study doorway.
Stilcho leaned there reeking of wine, his thin, white face uncommonly grim with
its eye-patch and comma of dark hair. “My lady,” Stilcho said wryly. “Very sorry
to distress you.”
Moria just stared, stricken.
“Come on,” Haught said, and caught Stilcho by the arm, heading him for the door.
“I can’t find him,” Crit said, reporting in to the palace where Tempus had
appropriated an office, down the hall and up a stair from the uneasy business
Crit had no wish to know about.
Tempus made a mark on a map. The place was a litter of scrolls and books and the
plunder of the map room. They lay on the floor as well as the desktop and
afternoon light shone wanly through the window, a murky afternoon, beclouded and
rumbling with rain that never fell. He rose, walked to the window, hands locked
behind him-stared out into the roiling cloud beyond the portico. Lightning
flashed. Thunder followed.
“He’ll show,” Tempus said finally. “You’ve tried the witch’s place again.”
“Twice. I…” There was a moment of silence that brought Tempus around to face
the man. “… went as far as the door,” Crit said, much as if he had said gate
of hell. Stolidly. Eyes carefully blank. Tempus frowned.
“King of Korphos,” Crit said then.
“I remember.” A king invited his enemies to reconcile. Archers turned up round
the balcony at dinner and killed them all. Witchfire might serve. And: Nothing
new under the sun, an inner voice said; while another voice recalled dead
comrades: tortured souls of yours and mine which must be released. … At times