fourth time I’ve caught a flicker of candle-light through that window.’
‘Maybe Tynian or Bevier put one of their knights up there to keep watch,’
Sparhawk shrugged. ‘Without telling you? Or Lord Vanion?’
‘if it worries you so much, let’s go take a look.’
‘You don’t sound very concerned.’
‘i’m not. This castle’s ‘absolutely secure, Khalad.’
‘I’ll go have a look after I get ‘you ready for bed.’
‘No, I’ll go along.’
‘I thought you were certain that the castle’s secure.’
‘It never hurts to be careful. I don’t want to have to tell your mothers
that I made a mistake and got you killed.’ They went down from the
battlements, crossed the courtyard and went into the main building. There
were loud snores coming from behind the bolted door of the main dining
hall. ‘i’d imagine that there are going to be some monumental headaches
emerging from that room in the morning,’ Khalad laughed. ‘We didn’t force
our Guests to drink so much.’
‘They’ll accuse us of it, though.’ They started up the stairway that led to
the top of the south tower. Although the main tower and the north tower had
been constructed in the usual fashion with rooms stacked atop each other,
the south tower was little more than a hollow shell with a wooden stairway
rising up through a creaking scaffolding. The architect had evidently added
this structure primarily for the purposes of symmetry. The single room in
the entire tower was at the very top, a room floored with wooden beams
roughly adzed square. ‘i’m getting too old to be climbing stairs in full
armour,’ Sparhawk puffed when they were about halfway up. ‘You’re out of
condition, Sparhawk,’ Khalad told his lord bluntly. ‘You’re spending too
much time on your backside talking about politics.’
‘It’s part of my job, Khalad.’ They reached the door at the top of the
stairs. ‘You’d better let me go in first,’ Sparhawk murmured, sliding his
sword out of its scabbard. Then he reached out and pushed the door open. A
shabby-looking man sat at a wooden table in the centre of the room, his
face lit by a single candle. Sparhawk knew him. The years of hard drinking
had not been kind to Krager. His hair had thinned even more in the six or
so years since Sparhawk had last seen him, and the puffy pouches under his
eyes were even more pronounced. The eyes themselves, nearsighted and
watery, were discoloured and seemed to ‘be overlaid with a kind of yellow
stain. The hand in which he held his wine-cup palsied, and a continual tic
shuddered in his right cheek. Sparhawk moved without even stopping to
think. He levelled his sword at Martel’s threadbare former underling and
lunged. There was no feeling of resistance as the sword plunged into
Krager’s chest and emerged from his back. Krager flinched violently, and
then he laughed in his rusty, drink-corroded voice. ‘God, that’s a
startling experience!’ he said conversationally. ‘I could almost feel the
blade’ running through me. Put your sword away, Sparhawk. You can’t hurt me
with it.’ Sparhawk pulled the sword out of Kragers substantial-appearing
body and swept it back and forth through the man’s head. ‘Please don’t do
that, Sparhawk,’ Krager said, closing his eyes. ‘It’s really very
unnerving, you know.’
‘My compliments to your magician, Krager,’ Sparhawk said flatly. ‘That’s
really a very convincing illusion. You look so real that I can almost smell
you.’
‘I see that we’re going to be civilised about this,’ Krager said, taking a
drink of his wine. ‘Good. You’re growing up, Sparhawk. Ten years ago, you’d
have chopped the room into kindling before you’d have finally been willing
to listen to reason.’
‘Magic?’ Khalad asked Sparhawk. Sparhawk nodded. ‘And fairly sophisticated
too. Actually Krager’s sitting in a room a mile or more away from here.
Someone’s projecting his image into this tower. We can see him and hear
him, but we can’t touch him.’
‘Pity,’ Khalad murmured, fingering the hilt of his heavy dagger. ‘You’ve
really been very clever this time, Sparhawk,’ Krager said. ‘Age seems to be
improving you – like a good wine.’
‘You’re the expert on that, Krager.’
