CHAPTER ELEVEN

SUMMER, YEAR 1017 AFE:

LEGENDARY CONFUSION

Hammad al Nakir simmered with rumors. Everyone wanted to believe that the King Without a Throne had returned.

His very first action had been to kill Magden Norath, ending the terror underpinning bad king Megelin’s throne!

The desert awaited anxiously what would happen next.

The man who had caused the ferment had no idea what that should be. Taking Norath down, alerting the world to his survival, had not figured in the fantasies he had indulged during his long trek west.

People would start looking for him. Some would just want to know if it was really him. Others would be frightened. Old Meddler would be upset because his intrigue had been aborted before it could be hatched.

Yasmid and Megelin would want to capture him. The Dread Empire and Varthlokkur had to be considered, too.

He could not hide Haroun bin Yousif from those powers. He had to become someone distinctly not Haroun.

He began immediately. He sold his horses. He bought strange clothing. He acquired a donkey and three goats. He left the desert for the east coast. There he bought a cart for his goats to pull. This and that went into the cart, including all his obvious weapons.

The shore of the Sea of Kotsüm was a region where the people followed the Disciple. Bandits and robbers were few.

He came to al-Asadra wearing gaudy apparel and shaved. He had a red demon tattoo on his left cheek and a big blue teardrop falling from the outside corner of his right eye. His own family would not have recognized him.

He had trouble recognizing him, so thoroughly had he dropped into this new character.

He had no long-term plan.

He was an entertainer, now, a role so alien that no one ought ever to look his way with Haroun bin Yousif in mind. He did puppet shows. He used sleight of hand tricks which, due to his lack of skill, compelled him to employ some true sorcery. Carefully. Everyone enjoyed a magic show—so long as they could be sure they were just seeing conjure tricks. And, finally, he told fortunes using a greasy, worn deck found in pawn in the souk where he put on his first show. Their shabbiness lent them credibility.

Divination in any form was illegal but the authorities turned a blind eye so long as the fortuneteller claimed to be an entertainer only.

Cynics would observe that fortunetellers had been around for millennia before El Murid and they would exist still long after El Murid had been forgotten by even the most esoteric historians. People wanted a glimpse of the future, often desperately.

God had written their fates on their foreheads at birth but that was hard to read in a mirror. It was easy to delude oneself into believing that a mummer might, indeed, reveal the divine plan. And the more so when the future one saw oneself was entirely ugly.

“Hai, peoples. Come see.” He performed a conjuring trick that attracted a few urchins. He did the one where he found a dirty green coin behind a six-year-old’s ear. The kid sprinted off to turn his riches into food. The news brought a raucous crowd of children.

His confidence did not improve. He was not accustomed to children. He was not social at all. He wrestled ferocious doubts as he strove to hide from the world by borrowing a persona from a man long dead.

...

“All this ferment because of one unreliable witness,” Yasmid said. “I don’t understand.”

“They want it to be true,” Habibullah replied. “They’re sick of Megelin. He’s a weakling tyrant who spawns disasters. But they’re equally sick of being preached at. They’re hungry for a savior. They are making themselves one out of wishful thinking. The King Without a Throne. The strongman who will bring peace and unity. They forget the facts of the man that was.”

Yasmid knew that. She did not like it.

She disliked its religious implications. She disliked its social implications. Selfishly, she disliked it because it suggested that she could lose her privileged life.

“I don’t want to talk about it. I don’t want to do anything about it. I don’t want to be seen as concerned about it. Let the fever run its course.”

Habibullah was astonished. “But…”

“We’re going to try a new strategy, old friend. This time, instead of roaring around killing people and screaming about God, we’re just going to ignore it. We’ll leave the world alone so long as the world extends us the same courtesy.”

She watched the old soldier begin to marshal his arguments, then lay them down again before he spoke.

He was tired of the struggle, too.

She asked, “Is it time to go see my father?”

“Yes. Elwas wants us to dine with him and the foreigner.” His disapproval of that Unbeliever never relented.

“Then let us tend to our garden.”

Habibullah frowned, puzzled.

“A sutra from the Book of Reconciliation.” Which was not a book at all but a long letter El Murid had written to persecuted converts when he was still young and visionary. It was included in the greater collection of the Disciple’s Inspired Writings—cynically assembled by Yasmid to help guide and shape the Faith.

“Oh. Yes. Where he tells us to endure our trials. If we live our lives righteously and tend to our gardens, God will tend to us.”

