Sky Trillium

‘No! Stop asking questions!’

Ralabun fell into a wounded silence as they descended more cautiously. The walls of the cramped staircase were now very wet. In the crevices grew masses of pale fungi that harboured faintly glowing creatures called slime-dawdlers. These little beasts crept along the steps like luminescent slugs, making the footing treacherous and producing an evil smell when they were trodden upon.

‘It’s not much further,’ Tolivar said. ‘We are already at the level of the river.’

After a few more minutes they came to another secret portal, with wooden machinery that creaked when the Prince operated it. They emerged into a disused shed full of decayed coils of rope, sprung barrels, and broken crates. A couple of startled varts squeaked and ran away as Tolivar and Ralabun went to the shed’s exterior door. The Prince shuttered the lantern and peered cautiously outside. Only a light drizzle fell now and it was very dark. There were no guards, for this quay had been abandoned years ago following the war between Ruwenda and Labornok, and its entrance into the Citadel sealed.

They cautiously made their way over the rotting planks of the dock with Ralabun now leading the way. The Nyssomu’s night-vision was much keener than that of humankind and they dared not show a light that might be detected by patrols on the battlements above.

‘My boat is yonder,’ Tolivar said, ‘hidden below the broken bollard.’

Ralabun inspected the craft dubiously. ‘It is very small, Hiddenheart, and the Mutar flood is strengthening each hour. Will we have to go very far upstream?’

‘Only about three leagues. And the boat is sturdy enough. I will row with the central oars while you scull with the stern sweep, and together we will breast the current and cross the river. Once on the other side, there will be slack water and the going will be much easier.’

Ralabun grinned. ‘I was not aware that you were such an experienced waterman.’

‘I am experienced in more things than you know,’ the boy said shortly. ‘Let us be going.’

They climbed aboard and cast off. Tolivar rowed with all his strength, which truly was not much. But Ralabun, while elderly, had muscular arms after years of heavy work in the stables, and so the boat moved steadily across the broad river. They dodged floating debris, including whole trees uprooted from the Black-mire upstream. Once there was even a log with a huge vicious raffin aboard, that sailed along as nonchalantly as a Trovista tradeboat. The beast roared as it passed less than three arm-lengths away, but it made no move to leave its safe perch and attack them.

Along the opposite shore from Citadel Knoll, which was mucky and uninhabited, the current was much less strong, just as the Prince had predicted. He wearily put up his oars and left the propelling of the boat to Ralabun. They made good headway upstream, and were able to converse above the noise of the rushing water.

Tolivar said, ‘There is a very shallow tributary creek that joins the river on the north shore, in the braided section just above Market Pool. That is where we are going.’

Ralabun nodded. ‘I know what you’re talking about: a nameless waterway clogged with fodderfern and lanceweed. But it is not navigable – ‘

‘It is, if one fares carefully. I have travelled the creek often during the Dry Time, in secret, disguising myself as a common wharfboy.’

Ralabun gave a disapproving grunt. ‘That was most imprudent, Hiddenheart! Even so close to Citadel Knoll, the Mazy Mire is not a safe place for a lone human lad. If you had only asked, I would have been glad to take you swamp-romping – ‘

‘I was in no danger.’ The Prince spoke haughtily. ‘And my business in the mire was both serious and personal. It had nothing to do with the sort of idle funseeking we are accustomed to pursue together.’

‘Hmph. What great mystery does this creek conceal, then?’

‘It’s my business,’ Tolivar snapped.

This time the Nyssomu’s feelings were clearly hurt. ‘Well, I humbly beg Your Worship’s pardon for prying!’

The boy’s voice softened. ‘Do not be offended, Ralabun. Even the dearest companions must have some things private from one another. I was forced to ask your help in travelling to my secret place tonight because of the strength of the river. There was no other soul I could trust.’

‘And gladly will I accompany you! But I confess that I am sad that you will not confide in me. You know I would never tell any secret of yours to a living soul.’