‘Petty, Sparhawk. Very petty.’ Krager smirked. ‘Before you engage in an
orgy of self-congratulation, though, you ought to know that this was just
another of those tests a friend of mine mentioned to you a while back. I
told my associates all about you, but they wanted to see for themselves. We
arranged a few entertainments For you so that you could demonstrate your
prowess and your limitations. The catapults definitely confused the Cyrgai,
and your mounted tactics against the Trolls were almost brilliant. You also
did remarkably well in an urban setting here in Matherion. You really
surprised me on that score, Sparhawk. You caught on to our sign and
counter-sign much faster than I’d thought you would, and you intercepted
the message about the warehouse in a remarkably short period of time. That
Dacite merchant only had to walk through town three times before your spy
stole the note from him. I’d have expected you to fail miserably when faced
with a conspiracy instead of an army in the field. My congratulations.’
‘You’ve been drinking for too many years, Krager. Your memory’s starting to
slip. You’re forgetting what happened in Chyrellos during the election. As
I recall, we countered just about every one of the schemes Martel and
Annias cooked up there as well.’
‘That wasn’t really a very great accomplishment, Sparhawk. Martel and
Annias weren’t really very challenging opponents. I tried to tell them that
their plots weren’t sophisticated enough, but they wouldn’t listen. Martel
was too busy thinking about the treasure-rooms under the Basilica, and
Annias was so blinded by the Archprelate’s mitre that he couldn’t see
anything else. You really missed your chance there, Sparhawk. I’ve always
been your most serious opponent. You had me right in your hands, and you
let me go just for the sake
Of a few crumbs of information and some exaggerated testimony before the
Hierocracy. Very poor thinking there, old boy.’
‘This evening’s festivities weren’t really designed to succeed then, I
gather?’
‘Of course not, Sparhawk. If we’d really wanted to take Matherion, we’d
have brought in whole armies.’
‘i’m sure there’s a point to all this,’ Sparhawk said to the illusion. ‘Do
you suppose we could step right along? I’ve had a tiring day.’
‘The tests have all been designed to oblige you to commit your resources,
Sparhawk. We needed to know what kinds of responses you had at your
command.’
‘You haven’t seen them all yet, Krager – not by half.’
‘Khalad,’ isn’t it?’ Krager said to Sparhawk’s squire. ‘Tell your master
that he should practise a bit more before he tries lying. He’s really not
very convincing oh, convey my regards to your mother. She and I always got
on well.’
‘I sort of doubt that,’ Khalad replied. ‘Be realistic, Sparhawk,’ Krager
went on. ‘Your wife and daughter are here. Do you really expect me to
believe that you’d hold anything back if you thought they were in danger?’
‘We used what was necessary, Krager. You don’t have to send out a whole
regiment to step on a bug.’
‘You’re so much like Martel was, Sparhawk,’ Krager observed. ‘You two
could almost have been brothers. I used to despair of ever nursing him
through his adolescence. He was a hopeless innocent when’ he started out,
you know. About all he had was a towering resentment directed primarily at
you and Vanion – and at Sephrenia, of course, although to a lesser degree.
I had to raise him from virtual infancy. God, the hours I spent patiently
grinding away all those knightly virtues.’
‘Reminisce on your own time, Krager. Get to the point. Martel’s history
now. This is a new situation, and he’s not around any more.’ Just renewing
our acquaintance, Sparhawk. You
know, ‘the good old days’ and all that. I’ve found a new employer,
obviously.’
‘I gathered as much.’
‘When I was working for Martel, I had very little direct contact with Otha
and almost none with Azash Himself. That situation might have had an
entirely different outcome if I’d had direct access to the Zemoch God.
Martel was obsessed with revenge, and Otha was too sunk in his own
debauchery for either of them to think clearly. They were giving Azash very
poor advice as a result of their own limitations. I could have given him a
much more realistic assessment of the situation.’
‘Provided you were ever sober enough to talk.’
‘That’s beneath you, Sparhawk. Oh, I’ll admit that I take a drink now and
then, but never so much that I lose sight of the main goals. Actually, it
turned out better for ‘me in the long run. If I’d been the one advising
Azash, He’d have beaten you. Then I’d have been inextricably involved with
Him, and I’d have been destroyed when He confronted Cyrgon – that’s my new