hips and put it on. The Stepsons had already departed. “You won’t regrethelping
the Prince,” he said without looking at anyone. “He’s favored of the gods, you
know. You’ll do well together.” He followed his men out the door leaving the
Prince alone with Walegrin and Thrusher.
“You might have told me you were going to give him my sword!” Walegrin
complained.
“I wasn’t. I only meant to distract him-I didn’t think he’d take it. I’m sorry.
What was the favor you wanted?”
With Illyra and Thrusher safe, and his future mapped out, Walegrin didn’t need a
favor, but he heard his stomach rumbling and knew Thrush was hungry too. “We’ll
have a meal fit for a king-or Prince.”
“Well, at least that’s something I can provide you.”
WIZARD WEATHER
by Janet Morris
1
In the archmage’s sumptuous purple bedroom, the woman astride him took two pins
from her silver-shot hair. It was dark-his choice; and damp with cloying
shadows-his romanticism. A conjured moon in a spellbound sky was being swallowed
by effigy-clouds where the vaulted roof indubitably yet arced, even as he
shuddered under the tutored and inexorable attentions of the girl Lastel had
brought to his party. She had refused to tell him her name because he would not
give his, but had told him what she would do for him so eloquently with her eyes
and her body that he had spent the entire evening figuring out a way the two of
them might slip up here unnoticed. Not that he feared her escort’s jealousy
though the drug dealer might conceivably entertain such a sentiment, Lastel no