Tolivar hesitated. He had not intended to disclose the nature of the treasure to his friend. But he was strongly tempted now to have at least one other person know about the wondrous things he owned. And who better than Ralabun? Tolivar said: ‘Do you swear that you will not tell the King or the Queen about my secret? Nor even the Archimage Haramis herself, if she should command it?’

‘I swear upon the Three Moons and the Flower!’ said Ralabun stoutly. ‘Whatever privity you entrust to me I will guard faithfully until the Lords of the Air carry me safely beyond.’

The Prince nodded sombrely. ‘Very well then. You shall see my great treasure when I fetch it tonight from its hiding place in the mire. But if you reveal what it is to others, you may forfeit not only your own life, but also my own.’

Ralabun’s big round eyes gleamed in the dimness as he made the sign of the Black Trillium in the air with one hand. ‘What is this marvellous thing that we seek, Hiddenheart?’

‘Something I must show you, rather than speak of,’ said the Prince. And he would say no more, for all the Nyssomu’s coaxing.

After they had travelled on for another hour the drizzle ceased and a brisk wind began to blow, sending dark clouds speeding across a small patch of starry sky. On the opposite bank the torch-lamps of Ruwenda Market at the westernmost end of Citadel Knoll flickered dim, for the Mutar was now over a league wide. Then they entered the braided section of the river, where there were many wooded islands during the Dry Time. Most of these were submerged now, with the lofty gonda and kala trees that grew on them rising out of swirling black water. It would have been easy to lose the way, and several times the Prince had to correct Ralabun’s navigation. Unfortunately, the mirecraft of the old stablemaster was not nearly so expert as he pretended.

‘Here is the creek,’ Tolivar said at last.

‘Arc you sure?’ Ralabun looked doubtful. ‘It seems to me that we must go on further – ‘

‘No. It is here. I am quite certain. Turn in.’

Grumbling, the Nyssomu bent to his oar. ‘The jungle round about here is already flooded and full of drifting debris. There’s no sign at all of a channel. I really think –’

‘Be silent!’ The Prince took up a stance in the bow. The few stars gave barely enough light to see by. The water soon became very shallow, with dense thickets of flag-reeds, lanceweed, and redfern between the towering trees. In the respite from the downpour, the wild creatures of the Mazy Mire gave voice. Insects chirped, clicked, buzzed, and made musical chiming sounds. Pelriks hooted, night-carolers warbled, karuwoks splashed and hissed, and a distant gulbard uttered its throaty hunting cry.

When Ralabun could no longer use the sculling oar because of the shallowing water and clogging driftwood, he cried out, ‘This can’t be right, Hiddenheart!’

The boy controlled his exasperation with some effort. ‘I will guide us while you pole the boat along. Go between those two great wilunda trees. I know the way.’

Ralabun grudgingly obeyed, and even though the channel at times seemed hopelessly blocked with brush and hanging vines, a lead of open water barely as wide as the boat stayed always ahead of them. The going was very slow, but after another hour they reached a small area of high ground. Thorn-ferns, weeping wydels, and towering kalas grew about its rocky perimeter. Tolivar pointed out a landing spot and Ralabun brought the boat in to shore.

‘This is it?’ he murmured in surprise. ‘I could have sworn we were lost.’

The Prince leapt onto a bank covered with rain-beaten sawgrass and tied the bow-line to a snag. Then he took up the lantern, opened its shutter, and beckoned for the Nyssomu to accompany him along a nearly invisible path that twisted through outcropping rocks and dripping vegetation. They came to a clearing, where there was a small hut made of hewn poles and bundled grass, roofed with heavy fodderfern.

‘I built it,’ the Prince said with pride. ‘It’s where I come to study magic’

Ralabun’s wide mouth dropped open in amazement, displaying stubby yellow fangs. ‘Magic? A lad such as you? By the Triune – you are well named Hiddenheart!’

