Rodja’s contact, the one Marla had been planning to use to lure Alija into her trap, had—rather inconveniently—died in the plague about a month before Wrayan and Kalan arrived in Greenharbour. The news left them floundering a little about exactly who should make contact with the High Arrion. The list of likely candidates was depressingly short and there was one name on the list which in Wrayan’s opinion shouldn’t have been there at all.
“You can’t be serious about involving Galon Miar,” he said, when the princess suggested it. They were once more gathered in Marla’s reception hall—Marla, Kalan, Rodja and Wrayan—which Wrayan was coming to think of as their unofficial war room.
“Do you think he can’t be trusted, Wrayan?”
“He’s an assassin, your highness. It goes without saying.”
“I disagree,” Kalan said, partly, Wrayan suspected, because she enjoyed disagreeing with him. “You told us he was Ronan Dell’s bastard, that it was Galon Miar who discovered his father’s massacre when he was merely a youth. Surely it means he has more reason than most to want Alija Eaglespike brought down?”
“He’s sleeping with her, Kalan.”
“Was,” Marla corrected. “I think you’ll find that’s one love affair that’s come to an abrupt end.”
“Anyway, Wrayan, for all you know, he was sleeping with her for his own ends. If it was me, I’d do anything—sleep
with anybody—if that’s what it was going to take to get vengeance on the woman who killed my father.”
Wrayan glanced at Marla, wondering if she could see the irony, but the princess was far too disciplined to let any emotion show on her face that she didn’t want broadcast.
“Perhaps you and I need to sit down and have a chat about the kind of sick monster Ronan Dell was, Kalan,” he suggested. “Believe me, holding up Miar’s parentage as proof of his reliability is no way to convince anybody who remembers the father that the son can be trusted.”
“The Raven trusts him,” Marla pointed out.
“The Raven is also an assassin, your highness. They tend to stick together.”
Marla smiled at him. Apparently his intransigence on the topic of Galon Miar amused her. “There are plenty of people who believe I shouldn’t trust you, Wrayan Lightfinger. You are a thief, after all.”
“The Greatest Thief in all of Hythria, no less,” Kalan added.
“Mock away, Kalan, you won’t change my mind.”
“What a shame, Master Lightfinger,” Galon Miar announced from the door. “And I so hunger for the trust and respect of the Thieves’ Guild, too.”
Wrayan spun around, staring at the assassin in shock, and then he turned to the princess. “What’s he doing here?”
“I invited him.”
“The last time you invited him, he didn’t bother to show up.”
“Oh, but I did, Wrayan,” Galon assured him, walking into the room as if he owned it. “Just not when I was expected. Or where.” The assassin turned his gaze on the princess who, somewhat to Wrayan’s astonishment, actually looked away first. Then he looked at the thief again. “I can call you Wrayan, can’t I?”
“How do you know who I am?”
“You checked up on me. Surely I’m allowed to return the favour?”
Franz Gillam had told him then. Or the Doorman. It didn’t
really matter which. The end result was the same. Wrayan glanced at the princess, shaking his head. “You have no idea if you can trust this man, your highness.”
“I know that, Wrayan,” she agreed. “You, however, can look into his mind and tell me if he can be trusted. That’s why Master Miar is here. He’s agreed to prove his loyalty to the throne, even to your satisfaction.”
“Ah!” Galon exclaimed, studying Wrayan with open curiosity. “So you’re Princess Marla’s secret sorcerer. That explains a few things. I’m interested though, how you started out in the Sorcerers’ Collective and finished up in the Thieves’ Guild.”
“Mother …” Kalan ventured cautiously. “Should we be discussing this so … openly? In front of strangers?”
The princess smiled confidently at her daughter. “There’s no danger, Kalan. Master Miar is on our side.”
“How do you know?”
“Because he told me he is.”
“Funny,” Galon remarked, looking at her curiously. “I didn’t think you believed me the last time we spoke.”
“Actually, I didn’t then, and I don’t now, but on the off-chance you are likely to be of some use to me, I thought it worth taking the time to find out.”
“By having someone read my mind?”
“It was you who suggested it, Galon,” the princess retorted, walking to the sideboard for more wine. There were no slaves present to wait on Marla and her guests. Marla was too smart to let this business become gossip in the servants’ quarters. She took her time refilling her cup and then turned to face the assassin with an elegantly raised brow. “Rather suspicious of you to back out now, don’t you think, when you discover I really can do what you only suspected I might be able to do?” Marla turned and added calmly to her daughter, “There’s really nothing to be worried about, Kalan. If Galon submits to having his mind read, we’ll know for certain whose side he’s on. Either way, we have nothing to fear from him. If he’s trustworthy, Wrayan will know soon enough. If he tries to block Wrayan’s probe, even slightly,
Wrayan will kill him while he’s still in Master Galon’s mind. It’s all quite simple. And it doesn’t even involve any blood.”