“Very good.”

“My father was there, in that camp, when he wrote that letter.”

Tangled lives, Yasmid thought, with some entanglements going back decades and generations.

She had her women ready her for the public passage across the mile to her father’s tent. Though the hard line imams had been tamed for now she did not want to provoke them. Publicly, she would conform to the standards expected of an important woman.

Those were the unwritten terms of a tacit truce.

It was another in a long parade of fine days. The sky was a brighter blue than in most years. There were clouds up there, stately cumulus caravels like immense, gnarly snowballs edged with silver, numerous enough to be worthy of note. They were uncommon in most summers.

The fakir from Matayanga claimed that the unusual and favorable weather was a consequence of the great war between his homeland and Shinsan.

Yasmid cared only that the weather brought more moisture than usual.

“It’s almost cool today.”

Habibullah misinterpreted. “Getting cold feet?”

“No. I started thinking about Haroun.”

Habibullah sighed.

“I’m sorry. The Evil One has that hold on me. I can’t get the man out of my head.” She took four steps. “I never could.” Several more steps. “He would be away for years. And I would spend most of that time watching the door, waiting for him to come through.” She managed another ten steps. “Habibullah, I could have come home any time I wanted. There was no one to stop me. There was just one old woman with me. But I stayed and watched the door.”

Habibullah faced the mountains behind them. He thought he might shed a tear. He did not want his goddess to see that.

As they approached El Murid’s tent Yasmid halted yet again. “I’m watching the door again. God, have mercy on your weak child.”

“He’s dead, Yasmid. Accept that. The rumors all result from one fevered imagination.”

“I can’t accept that.”

...

Elwas al-Souki met the Lady Yasmid at the entrance to the Disciple’s tent—that being a sprawl of canvas and poles covering several acres.

El Murid had a philosophical resistance to residing in structures built of timber or stone. He would live in tents whenever he could.

This sprawl was a ghost of the canvas palaces he had occupied in his glory days.

Al-Souki said, “Lady, you are punctual. Sadly, we have not been your equal. We have run late all day, getting farther behind by the hour.”

“What are you up to, Elwas?”

The man did not dissemble. “I hoped to show you how your father is progressing while we wait.”

“Why?” She did not want to be here. Whatever prolonged her torment was sure to irk her.

“Because you need to know. Because your wretch of a father is also the Disciple, a shining star to millions. You need to see what we’ve done to resurrect the visionary from the ashes of the man.”

Habibullah averred, “That’s interesting talk, Elwas. Now make it mean something.”

Elwas flashed a happy face and beckoned them to follow.

They reached an open area fifty feet by a hundred with the canvas twenty feet above, supported by an orchard of poles. There were few furnishings. The floor was sawdust and wood chips mixed with strained sand and shredded clay in a groomed flat, soft surface. Thin, creamy light coming through the canvas revealed several men engaged in calisthenics. Swami Phogedatvitsu and his smarmy interpreter walked around them. The swami occasionally swatted one with a switch. No one wore anything but a loincloth. None of those bodies were worthy of flaunting.

Yasmid did not recognize her father.

When Habibullah brought her home—subjective ages ago—Micah al Rhami had been a fat slug, half blind, barely aware that he was alive. His caretakers kept him fat, drugged, and out of sight so he would not interfere in what they did in his name.

Most of those parasites abided with the Evil One now. The Invincibles and Harish had helped clean them out.

“Lady? Are you all right?” Elwas asked. He sounded genuinely concerned.

“I’m fine. I was remembering my return from exile, when I first saw what had become of my father. It was beyond belief.”

“I have heard tell.”

Yasmid glanced his way, unhappy. He was not feeling generous toward her, perhaps because of her profound disgust. That never won favor among men who considered her father the Right Hand of God, however far he had fallen.

Elwas told her, “He is free of the poppy. Heavy exercise is one of Swami Phogedatvitsu’s sharpest tools.”

“Wouldn’t that just aggravate his pain?”

“That is emotion expressed as pain, not actual pain. He feels the loss of your mother physically instead of emotionally.”

Yasmid nodded. An odd way of thinking but it did sound plausible.

“The swami also teaches skills for managing both the need for the poppy and the pain that excuses the need.”

Yasmid sucked in a deep breath, released it in a long sigh. Her father had suffered chronic pain forever. He had sustained severe injuries during his early ministry. Some never healed right. The pain, and the opium he used to control it, clouded his judgment later. Countless needless deaths resulted.