Tolivar unfastened the simple wicker door and gave an ironic bow. ‘Please enter my wizard’s workshop.’

Inside it was completely dry. The Prince lit a three-candle reflector lamp standing on a makeshift table. The hut had few other furnishings aside from a stool, a carboy of drinking water, and a set of hanging shelves that held a few jars and firkins of preserved food. Certainly there were no instruments, books, or any of the other occult appurtenances one might expect in a sorcerer’s lair.

Tolivar dropped to his knees, brushed aside the cut ferns and rushes that covered the dirt floor, and began to pry up a large, thin slab of stone. In the cavity beneath it lay two bags of coarse woollen cloth – one small and the other larger. Tolivar placed both on the table.

‘These are the precious things we have come for,’ he told Ralabun. ‘I did not think it wise to conceal them in the Citadel.’

The old aborigine eyed the bags with growing misgiving. ‘And what happens to these things when you reside in Derorguila during winter?’

‘I have a safe hiding-place in the ruins just outside Zotopanion Palace where nobody goes. I found it four years ago, during the Battle of Derorguila, when I had the good fortune to acquire this great treasure.’ The boy opened the larger bag and slid out a slender, shallow box about the length of a man’s arm and three handspans wide. It was made of a dark glassy material, and upon its lid was embossed a silver many-rayed Star.

Ralabun cried out: ‘Lords of the Air! It cannot be!’

Saying nothing, Tolivar opened the smaller bag. Something flashed brilliantly silver in the lamplight – a curiously wrought coronet having six small cusps and three larger. It was ornamented with carved scrollwork, shells, and flowers, and beneath each of the three larger points was a grotesque face: one was a hideous Skritek, the second was a grimacing human, and the third was a fierce being with stylized starry locks of hair who seemed to howl in silent pain. Beneath the central visage was a tiny replica of Prince Tolivar’s royal coat-of-arms.

‘The Three-Headed Monster,’ Ralabun croaked, nearly beside himself with awe. ‘Queen Anigel’s magical talisman that she surrendered as ransom to the vile sorcerer Orogastus!’

‘It belongs neither to my mother nor to him now,’ Tolivar declared. He placed the coronet upon his own head and suddenly his slender body and plain small face seemed transfigured. ‘The talisman is bonded to me by the star-box, and anyone who touches it without my leave will be burnt to ashes. I have not yet fully mastered the Three-Headed Monster’s powers, but some day I shall. And when that time comes I will become a greater wizard than Orogastus ever was.’

‘Oh, Hiddenheart!’ Ralabun wailed.

But before he could continue, the boy said, ‘Remember your oath, old friend.’ Then he removed the coronet from his head and replaced it and the star-box in their bags. ‘Now come along. Perhaps we can get home before it begins to rain again.’

CHAPTER 2

‘Now!’ Kadiya cried out. ‘Take them!’

The huge web woven of tanglefoot fell, the scores of ropes that had supported it cut at the same moment by the crew of Nyssomu high in the kala trees. It was deep night, but a searing bolt of lightning lit the moment of the net’s landing on the floor of the swamp forest and dimmed the orange-glowing eyes of the startled Skritek war-party.

The ambush had been successful. More than forty of the monstrous Drowners, suddenly trapped in tough, gluey meshes, roared and shrieked amidst the rolling thunder. They tore ineffectually at the web with their tusks and claws, lashing their tails and wallowing on the muddy ground as they became hopelessly entangled. Musk from their scaled hides arose in a noxious cloud. It did not deter their captors from driving long barbed stakes into the soggy soil, securing the net’s edges. Those Nyssomu who were not engaged in the task capered about, popping their eyes out on stalks in mockery of their ancient foe, cheering and brandishing blow-pipes and spears.

‘Yield to me, Roragath!’ Kadiya demanded. ‘Your scheme of invasion and brigandage is finished. Now you must pay the penalty for violating the Truce of the Mazy Mire.’

