Andrion goes about growling at people who want to see him draw his sword and strike a pose. He bowed. “Certainly, Nazib-ji.”

Jofar beamed on him. The man was, incredibly, even larger than his comrades who surrounded him, his great frame impacted in armor. Yes, he was of Menelik’s blood. And yet the Shah’s high brow and smoky eyes hinted at intellectual processes burning within, while Jofar’s rudimentary features were as guilelessly one-dimensional as a child’s labored drawing.

Vijay poked Gard in the ribs. Faces bloomed and faded before his eyes. Hallways undulated. A bedchamber for Vijay, no more sumptuous than the room at the inn in Chandrigore, and a minute dressing room with a cot for Gard. Barred windows. Were they trying to keep robbers out or servants in?

More hallways, a glimpse of sunlight, a portico. And, thankfully, a bathhouse. Gard sprawled like a corpse on a slab of marble while servants massaged his shoulders, plucking each tendon like a harp-string so that his bones jangled discords. The dragonet panted, tongue lolling.

Vijay rose from his slab and lowered himself into a steaming pool of water. Other men lounged nearby, their bodies distorted by the warm mist rising from the pool, under orders, no doubt, to report back to Menelik whatever Vijay said in this unguarded moment.

The young prince released his hair from the pins that held it. The long sable locks flowed down over his shoulders, enveloping his face in shadow. Gard slipped into the water beside him. “Ah,” said Vijay, loudly for the benefit of the averted faces nearby, “I am glad to see the Apsuri are marginally civilized.”

“Mmm,” said Gard. He peered upward; steam rising from the water writhed in beams of sunlight admitted through oblongs pierced in the roof. Shapes danced in the mist, women’s blond and sinuous forms. In the hot water the sickle-shaped scar on his arm ached like a cracked tooth.

An attendant doused him with water and he sputtered. Tentatively he tasted a droplet clinging to his beard. “Fresh water,” he murmured to Vijay. “Not brackish cistern water. They have wells within the city, or some kind of conduit from a spring outside. They could withstand a siege.”

“That is the sort of comment Raj would make.” The prince was more interested in the wavering rays of light. Surely he did not see those beckoning feminine wraiths. But when curls of steam bent and caressed his face he smiled. The gods, Gard thought irascibly, teased their prey even here.

“I dreamed of Yasmine last night,” confided Vijay.

“But you have never even met her!” Gard protested in an undertone.

“I feel as if I have.”

“There are plenty of women in the world.”

“The lady in the glade,” Vijay said with unassailable logic, “told me that I was to have Yasmine.”

“It was only a game,” asserted Gard. A bit too loudly; ears pricked across the pool.

“Was it?” Vijay smoothed his hair away from his face. “Gard, would you know an omen if you saw one?”

The dragonet whooped. Gard spat an epithet. He lifted a floating dipper and threw its load of water into Vijay’s face.

The prince grinned, abandoning his reverie. His hand grasped Gard’s ankle and jerked. Gard’s head plunged into the sudden echoing silence of the pool. Yasmine, sighed the dragonet mockingly. Yasmine . . .

Gard surged up again to see the Apsuri men flocking forward with gales of laughter. Good! A water fight was always fun, and more worthwhile than omen-mongering, jangling bones, and panting daemons.

 

* * * * *

 

A slightly puckered Gard stood outside the gate of Menelik’s palace, his thumbs hooked in his sash, his head cocked to the side, eyeing the maidan. Vendors, beggars, drilling soldiers. Lots of drilling soldiers. No more executions, thankfully. The dragonet lay propped upon its paws, gazing about with an annoying perkiness.

Vijay and Menelik were in a conference from which Gard had been excluded. Good, he had not been enthused at the thought of spending several hours stupefied by a discussion of trade routes and sailing rights, tariffs and customs. He started up the maidan toward the building looming at its end, buying a pomegranate from a vendor and slurping on the cool seeds as he strolled. A real pomegranate, much more useful than that gold one the goddesses had coveted. Although the point of the argument had been power, not pomegranates. Using poor innocent Vijay as a pawn. Had the gods no pride at all? He threw the empty husk over his shoulder.

The temple of Hurmazi blocked the sky before him, as massive as the ziggurat of Harus in Sardis. A doorway linteled with an immense block of limestone led into a dark, noisome crypt—the symbolic prison of Raman.