“I do hope that he conquers the poppy, Elwas. I pray for that regularly. But he has beaten it before, only to backslide when life disappointed him.”

“This time will be different. I hope you will let the swami manage your father’s health permanently.”

Habibullah snorted in disdain but did control his tongue.

Yasmid understood. It would be outrageous to hand the Disciple’s health and spiritual well-being over to a heathen mystic. The most coveted treasure a villain could win would be control of the Disciple’s person.

Elwas bin Farout al-Souki, though young, was cunning and had grown up in circumstances that made reading people a useful survival skill. “Lady, I have no interest in controlling your father. I am involved because my other duties make slight claim upon my time. We have no wars. We have no threats of war. Only a few young, green men want to train for the next war.”

Elwas had more to say. He did not get the chance. Swami Phogedatvitsu finished and sent his patients on to whatever they would do next. He donned a wrap of orange that concealed his flab, approached the observers wearing an agile, gleaming, sweat-shiny smile.

He appeared to be pleased with himself.

That was fine with Yasmid. “I am impressed. You have my father more active than I can ever remember.”

Phogedatvitsu’s smile turned condescending. “Thank you, Lady.” He was making excellent progress with the language. He inclined his head just enough.

Elwas said, “The meal isn’t ready. Swami, can you show the lady how you help our lord cope with pain?”

Phogedatvitsu turned to his interpreter. The small man rattled something in a language with odd rhythms. Yasmid believed the swami was buying time to think.

Phogedatvitsu said something. His interpreter then said, “Very well. Please follow.”

The swami set a brisk pace for a short distance, along what would have been a hallway in a normal house, then entered an empty, cloth-walled room six feet by ten.

The interpreter said, “These conditions must be met: you will say nothing and do nothing. You will not reveal your presence. Is this clear?”

Yasmid agreed because her father had been engaged in physical exercise.

Phogedatvitsu pulled a cloth wall aside. That exposed three men in loincloths lying face down on padded tables. All three were old and wrinkled and scarred and had not been eating well. Men of Phogedatvitsu’s race massaged and stretched the old bodies, asked soft questions, used a small brush to make ink dots on skin.

The swami again made signs abjuring speech, then joined the others. Yasmid drew breath to ask why foreigners were here in her father’s tent.

Habibullah grasped her left arm. Elwas moved in front of her. He wore a ferocious “What do you think you’re doing?” look.

She could shout and carry on later. Right now she had to stand still and keep quiet.

She shook her left arm. Habibullah’s grip was too tight.

She opened her mouth again.

Elwas was in front of her again, this time so close their noses bumped. He turned her around. He made her march. Habibullah did not interfere.

Back down the cloth corridor, voice low but intensely angry, al-Souki demanded, “What is the matter with you? Lady.” As an afterthought. “You swore you would…”

“That was before I saw…”

“You had to know you were going to see something unusual. Why would he take so much trouble to strive for silence, otherwise?”

“He was sticking needles into him, Elwas! What did you expect me to do?”

“To be silent and observe. As you promised.”

“But he was sticking needles in…”

Al-Souki told Habibullah, “She was right when she chose to stay away. We should not have risked that. She isn’t ready.”

Habibullah nodded, said, “Perhaps,” and stared at the earthen floor.

Yasmid demanded, “Does this mean you’re part of some…”

Elwas made an obvious effort to control serious exasperation. “Lady, the swami is using eastern methods to free your father from his opium addiction. Do you know more about that specialized work than you do about building construction? I note that you never inject yourself into the work of carpenters or masons. You will, on occasion, ask why something is being done in a certain way.”

Each word arrived under rigid control, reeking of truth. She hated him for that.

Then she started. She might have had an epiphany. A sudden grasp of the mind of the man whose special madness had led to generations of warfare and despair.

“Elwas, take us to where we will sit down with my father. We will wait there. And you will regale me with tales of sticking old men with needles.”

...

The meal with the Disciple was not exciting. Yasmid’s father went through the motions in a lugubrious, mechanical fashion, like a mildly autistic child. He did not make eye contact. He did not speak. He brightened some at mentions of his wife and daughter but failed to recognize Yasmid as the latter.

Yasmid conceded that Phogedatvitsu had worked a miracle by reclaiming El Murid this much. Perhaps now the Disciple would learn to navigate the quotidian world and begin interacting with people.

But this man was not Papa.

What Yasmid wanted desperately was the man she had known when she was little.