Wrayan wondered when Marla had been planning to share this little modification in her plans with him, or if it had been her intention all along to spring it on him when it was too late for him to back out. The assassin seemed just as uncertain. But he thought about it for barely more than a moment and then shrugged.
“As you wish, your highness.” He turned to Wrayan. “Go ahead. Read my mind, thief. Tell me what a bad boy I’ve been.”
“Drop the shield.”
Galon glanced at Marla. “Ah, she told you about that too, did she?”
“Princess Marla hasn’t told me anything. If you’ve touched Alija and she didn’t read your mind, you’ve shielded it somehow.”
“Aren’t we the clever one?” Galon replied. He hesitated and then turned to Wrayan. “Go ahead, thief. Do your worst.”
Until he began to draw on his power and his eyes darkened, Wrayan suspected Galon Miar didn’t really think anybody was actually going to probe his mind. The assassin’s eyes, which had been so confident a moment ago, began to fill with uncertainty.
“What the …” He took an involuntary step backwards.
From across the room Wrayan sought out the assassin’s mind, but once he got past the turmoil of Galon’s surface thoughts he ran into a wall. And it was—quite literally—a wall, as if someone had spent hours weaving individual strands of thought together so tightly they couldn’t be penetrated. He examined the barrier curiously, marvelling at the effort that had gone into constructing such a defence. It was nothing like the smooth, undetectable surface of a Harshini mind shield. Nor did it make any pretence of being anything other than an unscaleable barricade. Nor could he knock it down without causing immeasurable harm. The Assassins’ Guild of old had needed a way to stop the Harshini reading
their minds and they’d found it, sure enough. But it must take years of training, Wrayan thought, to master such mental discipline. It was no wonder they began training their apprentices as young as nine or ten.
“I told you to drop the shield.”
Galon stared at him, more than a little disconcerted. It was probably at that moment the assassin realised Wrayan really could read his thoughts. “If I do that, I’m defenceless against Alija. Against anybody who can read my mind, for that matter.”
“If you don’t do it, I’ll assume you have something to hide from Princess Marla and I’ll kill you.”
Galon stared at him oddly. “You’re not an Innate like Alija, are you? You must be part Harshini.”
“So?”
“Don’t the Harshini have inviolate rules regarding killing people?”
“I find them much less specific on the subject of castration,” Wrayan assured him. “I think you’ll find I’ve got plenty of room to manoeuvre if it comes to dispensing a bit of rough justice, Galon Miar.”
Wrayan could feel the assassin’s confidence surging again, even if he couldn’t read his actual thoughts through the barrier. “You think you could take me, thief?”
“I think I could slip into your mind and make you cut your own balls off, assassin,” he lied.
“Excuse me,” Kalan interrupted, a little impatiently. “But if you two madmen are through deciding who’s the toughest, can we get on with this?”
Wrayan glanced at her. She was standing beside her mother, her arms folded, tapping her foot on the tiles, as if she was annoyed about how long this was taking. Rodja Tirstone—who’d done nothing but observe the whole exchange with interest—sat on the cushions near the table, doing his best to empty the fruit platter. Marla, curiously enough, was watching Galon Miar expectantly, almost as if she wanted Wrayan to be proved wrong. He couldn’t understand her attitude, either.
“We can do this as soon as he drops his mind shield.”
Even under the threat of grievous bodily harm, Galon was more than a little reluctant to let the shield go. “It’s not magic, you know. I just can’t turn it on and off like you probably can.”
“You can let it go,” Wrayan guessed. “And if you’re that scared of Alija, I’ll put it back again when we’re done. Assuming you survive the experience, of course.”
Galon looked at Marla, almost as if he was pleading for her help, but her expression remained implacable.
“Your highness, I know what I said … but is this really necessary … ?”
“You want a ticket into my world, Galon. This is the price of admission.”
The assassin stared at the princess for a long moment. “I think I’d better sit down.”
“Be my guest,” Marla said graciously, offering him a place on the cushions near Rodja with a sweep of her arm.
Galon lowered himself onto the cushions, made himself comfortable and then glanced up at Wrayan. “Do you actually know how to do this without cracking my head open?”
“Yes.”
He frowned. “I have information … things I know … secrets belonging to the Assassins’ Guild. They are nothing to do with you, thief. Don’t go seeking them out. And if you ever use anything you learn in my mind tonight to betray my guild, I will hunt you down and kill you. Count on it.”
“Wrayan will do what he must to ascertain your trustworthiness,” Marla assured him. “Nothing more. Do you understand that, Wrayan?”
“Yes, your highness.”
Satisfied with her assurance, Galon took a deep breath and closed his eyes. “Then do your worst, thief.”
As he spoke, Wrayan sensed the strands that made up the wall begin to unravel. It was slow at first but as the weave loosened, they separated more quickly until finally the barrier disintegrated and Wrayan Lightfinger was able to step into the swirling darkness of Galon Miar’s mind.