Hurmazi must be a forthright, foursquare god, brooking no nonsense. Even the friezes of his wives showed them working at insignificant domestic tasks, unadorned by painted jewels or silk. Behind their husband’s humorless back their stony eyelids seemed to wink at Gard as he passed.

The people around him clotted and parted. An elegantly turbaned figure strode into an alley not far away. The pentacle chimed an interrogatory. Gard’s skin prickled as if stung by a nettle. The dragonet rose to its feet, tail upraised. Aha! Tarek was slinking about Apsurakand after all, up to—well, not necessarily no good, but certainly up to something.

If I cannot avoid the man, Gard thought, then he cannot avoid me. He mashed his turban more firmly onto his head. He darted across the maidan, evading donkeys, children and beggars, and followed.

The shadowy corridor exhaled a breath of offal and of cooking bread. Unhurried footsteps echoed off the rickety buildings leaning almost together overhead. A cat sat on a windowsill, amber eyes glazed with introspection. Tarek was a dark silhouette at the end of the alley.

Gard stepped cautiously amid the piles of garbage, dodged the contents of a chamber pot hurled from above, and flattened himself against a peeling wooden wall to peer into the next street. Vendors’ calls and the shouts of the drill centurions echoed faintly from the maidan, but this area seemed to be deserted and silent . . . Wait. He frowned. Surely that was the tink-tink-tink of a smith’s hammer.

The sound came from behind an arched gateway, scabrous wooden doors hanging ajar. His pentacle wriggled in its pouch, and the wings whirred like a hummingbird against his chest. The dragonet raised its forepaws and set them firmly against his ribs, pushing.

Gard glided along a brick wall that was, despite the noon sun, cold. His boots barely stirred the sodden straw on the ground. His shoulder brushed the door and it creaked faintly. He froze. Nothing happened. The hammer went on, accompanied by a murmur of voices.

Holding his breath, Gard set his eye to the crack between the doors. He saw a courtyard, its stone walls stained with soot. Boxes and bales lay carelessly about a small forge where a smith worked . . .

The odor of sulfur filled his nostrils. His head seemed to take wing and swoop from his body to smash upon the paving stones. The dragonet spread-eagled itself against his breastbone. The smith hammered away at a miniature silver crescent. His body was wiry, his hair and beard like a haymow, his eyes gleamed sleet-gray. Senmut.

“No,” said Tarek’s voice. “The time is not yet ripe. There are still omens I cannot interpret.”

Control, inhale, exhale; Gard secured his head, tamped his thoughts, looked again through the crack.

The smith looked right at the doorway. No, by Ashtar’s green eyes, he looked just beside the doorway. Tarek must be standing a hands breadth to the side of the gate. Gard quieted his breath to a shallow sigh and prayed the sorcerer would not hear the incessant keening of his bones.

The smith’s beard rustled. He smiled in a leer unlike any expression Gard had ever seen on Senmut’s face. “Omens you cannot interpret?” he repeated tauntingly. “The premier wizard of the Mohan, still at a loss over a minor goddess and a dimwitted girl?” He dipped the tiny scythe into a pot of water. Steam hissed upward, muting the lines of his body. No, it was not Senmut. This man did not have a clubfoot.

Tarek said imperturbably, “Saavedra is no minor goddess. And Amathe’s girl is far from dimwitted.” He appeared in the slit between the boards, straightening slowly from a languorous posture against the wall. His aura fluttered like a gauzy cloak around him.

Amathe’s girl? Deva? Gard coiled like a taut runner of morning glory. The smith lifted a bag onto his anvil. “Here, the formula I told you about. Saltpeter, sulfur, and charcoal. Most impressive.” He took a pinch of black powder from the bag and threw it on the fire. The fire flashed with a sudden detonation, and a trail of black smoke twisted upward. Gard jumped away from the doorway, heart and dragonet in his throat—what kind of hellish stuff was that? He forced himself to creep back.

“I am suitably impressed,” said Tarek. “Can you control it?”

“I made the twin saltcellars,” returned the other testily. “I made Jofar’s shield. I made the golden pomegranate you wasted in Raman’s crypt.”

Pomegranate? Raman threw that pretty toy down among his brother Hurmazi’s wives?

“Things, not powers,” Tarek said. “Answer my question.”

“How can you claim to control your power? Only the gods have true power. Man flatters himself with delusion. My work may not be gaudy, but it is certainly effective, more than you can say about magic.” The last word was a sneer, spat out upon the fetid ground.