Earthly, practical Yasmid bint Micah knew that the Papa she remembered never really existed outside her head.

The swami thanked her repeatedly for being interested in his efforts but, otherwise, said only, “There is much work to be done yet.”

...

Varthlokkur, with a comet tail of youngsters, entered his restored workroom. He was careful to conceal the unlocking gestures. Scalza might be tempted to sneak in. Lately, the boy had shown an inordinate interest in the room. He followed Varthlokkur all over, hoping to learn by watching. Ekaterina tagged along because she was interested in everything that interested Little Brother.

Then Ethrian began following his grandfather. Why? Something had changed. Ethrian was intrigued by the world outside Ethrian now. And his mother was thrilled.

“What are we going to do today, Uncle?” Scalza asked. “Spy on our mother again?”

“That part of ‘we’ constituted by you will remain out of the way and quiet while the part that is me performs some excruciatingly dull maintenance on the Winterstorm.”

“Oh, good! When are you going to start teaching us?”

“Never, and a day.”

Scalza primed himself for an argument. Before he started Nepanthe arrived. Smyrena was awake and cooing. The youngsters lost interest in anything but her.

That left Ethrian as a puzzled human island. After brief indecision he drifted toward his mother.

Varthlokkur watched in amazement. Nepanthe had a bottomless store of warmth and love for the children. He never got over that. How did she do it?

The children did not bother him again. Nepanthe was that good a kid wrangler.

It did not hurt that the baby seemed interested in learning to crawl. Everyone found that immensely entertaining.

In time, Nepanthe left Smyrena to the youngsters and came to look over Varthlokkur’s shoulder.

He said, “I’ve been looking for Haroun. I can’t find a trace. He must be somewhere on the foreshore east of the Mountains of the Thousand Sorcerers.”

“What does he want to do? His whole life changed when he killed Magden Norath. I’m sure he didn’t plan to go round stabbing famous sorcerers.”

“I hope not. I don’t want him headed our way.” He grinned.

“If he is on the coast he’s not interested in what’s going on in Al Rhemish.”

“Exactly. Before al-Habor he was heading that way by stages. After al-Habor he headed southeast, for as long as I was able to track him.”

“So he has a new interest. What could that possibly be, Mr. Wizard?”

He chuckled. “You’re probably right. If he isn’t after his throne he must be after the woman he loves.”

“Let’s hope he doesn’t poison himself.”

“Haroun bin Yousif won’t let old love drag him into mortal peril.”

“You take the romance out.”

“I try.”

“I never liked him much. He was always drama and trouble. But he was one of Mocker’s best friends.”

That name brought on the silence. Varthlokkur refocused on finding bin Yousif. Nepanthe returned to the children. That nerve was still tender.

Varthlokkur gave up looking. Bin Yousif would surface eventually. He shifted his attention to the west.

It was the time of year for armies to march.

The Lesser Kingdoms were a-simmer with vigorous political disinterest. The weather was the best in a generation. People whose lives revolved round agriculture were taking advantage. Even in chaotic Kavelin most every tillable acre had gotten plowed. The retired soldiers were all at work in forest or field.

The Crown spent no money because it had none and lacked any means of collecting revenue. The Nordmen barons were in little better shape. But commoner Wesson entrepreneurs were digging into their secret caches. They were building things. Varthlokkur discovered new grinding mills and granaries, new sawmills and stone cutting mills. Small caravans moved through the Savernake Gap, both directions. The Marena Dimura, though disinclined to participate in the broader community, had missions out looking for engineers to help reopen mines hidden in the deeps of the Kapenrungs.

“So,” the wizard mused. “People inside Kavelin will be too close to this and not understand that things are getting better. But there it is. If the political situation doesn’t explode.”

As ever, what Kavelin needed most was freedom from the ambitions of those convinced that they ought to be in charge.

“Varth?”

He did not acknowledge her. Nepanthe touched his shoulder lightly. He started. “What?”

“You’ve been staring into that for two hours. It’s time to eat.”

“Oh.”

“You didn’t find Haroun?”

“I gave up. I went looking at Kavelin.” He needed help getting up. He had remained seated too long. “Good things are starting to happen in the Lesser Kingdoms. How good will depend on Inger and Kristen. They could ruin everything with a civil war.”

There was another potential source of despair. Michael Trebilcock.

Varthlokkur had had no success finding Michael, either.