Never! the Skritek leader retorted in the speech without words. He was a gigantic creature, nearly twice her height, and still stood upright with the sticky meshes clinging to his body. The Truce no longer hinds us. And even if it did, we would never surrender to a puny human female. We will fight to the death rather than yield!

‘So you do not recognize me, treacherous Drowner,’ Kadiya murmured. She turned to a sturdy little man of the Folk who stood just behind her. ‘Jagun. It seems that the night-sight of these addlepate truce-breakers is as weak as their wits. Let torches be brought to enlighten them.’

It had begun to rain heavily again. But at Jagun’s command several members of the Nyssomu force struck fire-shells and ignited pitch-dipped bundles of reeds, which they took from their knapsacks and stuck onto long sticks. The captured Skritek warriors hissed and bellowed defiance as flame after flame sprang to life, illuminating the turbulent scene in the clearing. Then, as torchbearers converged upon Kadiya and she slipped off her hoodcape, ignoring the downpour, the monsters fell silent.

She was a woman of medium stature but seemed tall among her cohort of diminutive Nyssomu. Her hair was russet, bound into a tight crown of braids. She wore a cuirass of golden scale-mail over leathern forester garb much like that of her companions, and on her breast was the sacred Black Trillium emblem. Each petal of the Flower bore a gleaming eye – one golden like that of the Folk, one deep brown like Kadiya’s own, and one pale silvery-blue with odd glints in its dark pupil, and this last eye belonged to the Vanished Ones.

Now we know you, the chief of the Drowners admitted with reluctance. You are the Lady of the Eyes.

‘And I am also Great Advocate of all Folk, including you foolish Skritek of the Southern Morass. How dare you invade and pillage these lands of the Nyssomu Folk in violation of my edict? Answer me, Roragath!’

We do not accept your authority! Besides, one greater than you has revealed the truth to us about your spurious Truce. He has told us that soon the Vanished Ones will return and the Sky Trillium shine again in the heavens. Then you humans and all of your cringing Oddling slaves will be destroyed. The World of the Three Moons will be as it was in the beginning: the domain of Skritek alone.

Yes! Yes! roared the other monsters. They began to thrash about and struggle in the net even more violently than before.

‘Who has told you this shocking lie?’ Kadiya demanded. When the Skritek leader did not reply, she drew from her scabbard a strange dark sword with a tripartite pommel, having a dull-edged blade that lacked a point. Reversing it, she held it high, and at the sight of it all the captive swamp-fiends began to moan in fear.

‘You recognize the Three-Lobed Burning Eye that I hold.’ Kadiya spoke with an awful calmness. Raindrops streamed unheeded down her face and sparkled like gems on her armour. ‘I am the custodian of this true talisman of the Vanished Ones. It can decide in an instant whether or not you have the right to flout me. But understand this, you Drowners of the Southern Morass: If you are judged and found guilty of sedition, the Eye will engulf you in magic fire and you will perish miserably.’

The monsters were muttering among themselves now. Roragath said at last:

We believed what the Star Man said, even though he offered no proof beyond the wonders he worked to demonstrate his command of magic. Perhaps … we were mistaken.

‘A Star Man –? ‘ Jagun cried in dismay. But Kadiya hushed him with a wave of her hand.

‘Falsehoods pour easily from a glib and mischievous mouth,’ she said to Roragath, ‘and fools who are reluctant to give up their old, violent ways may be all too eager to believe liars and charlatans. I know how your people have resisted the Truce. You thought that because you dwelt in a remote corner of the mire you were beyond the White Lady’s governance – and beyond my enforcement of her will. You were wrong.’

The huge Skritek gave a groan of furious despair. Kadiya of the Eyes, leave off chiding us like stupid children! Let your talisman judge us and slay us. At least that will put an end to our shame.