Revelation swept Gard from crown to toe. The dragonet’s mouth rippled in a growl. The man was Bhai. He was Senmut’s brother. No wonder the old monk cursed him. Tarek’s sorceries smelled positively fresh compared with the reek of evil that hung about Bhai. But by his own admission he had no magic. If still he stank so badly, then he must be—Gard’s thought stammered—all malevolence, untempered by the wizard’s refined sensibilities . . .

Gard braced himself against the wall, dizzy. Somewhere in his crazed imagination a thin version of Bhai’s voice whined, “Mamma always liked you best!”

The dragonet cleared its throat. Gard grimaced in concentration. Bhai placed the cooled silver scythe in a box. “It is magic,” said Tarek, quietly and deliberately, “that will tip the balance in the war to come.”

War? He was so sure there would be a war?

Gard’s pentacle sneezed. A tendril of indigo snaked out beneath the gate and tapped inquisitively at his foot. He spun away from the doorway and flattened himself against the brick wall beside it. A breeze crept querulously down the street, sending puffs of smoke and brimstone before it.

“What is it?” Bhai asked.

“My sword,” said Tarek with an arid chuckle. “It was used by that fool Bogatyl, in the dance of the young fire-wizard in Ferangipur.”

Gard emitted a silent but heartfelt curse. Tarek’s sword is imprinted on me; if I can sense his presence he can sense mine! His thought detonated like the mysterious powder. The dragonet lunged upward, spreading its wings, expanding—a cat, a cat had watched him in the alley . . .

“I wondered why my bones were aching so,” purred Tarek, “especially since this stinking little cesspool of yours contains no real power. But the sword tells me: speak of a fire-demon and it appears!” The gate crashed. Tarek lunged into the opening, his scimitar glistening in his hand.

A large tomcat hurtled across the street and disappeared into an alley, its tail flicking disdainfully. Odd color for a cat, a bright chestnut red. “Ho,” called Tarek, his words as sweet as hazelnut liqueur. “Is the performing monkey out without a leash? Take care; there are tribes in the mountains who eat monkey’s brains for dessert.”

The cat yowled defiance. Laughing, Tarek kicked aside the pile of clothing lying at his feet, slammed and secured the gate.

Gard crawled into a doorway and huddled there, trembling. Whiskers, tail, padded paws; existence fractured, pelted him with image and sense, contracted into coherence. The dragonet shriveled and lay gasping in his chest cavity, limbs limp, wings crumpled like soiled sheets. His own limbs were splayed in the dirt. Beneath his hands were shards of stone and bone pounded by many passing feet into a macabre pavement.

He wrenched his being into the mold that was himself. He ran his hands over his face. No, his nose was not sprouting out of his chin and his ears were not pasted in the middle of his forehead. Stupid, to challenge Tarek. Stupid, to let the man think his plots, whatever they were, could go unchallenged. Gard should have faced him, demanded just what he was plotting, what he intended for Amathe’s girl. And been turned into a newt for his pains.

But then, if Tarek had known he was listening, the entire discussion could have been a charade for his benefit. Menelik would like Gard to return to Ferangipur whining about the arcane powers of Apsurakand.

Groaning, he stood. He summoned his discarded clothing and it squirmed to him. He dressed. The dragonet sat up, gurgled disgruntlement, began to groom its wings.

So he could change instantly. Nothing like terror to concentrate the thought. Now if he could achieve the same effect without terrifying himself with morbid fancies of conspiracy and divine intrigue—Raman was supposed to go about sowing discord, that was his infernal role—so Tarek served the evil brother instead of the good, where was the surprise in that? So he worked with Senmut’s evil brother; apparently the man had his uses . . .

A man who had no magic might well resent a twin who did, if one were punished and one petted for skills that could only be innate. Parents laid dreadful burdens upon their children, as though implanting grains of that black powder to explode years later in nightmares and malfeasances.

Interesting black powder. It could be turned to some very nasty uses—I shall have to tell Deva—Tarek knew more about Deva than he had any right to know . . . Gard’s mind bumped down a long stair of supposition and crashed to a halt. Damn Bhai, damn Tarek, damn Apsurakand!