Most people thought Trebilcock was dead. Varthlokkur was not convinced. He thought Michael had pulled his hole in on himself but was out there somewhere, watching and waiting.

Trebilcock was no sorcerer but had a personal magic unique to himself. He might be the most important man in the Lesser Kingdoms now. If he was alive.

Varthlokkur wished he knew how to get in touch.

He could find Michael. He could find Haroun. By a means as subtle as a thunderstorm. By sending Radeachar to look. The Unborn could be stealthy when the target was fixed and known but in a search it tended to attract attention.

Varthlokkur wanted to remain forgotten.

Nepanthe asked, “Why is that? Have Radeachar tow a banner across the sky warning Michael.” She had a soft spot for Trebilcock. He had spent months of his life, risking a cruel death, in order to effect her rescue, once upon a time. “Or whoever took over for Michael if he’s dead.”

“Aral Dantice.” The response was instantaneous. “Dantice is protecting Kristen and her children. That’s worth a closer look.” Then he asked, “What do you think about my putting risers under the legs of my chairs so I don’t have to work so hard to get up?”

...

The conjure man moved to Souk el Arba but did not stay there long. He established his existence in a few hundred memories. He did not render himself notorious. He seemed too honest to succeed.

Soon he began to drift westward, spending a few days in each foothill town, moving ever deeper into the mountains. He came to al-Khafra. That village marked the limit where the law prevailed. It would not be reasonable to proceed into the higher mountains alone.

Rootless men waited around al-Khafra, hoping for work as drovers or guards on caravans crossing the mountains. Master caravaneers did their hiring there so they did not have to pay men not needed in the peaceful country farther east.

Haroun found the youngest fellow he could, one Muma al-Iki, hired him to look out for his goats and donkey. Then he shed his tattoos and got himself work as a caravan guard. The master was happy to acquire what looked to be a skilled sword arm. He was escorting someone or something of high value. Haroun made a point of showing no curiosity.

He made himself accepted amongst the guards and drovers through his entertainment value instead of his skills with sharp steel. He had no opportunity to demonstrate those. No wickedness rolled down out of a shadowed side canyon intent on taking plunder and slaves.

The caravan master bemoaned his wasted protection expenses.

An Invincible called al-Souki had been teaching harsh lessons to the little tribes scrabbling for survival in the high range.

The traveler recalled having seen a few high-range people when he was a boy. They were small and wiry and darker than the peoples of the desert and the coast. Their languages, related to one another, were linked to none outside the mountains—unless, remotely, to those of the Marena Dimura in the Kapenrung Mountains.

The conjurer’s first view of Sebil el Selib, from a crotch between tall, round-backed foothills still a day away, struck him dumb.

A camel drover asked, “First time here?”

“No. I came once when I was a boy,” he lied. “It was different then.” There had been no sprawl of farmland, no eye-searing green miles of pasture. No flocks so vast they looked like gulls on their nesting islands. In those days there had been little more than a couple of ugly stone fortresses that he had not seen with his own eyes. He had been too young to join in the raids.

“It’s changed a lot in my lifetime. And I’m way younger than you.”

“I’m not older than you, I’m just married.”

Which made the drover laugh so hard his comrades came to investigate.

“He said it so deadpan!” The others were amused but nothing more. “I guess you had to be there.”

“It’s all about the timing,” the traveler said. “And the unexpected. I caught Isak by surprise. You all came to find out what was so funny. You had expectations.”

Isak was impressed. “Man, you got some kind of brain in your head.”

“When you have a wife like mine you get a lot of time to think.”

Someone asked, “If you’re married what’re you doing out here?”

“Taking time off to do some thinking.”

That amused the drovers. One observed, “I know. You married your cousin. Now you can’t get out.” A reasonable explanation. The desert peoples typically married closely. But none of these men really believed that. They knew about his sketchy career before he joined the caravan. Muma liked to talk.

No one cared.

The traveler might be a rogue but he was a rogue who did his share. He had undertaken dangerous assignments without quibble. He had helped the injured when the hazards of travel overtook someone. He had a way with animals. Horses, in particular, were nervous in the thin, electric air of the high Jebal but they calmed down when he was around.

Oddly, not once did he hear anyone wonder if he was a spy. That would have been his own first suspicion of someone like himself.

Maybe that was because, in some way he did not recognize, he made it clear that he was something else.

“We need to get back to work,” one of the drovers said. “The Pig has noticed us lollygagging.”