But Kadiya lowered the peculiar sword instead and slipped it again into its sheath. ‘Perhaps that will not be necessary. Thus far, Roragath, you and your band have only been guilty of scattered acts of terror and the destruction of Asamun’s village. Nyssomu Folk have been injured, but none have died – no thanks to you. Restitution can be made. If you atone for your hostile actions and pledge to return to your own territory and keep the Truce, then I will spare your lives.’

The great muzzled head of the Skritek leader remained defiantly level for many heartbeats, but at last it sagged in submission and the creature fell to his knees. I promise on behalf of myself and my fellows to obey your commands, Lady of the Eyes, and this I avow by the Three Moons.

Kadiya nodded. ‘Cut them free,’ she said to the Nyssomu band. ‘Then let Asamun and his counsellors negotiate the reparations.’ She addressed the Skritek leader once again, laying one hand upon the eyed emblem on her breast. ‘Do not let your heart contemplate further treachery, Roragath of the Drowners. Remember that my sister Haramis, the White Lady, Archimage of the Land, can see you wherever you go. She will tell me if you dare to break the Truce of the Mazy Mire again. If you do I will come for you, and this time requite you without mercy.’

We understand, said Roragath. Is it allowed for us to take vengeance upon the wicked one who misled us? He came to us only once and then went away westward into the mountains, out of Ruwenda and towards Zinora. But we could track him down –

‘No,’ said Kadiya. ‘It is my command that you do not pursue the troublemaker. The White Lady and I will deal with him in good time. Only warn other Skritek to give no credence to his lies.’

Picking up her discarded cape and donning it once more against the unrelenting rain, she beckoned for Jagun to bring a torch and come with her. Side by side, the Lady of the Eyes and her chief deputy set off along the broad trail leading to the Vispar River.

After Haramis, the White Lady, had learned of the rampaging monsters in the remote South and bespoke her triplet sister Kadiya, it had taken ten days to mobilize the small army of Nyssomu and set up the ambush of the Skritek war-party. Now that the expedition had ended successfully, Kadiya was exceedingly tired. The Skritek leader’s words had been puzzling and disquieting, but she was in no humour to discuss them now with the Archimage.

Nor was she minded to hear a lecture from her sister, when the White Lady learned of how she had used the talisman.

Plodding through deep mud, sopping wet from head to heel and every muscle aching, the Lady of the Eyes took hold of a thin lanyard about her neck and drew forth an amulet that had been concealed in her clothing. It glowed faintly golden and was warm and comforting to the touch, a droplet of honey-amber with a fossil Black Trillium blossom in its heart.

Thank you, she prayed. Thank you, Triune God of the Flower, for letting the bluff work one more time, for giving me strength. And forgive me the implied deceit … If I knew another way, I would follow it.

With the stormwinds inaugurating the premature Wet Time roaring through the tree branches overhead, Kadiya and Jagun spoke hardly a word until they reached the backwater of the swollen river where their boats had been left. The Nyssomu Folk customarily travelled in hollowed-log punts and cumbersome flatboats that were laboriously poled or sculled along. But Kadiya’s craft was fashioned in the Wyvilo style, of thin-scraped hide stretched over a lightweight wooden frame. It was drawn up between the buttress-roots of a mighty kala tree, and as she and Jagun climbed into it and loosed it from its mooring two big sleek heads rose from the rain-pocked waters nearby and stared in expectation.

They were rimoriks, formidable water-animals who shared a special relationship – one could hardly call it domestication – with the Uisgu Folk, those shy cousins of the Nyssomu who dwelt in the Goldenmire north of the River Vispar. Since Kadiya was the Advocate of all Folk, including the Uisgu, she also enjoyed the rimoriks’ favour. Numbers of the animals, eager to serve her, had left their accustomed territory to live near Kadiya’s Manor of the Eyes on the River Golobar, which lay nearly seventy leagues to the east.