Forcing a whistle, Gard sauntered back toward the maidan somewhat more loose-limbed than he would have liked, the dragonet snoring sonorously beneath his heart, and was promptly lost in a maze of alleys. He cast one way, and another, and asked directions of a woman hanging out her wash. He stopped whistling, needing every breath; the heat in the airless passageways was stifling, the teetering walls threatening to fall and crush him. His steps grew faster and faster.

He shot out of an alley and caromed off a wall. A squat, ungainly building lay before him, its glazed tiles chipped and faded. It was shabby enough to have been there for centuries, suffering but not surrendering to fire, flood and invader. Myrtle and heliotrope, lily and rose, spread like crumpled skirts around it. The dragonet sputtered in its sleep.

Gard squinted; yes, a few pale blossoms of asphodel and anemone stirred in the wind. Of course the flowers of Ashtar would appear in the temple of Saavedra. Goddesses ran in packs; sacred or profane, women were all alike.

Priestesses wearing broad faience collars moved up and down the steps and through the garden, serenely ignoring the jeers of passing children. Had Deva said they were safe within their own walls? Gard scowled. Just what had Deva said about Amathe and Apsurakand and the prophecy? At the time, he had been more intent on her lovely body than on her reminiscences.

And she wanted to come here, did she? She was so certain he would bring her here she did not even play tawdry feminine tricks to persuade him. Well, she could not play tricks on him, he had powers, too.

A light flickered from the temple like a sentry’s lantern flashing between crenellations. Gard warily opened one corner of his thought. No, it was not a real light. It was a pale aura, violet and blue, leaking from between the very stones of the temple. The glazed tiles brightened into brilliance before his eyes, shining with gilded images of moons and stars that circled slowly, implacably, through the heavens. Several priestesses turned, looked directly at him, smiled and beckoned.

Oh no. One supernatural experience a day, thank you. Gard turned on his heel and paced away. As long as Menelik ruled Apsurakand, Saavedra was and would remain a minor goddess, Deva or no Deva.

The sun was coasting down a sky bled white by its glare. Almost dinner time. A few hours in banal company would be good for his exacerbated senses. He trotted back to the palace.

 

* * * * *

 

The food was bland compared to the throat-searing curries of Ferangipur, the wine was strong and harsh. The incense in the air was that of meat, swirled by an occasional whiff of myrrh. Menelik’s warriors even ate in armor. They were certainly not going to be surprised by berserk pumpkins.

Here, Gard was definitely seated below the salt, several places beyond the silver cellar that was a twin of the one on Jamshid’s table. Of course Menelik would have one, too; no king would give away anything finer than what he had himself. But the elegant shell-and-silver artifact, more a sculpture than a table implement, stood out amid the earthenware plates and cups like Yasmine among a group of caravan whores, accentuating their poverty.

The dragonet dozed, ears folded, eyes closed, paws tucked comfortably under its breast. Gard shoved his plate away. Boiled vegetables reminded him too much of Dhan Bagrat. So did Jofar’s unaffected laugh, booming out above the conversational undertow. Musicians played harp and shenai in the corner, competent but uninspired, as if to play the grace notes of a Ferangi melody would be to admit weakness.

Gard strained toward the talk at the head table; he could already hear Rajinder grilling him on the modifier of every verb.

“Has my dear friend Jamshid,” murmured Menelik, “regained his health?”

Vijay said smoothly, “He is well, thank you.”

The young prince was handling himself superbly in the thrust and parry of diplomacy. Raj might have whittled away at the glossy phrases until each kernel of meaning was revealed beneath, while Vijay merely applied a polishing cloth to the surface. But how much could one learn from banquet small talk?

“My brother Shikar,” Menelik said, “returned from hunting the other day looking as if he had been trampled in Mohendra mud. It appears that his horse threw him when a buffalo charged!” His laugh rattled the rafters.

Gard lifted his cup in a salute to fraternal affection.

“My brother Rajinder,” Vijay said, “recently tracked and killed a gharial that had carried off a fisherman. He followed it through the mangroves, and gave the skin to the widow.”

“Shikar could not track his own ass into the privy!” Menelik guffawed. On cue, his followers howled derision.

Jofar’s eyes found Gard’s. He grinned and nodded. Is this not the life? he seemed to say.

Oh yes, Gard responded mutely. Adolescent humor suits all of you.