The Pig was the lead drover, a partner in the enterprise. He was neither a bad man nor a harsh boss but he did have expectations. And was cursed with a face reminiscent of a porker.

Haroun looked for his own boss, the partner in charge of defense. He did not see the man. In any case, guards were free to wander and dilly-dally so long as they did not collect in one place.

Still, it was time to start doing things in a way that would leave no outstanding memories once the caravan broke up.

The enterprise would reform in a new shape, leaving some behind and gathering others, before it moved on into the desert. Haroun told some folks he meant to stay at Sebil el Selib. Others he told he would move on after he visited the holy places.

He hoped for confusion—or that no one would care.

There was no reason anyone should. He was just another traveler.

Muma accepted the balance of his pay. “What will you do now, Aza?” Aza being the name Haroun had worn while crossing the mountains.

“I don’t know. All I ever thought about, till now, was how to get here. This is the place where things begin. This is God’s home. This is the goal. I never thought about what to do next.”

The boy was surprised. “I always thought you knew exactly what you were doing. You seem like you’re more than just you.”

“That makes me a good actor, I guess. What about you?”

“I’ll stay with the caravan. Pig liked how I handled animals and stuff.”

“Good luck, then. I need to find a place to camp. I have some money, now. I can lay around a few days.” Telling fortunes and selling charms might not work here. Hardliners took literally El Murid’s declaration that such things were the handiwork of the Evil One.

Muma said, “The field below the New Castle is where pilgrims camp. Just ask for directions. And good luck, Aza.”

The boy left with a parting wave.

They had been close for weeks but Haroun had learned nothing about Muma, other than that he was dishonest about himself, too.

No matter. He was no threat.

Haroun found the ground reserved for pilgrims. The field was vast. Thousands had camped there in the past. Today there were only a few hundred. There was grazing for animals, water, and little of the stench common when too many people crowded into too small an area.

He got his tent up, used sticks from his cart to make a pen for his animals, then got busy making himself into a new man.

Travel had left him looking too much like the fellow who had murdered a wizard in al-Habor.

He discovered that he lacked sufficient firewood to build a cook fire.

Then the Invincibles arrived.

There were two. They were old. One lacked part of his right hand. The other had had the left side of his face ruined by a sword or ax. He was absent an ear and an eye. An island of bone shone where his left cheek ought to be. No doubt he and pain were long time brothers.

There was a specific form of address due these veterans but Haroun could not remember it. When they asked what he was doing here, he tapped his ears and shook his head. He pressed his tongue against the roof of his mouth and did not move it when he said, “I am a children entertainer. I came here hoping to see the Disciple for his blessing. Maybe God will see me here and restore my hearing.”

The Invincibles had him repeat himself several times. His story sparked neither commentary nor sympathy. They heard its like too often. They were going through the motions, bothering at all only because they were bored.

One of them probed Haroun’s possessions with little interest. The cards did not trouble him, nor did the dicing paraphernalia. He was apologetic. This was the only work he was fit for anymore. Haroun found nothing to offend him. The Invincible shrugged and turned away. The other man gestured at the empty fire pit.

“The wood seller is down where the banners are. He’s reasonable. If you want to collect your own he’ll tell you where that’s permitted.”

Haroun bowed and slurred, “A thousand thanks, Gracious One.”

The man frowned, then. “You look familiar. From a long time ago. Were you at Wadi el Kuf?”

Haroun could honestly answer, “No. But my father was.”

“Maybe that’s it.”

“Possibly. He’s gone now.” Thinking the man must have been a boy at the time if he was a survivor of that disaster.

The Invincible was inclined to visit further. His companion was not, though. He waved the ruined hand and strode away.

There was daylight left when Haroun got back from seeing the wood seller. His situation intimidated him. He would have to deal with a lot of people here. His time on the eastern littoral had not been preparation enough. He had spent too much of his life alone.

He would meet the challenge.

He would befriend other pilgrims, visit the shrines and the former monasteries now housing religious offices, and even go see the Malachite Throne.

His father had seen the Malachite Throne once. He had come within moments of killing the Disciple in front of it.

He would ask questions, as a pilgrim might, hoping to run into people who could not help showing off how much they knew.

He took a last look round in the twilight.

The only woman he ever loved was just half a mile away.

He wrestled the temptation to use the Power to spy. He knew better. Someone would be watching for a wakening of the Power where it was curst and condemned.

He had no need to hurry. He was safe. He was in the last place where anyone would expect to find the King Without a Throne.

†