The eyes of the aquatic beasts shone like jet in the light of Jagun’s guttering torch. The rimoriks had dapple-green fur, bristling whiskers, and enormous teeth that they bared in what was, for them, an amiable expression.

Share miton with us, Lady. We have waited overlong for your return.

‘Certainly, dear friends.’ From her belt-pouch Kadiya took a small scarlet bottle-gourd. Unstoppering it, she took a sip, let Jagun have his share, and then poured a quantity of the sacred liquid into the palm of her left hand. The animals swam close and drank, lapping gently with their horrifying tongues – whiplike appendages with sharp points that they used to spear their prey.

As the miton worked its benign magic, the four unlikely friends felt a great contentment that sharpened their senses and banished fatigue. When the communion was over, Kadiya uttered a sigh. Jagun slipped pulling harnesses onto the rimoriks. Soundlessly, the great animals submerged and the boat sped away down the wide, dark river, heading for the secret shortcut that would take them all home in less than six hours.

When they were well on their way, with Kadiya and Jagun huddled beneath the shelter of a waxwort tarpaulin and munching an austere supper of dried adop roots and journey bread, she said, ‘It went well, I think. Your idea of making a drop-net from tanglefoot was brilliant, Jagun, sparing us a pitched battle with the swamp-fiends.’

The old aborigine’s wide, sallow face was masklike and his glowing yellow eyes darted askance at her. It was clear that he was deeply troubled. Kadiya groaned inwardly, knowing full well why. She was able to postpone her sister Hara’s reproaches, but not those of her old friend.

For a long time Jagun did not speak. Kadiya waited, eating although she had lost her taste for food, while the rain beat about their ears and the boat hissed and vibrated with the great speed of their passage.

Finally Jagun said, ‘Farseer, for four years now you have carried on your chosen work successfully, even though your talisman is no longer bonded to you and no longer capable of magic. No one save I and your two sisters knows that the Three-Lobed Burning Eye has lost its power.’

‘Thus far the secret has remained safe,’ she said evenly.

‘But I fear what might happen if you continue to wield the talisman in your office of Advocate, as you did tonight. If the truth is discovered, the Folk will be deeply scandalized. Your honour will be stained and your authority compromised. Would it not be the greater part of wisdom to do as the White Lady has so often requested, and consign the Burning Eye to her care until it can be made potent once again?’

‘The talisman is mine,’ Kadiya declared. ‘I shall never relinquish it – not even to Haramis.’

‘If you simply cease wearing it, no one would dare to question you.’

She sighed. ‘Perhaps you are right. I have thought and prayed hard over the matter, but the decision is not easy to make. You saw how the Skritek were terror-smitten by the Eye tonight.’

Her hand slipped to the pommel of the dark sword and she grasped the three conjoined balls at the end. Those orbs were cold now, that once had been warm. The Three-Lobed Burning Eye, created ages ago by the Vanished Ones for their own mysterious purposes, had been capable of dread magic, for it was one of three parts making up the great Sceptre of Power.

Once that talisman had been bonded to Kadiya’s very soul, and the three lobes had opened at her command to reveal living counterparts of the eyes emblazoned upon her armour. She had commanded its power, and anyone who dared touch the sword without her permission died on the spot.

But four years ago the sorcerer Orogastus, last heir to the Star Men, stole Kadiya’s talisman and acquired through extortion a second one belonging to Queen Anigel. He bonded both devices to himself and dared hope that the Archimage Haramis would give up the third talisman for love of him. Instead, Orogastus lost Anigel’s talisman by misadventure; and later, in a climactic battle, he was destroyed by the magic of the three sisters.

The ownerless sword was then restored to Kadiya. But the talisman would no longer unite with her magical amulet of trillium-amber as it had done before, binding itself to her will. The Three-Lobed Burning Eye was apparently as dead as Orogastus.

Nevertheless, Kadiya had continued to wear it.