The chief priest of Hurmazi, his fringed robes making him appear an ambulatory shop awning, began to expound the catechism. Raman the lord of delusion and darkness, Hurmazi, the storm lord, ineffectual Pallias, Ranithra, Kyphasia, impotent Saavedra. Ineffectual? Gard queried silently. Impotent?

Dancing girls wafted about the smoky hearth, their plump bodies so well-covered in saris and jackets that Gard’s blood continued flowing unhindered. A few dim figures passed in and out of the entrance doors . . .

The pentacle on his chest snapped. Gard stiffened. A man-shaped cloud shot with lightning: Tarek. The daemon opened one eye, considered, opened the other. Its lip shivered, revealing a glint of needle sharp teeth.

Gard patted it down. The wings on the pentacle shifted and settled. Tarek leaned impassively against the doorframe as Menelik’s chamberlain pounded his staff upon the floor and bellowed something about honored visitors and noble ladies. A rustling went through the hall, like a paddock of horses catching the scent of a stalking lion.

Or lioness. A woman stood before the zenana screen, drawing the eyes of every man in the room. Not a young woman, not especially beautiful. But her presence was commanding. Chin high, eyes lidded with knowing appraisal, mouth set upon what might be sorrow or might be resentment. Gard set down his cup and blinked. Persis, who had never borne Menelik an heir.

Persis reached behind her and pulled a willowy young girl to her side. Her daughter, obviously, though the girl’s shy and good-natured smile had yet to harden into a cynical curl of the lip, her taut flesh had yet to sag beneath the burden of experience. Zoe, the Padishah’s only legitimate child.

But of course, Deva had said upon sharing Zoe’s name, most people believe Persis to be entirely childless, as women do not count at all. Gard sighed, Yes, Deva. I should have gone ahead and brought your body with me, too, since your mind is so close behind. And with a qualm, But if I brought you here, would you leave again with me . . ?

Persis glided to Menelik’s left hand, steering Zoe before her. She acknowledged Jofar’s bow with a crisp nod. She accepted Vijay’s gift of the tiger skin with thanks and compliments, waiting until the Ferangi’s back was turned before letting the servants dump the magnificent skin to the floor behind her cushion. She gazed at Menelik through slitted eyes.

Menelik waved at his wife as if idly shooing away a fly.

“Ho, wizard!” bellowed the chamberlain. “You, named Kundaraja.”

Gard looked right and left. Elaborately—oh, is he talking to me?— he replied, “Nazib?”

“The Padishah commands that you show your skills.”

He does, does he? Vijay grinned, made a proprietary gesture and said, “You may perform, Gard.”

Gard inhaled, tickling the daemon, exhaled. He removed his turban, his hair eliciting a murmur of amazement. “At your command, Vijay-ji.”

Menelik glared at Vijay. Vijay sipped delicately from his cup. Gard rose. Focus, breath, focus, step and turn . . . The dragonet stretched and bent. Gard pointed. The abandoned tiger skin stirred, filled out, rose with a—well, a purr. Gard made a face. No one is perfect.

Silence. Every eye stared as the reanimated skin stalked the khaddi, claws jangling upon the floor, tail swishing in the air. Zoe gasped in fear. Persis interposed herself between her daughter and the fierce apparition.

Now! Gard shuddered. The skin lunged and draped itself over Jofar as affectionately as a pet ferret. The shield, propped against Jofar’s chair, fell clangorously to the floor. Zoe dissolved in giggles. Persis sat down and forced a stiff smile. Menelik grinned.

Jofar stood, the skin dangling empty and powerless around him. “Excellent!” he shouted, applauding boisterously. “Another, wizard-ji!” If Persis looked at a bucket of milk the way she glanced at Jofar, the cream would curdle instantly.

He turned, gathered several cups and plates, sent them skimming across the room like the turquoise butterflies in the enchanted glade. The bits of crockery circled the head of Hurmazi’s priest, clinking and rattling. The man said through his teeth, “Very amusing.”

“I have heard,” said Persis, “that the wizard’s skills extend much farther than these cheap conjurings. Will he not dance for us?”

Gard chilled. The dragon’s hackles rose. Tarek. He had spread the story of the Festival of the Fool in Ferangipur. Tarek was prowling in the doorway even now, his probing eye sending frissons down Gard’s spine.

“Yes, yes,” said Jofar. He leaped up and drew his sword. “With me, Gard? We used to spar quite a bit.”

Vijay curled indolently on his chair. “With just the one warrior, please, Nazib-ji,” he said to Menelik. “I do not want to tire him; he serves me in many ways . . .” He let his voice trail away and smiled, dripping charm like a baked peacock dripping basting juices.

Persis gazed at the Ferangi prince as if considering a painting or statue that was marred by a small but vital flaw. Menelik’s smoky eyes brightened, a ray of interest falling upon Gard like a beam of hot sunlight. “Yes, Jofar. Go on.”

Warrior and wizard met in the midst of the tables and chairs. Grinning, Jofar made a halfhearted swipe at Gard. Gard danced aside. Again a stroke, again a sidestep.

“Put your back into it, boy,” growled Menelik, whether to Jofar or to Gard was difficult to tell.

Jofar swung, slicing the air. Gard was three steps away. Jofar lunged. Gard and dragonet spun as one. Jofar struck. His hand must have been greasy from his dinner; the sword shot from his grasp.

God’s beak! The pentacle thudded like a blow against Gard’s chest, pushing him aside. Dragonet and Gard somersaulted. The sword grazed his cheek and imbedded itself quivering in a table leg. Cries of alarm or approval? Gard could not tell over the hammering of his heart in his ears. The dragonet stood frozen, limbs extended, eyes protruding.

Vijay was pale around the mustache. Jofar stood with his brow wrinkled, his mouth open. Zoe peered out between her fingers and Persis patted her hand. Menelik laughed. “Excellent, my son. You almost caught him off guard.”

So, Gard thought between wheezing breaths, Menelik thought Jofar had cheated. And he approved. Well, I showed the Shah what I can do. And Tarek, too, if the wizard is still curious after today’s encounter.

Jofar sheepishly extended his hand, drew it back, wiped it upon his tunic, extended it again. Gard took it. A straightforward grasp, warm and friendly. But how much of Apsurakand lay in that massive hand?

The room wavered as if in the steam from the bathing pool. With a flourish Gard bowed and returned to his seat, to be assaulted by voices and requests. Could he find a lost jewel? Could he heal a sick horse? Could he conjure toys at a child’s birthday celebration?

The dragonet collapsed from its petrifaction, settling into Gard’s belly so emphatically his stomach surged into his throat. Strangling, he answered each query in the negative.

The priest of Hurmazi stepped forward and began another chapter and verse; the prophecy of Tarek, the day of the Sun’s Awakening, Jofar the glory of Apsurakand and the mysterious danger to the khaddi. Gard turned and peered accusingly at the doorway. But the show was over, the evil wizard gone.

Had Jofar’s sword slipped, or had it been propelled by Tarek’s power? Tarek was certainly plotting. But that plot was not necessarily against Gard in particular or Ferangipur in general. If Menelik was the object of Tarek’s shrewdness, such dissension in the enemy camp could only aid Ferangipur . . .

Perhaps Tarek had hired Bogatyl to sow dissension in Ferangipur. Perhaps Bogatyl had hired Tarek to make sure Gard did not return to Ferangipur. Just who did Tarek serve? Or who did he serve in order to serve himself? And how did Bhai’s mundane if not inconsiderable skills fit in . . .

Gard glared at his wine cup. The liquid boiled, foaming over the rim and leaving a crimson stain upon the table. Infuriating, how he had no evidence to suspect Tarek of outright evildoing.

A hand slapped his shoulder. The dragonet jumped with a flurry of wings. It was Vijay. The party was over. Servants were removing the salt cellar with all the ceremony of priests carrying a holy relic.

Menelik, Persis and Zoe were gone. The tiger skin lay crumpled upon the floor. Jofar was surrounded by dancing girls, their fluttering forms reflected in the gleam of his shield. Gard imagined Jofar crushing those wisps of girls beneath his great carapace, their writhings making only little curlicues on the shield.

He was offering to share his embarrassment of feminine riches. Senmut would be aghast, Deva might be jealous . . . “No, thank you.” He sighed. Really, his appetites were wraiths of their former selves, chewed by magic and doubt and spit out like spoiled prawns.

“Thank you, but no,” said Vijay.

Vijay, declining a woman? The prince looked with a peculiar puzzled expression after the departing warrior and his playthings. Then, realizing Gard was watching him, explained lamely, “None of them are blond.”

“Like Yasmine?”

But the Ferangi prince, enrapt by his own musings, did not reply. In Gard’s gut the dragonet inspected and fastidiously licked one sharp claw.