‘I have never deliberately lied to the Folk about my talisman’s function,’ she said now to Jagun. ‘Its symbolic value remains, even if it is now magically useless. You saw the good it did tonight. Without its threat, the Skritek would surely have fought us to the death. With it, I was able to spare them and prevent a great loss of Nyssomu life.’

‘That is true,’ Jagun admitted.

‘The Drowners will return to the Southern Morass and tell others of their tribe how they were conquered and granted mercy by the Lady of the Eyes and her talisman.’ She gave a little shrug. ‘Thus the Truce of the Mire will hold until the next crisis comes along … And there is always a chance that Haramis will eventually discover how to rebond the talisman to me, restoring its potency.’

The little man shook his head, still uneasy. Like others of his race he was superficially human in appearance, having tiny slitted nostrils, a broad mouth with small sharp teeth at the fore, and narrow upstanding ears rising on either side of his hunter’s cap. Many years ago he had been Royal Huntsman to King Krain of Ruwenda, Kadiya’s late father. When she was but a tiny girl, Jagun had taken her into the Mazy Mire that comprised so much of the little plateau kingdom, teaching her many of its secrets and giving her the mire-name Farseer because of her keen vision. The nickname had proved prophetic when Kadiya became the custodian of the Three-Lobed Burning Eye and the protector of the aboriginal Folk who shared the World of the Three Moons with humankind.

Over the years, Jagun had remained Kadiya’s closest friend and deputy. Sometimes, to her chagrin, he seemed to forget that she was no longer a child, upbraiding her for her hot temper and occasional woth-headed stubbornness. The most annoying thing about this habit of his was that he was often in the right.

‘You must realize, Farseer,’ Jagun now said gravely, ‘that this particular conflict with the Skritek was far from ordinary. Roragath’s tale of a lying Star Man must have been as great a shock to you as it was to me.’

‘The notion of the Vanished Ones returning is nonsense,’ she scoffed. ‘And only the Lords of the Air know what manner of prodigy a “Sky Trillium” might be. As for the so-called Star Man –’

‘What if the worst has happened,’ Jagun ventured, ‘and the accursed sorcerer himself has come back once again from the dead?’

‘Impossible! Haramis’ own talisman told her that Orogastus had died.’ Kadiya’s lip curled in disgust. ‘And my silly sister has wept secretly for his damned soul ever since.’

‘Do not mock the White Lady’s honest emotion,’ Jagun said sternly, ‘especially when you have never known love’s passion yourself. One does not pick and choose whom to love – as I myself know to my sorrow.’

Kadiya looked at him in surprise. For as long as she had known Jagun, he had had no mate. But this was not the time to question him on such a delicate subject. ‘Do you think, then,’ she asked him, ‘that Orogastus might have left others to carry on his impious work? The six acolytes that we know of – the ones he deemed his Voices – most certainly perished. And no more apprentice wizards were found when my brother-in-law searched the haunts of Orogastus in the land of Tuzamen.’

‘Such persons might have fled from King Antar’s justice when news of their master’s doom reached them,’ Jagun said. ‘And if they were clever and avoided the overt use of magic, then they might also have escaped the White Lady’s scrutiny. Not even her Three-Winged Circle can oversee every part of the world, every moment of the day and night.’

Kadiya finished her bread and adop and began to pry open blok-nuts with her small dagger and prick out the meats for the two of them. ‘It is more likely that this so-called Star Man is nothing but an imposter, an agent of some enemy of Laboruwenda intent on stirring up trouble for political reasons. It was very clever to arouse the Skritek now, at the beginning of the rains. The court of Anigel and Antar is about to withdraw to the Labornoki flatlands for the winter, leaving behind only a reduced garrison in Ruwenda. That young scoundrel, King Yondrimel of Zinora, would love to see the Two Thrones pulled into a series of ruinous conflicts with the swamp-fiends during the Wet Time. Then his nation might take over Laboruwenda’s western trade routes.’