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  “Daughter,” Madog said, descending those same steps as Glasog rose up, wrapped in black and silver. Mili growled and bristled, suddenly strained at her leash—

  The dragon loosed it and Mili sprang for Madog's throat. Madog fell under the hound and Madog's blood was on the steps—but his neck was already broken.

  Servants ran screaming. Men at arms stood confused, as if they had quite forgotten what they were doing or where they were or what had brought them there, the men of the fallen kingdoms all looking at one another and wondering what terrible thing had held them here.

  And on all of this Glasog turned her back, walking up the steps.

  “My lady!” Owain cried—for it was Owain wore the armor; but it was not Owain's voice she longed to hear.

  Glasog let fall the cloak and leaped from the wall. The raven glided away, with one harsh cry against the wind.

  In time after—often in that bitter winter, when snows lay deep and wind skirled drifts about the door—Owain told how Glasog had pierced the dragon's eye; and how they had found the armor, and how Glasog had told him the last secret, that with the dragon dead, Madog's sorcery would leave him.

  That winter, too, Gwydion found a raven in the courtyard, a crippled bird, missing feathers on one wing. It seemed greatly confused, so far gone with hunger and with cold that no one thought it would live. But Gwydion tended it until spring and set it free again.

  It turned up thereafter on the wall of Gwydion's keep—King Gwydion, he was now—lord of all Dyfed. “You've one wish left,” he said to it. “One wish left of me.”

  “I give it to you,” the raven said. “Whatever you wish, King Gwydion.”

  “Be what you wish to be,” Gwydion said.

  And thereafter men told of the wisdom of King Gwydion as often as of the beauty of his wife.

  Misericorde

  Karl Edward Wagner

  The close chamber smelled of stale flowers and staler love.

  Tamaslei shook the agate phial petulantly, found it drained of her favorite scent. Crossing her bedchamber with long-limbed strides, she ripped aside a silken curtain and tossed the phial through the window. She drew a deep breath. Chill mountain air puckered her bare nipples. Distantly the phial smashed against stone.

  “I will not love a coward,” she said to the night.

  Upon her bed, Josin stirred uneasily. The agate phial of scented oil had been another of his gifts. He had given it to her the night before he had killed her previous lover.

  “I would do whatever you wish. You know that.”

  “Do I?” Tamaslei laughed derisively and considered her reflection in the dressing-table mirror. Her glossy black hair hung in tangled masses. She flung its coils back across her white shoulders and gathered them at her nape with a gold-chased cord. Tamaslei studied her eyes, as her strong fingers crushed belladonna berries against an onyx mortar.

  Josin arose anxiously. He stood behind her, hiding his sudden detumescence from the mirror.

  “What you ask is death.”

  “What I ask is danger. A risk. Surely no man would hide his face and creep away on his belly at a simple request from his lady?”

  “You ask—you demand,” Josin lowered his voice as he glanced at the opened window, “that I steal the ducal crown of Harnsterm from the Vareishei clan.”

  “They stole it easily enough when milord Lonal was fool enough to lead an expedition against them.”

  “Stripping a coronet from a dead man's bloody pate is a bloody different game from stealing it from an outlaw stronghold.”

  “You always said you were the cleverest thief of all Chrosanthe.” Tamaslei discovered an errant eyelash, pitilessly plucked it.

  “And so I am,” Josin reassured her.

  “It's only a dingy old fortress,” Tamaslei pressured him, “an uncouth band of robbers.”

  “Who have held these mountains under their command since the assassination of King Janisavion ten years ago,” Josin reminded her.

  “Who wears the coronet might well claim rulership of Harnsterm,” Tamaslei mused. “Our lamented duke was slain without a direct heir. It will be years before Chrosanthe has exhausted all plots and deposed all pretenders. What the people want now is power—rather, the assurance of power, the symbols of power. I need not remind you that my own family is one of our city's oldest, for all our fall from grace during these recent civil troubles.

  “With the ducal crown—and an alliance with the man bold enough to wrest it from these mountain bandits …” Tamaslei applied scent to the vale of her breasts.

  “The Vareishei guard their stolen treasures well.”

  “And you say that you are a thief.”

  “I say that I am your lover.”

  “And I say that I will not love a coward.”

  Josin shrugged his capable shoulders. His mustache made a sad smile into the mirror. He had climbed this far. Dare he climb farther still? He was the best. Of thieves. Of lovers. Of ambitious adventurers. Of all this he was certain. Against the Vareishei? No man had ever won out.

  “You shall have this coronet,” Josin promised.

  “And you shall have my love.”

  It was a fortnight later.

  Two ravens had been cawing at her window.

  Tamaslei at last awoke. She climbed from her cold bed. Upon her window ledge rested a shriveled lump of muscle.

  She knew it for her lover's heart even before she learned that his head stood atop a pole just beyond the walls of Harnsterm.

  It was then that she sought out Kane.

  I. Four Names in Blood

  “I AM TOLD,” TAMASLEI SAID TO THE HALF-BLIND LAMPLIGHTER, “that for a certain amount of gold one may procure the fulfillment of her most fanciful wishes, here in the back streets of Harnsterm.”

  The lamplighter trimmed the wick and applied his flame. Closing the lozenge-shaped pane, he stepped down from his footstool and hefted his can of oil. He stank of oil and soot, and it seemed that a chance spark might set the old man and his tattered garments ablaze.

  “There are many wishes.”

  “My wish is to speak with a certain man. His name is Kane.”

  “Dead. Dead, so I have heard. Dead, these many years.”

  Tamaslei counted gold coins from one palm to another. Josin had once told her that the old lamplighter knew more of the affairs of Harnsterm's underworld than did its denizens.

  “But then,” said the lamplighter, flipping back his eyepatch to gloat upon the roll of gold pieces, “I might know someone who might know where Kane might be found …”

  Tamaslei permitted a gold piece to drip from her fingers. It rolled into a pile of horse dung beside the old man's filthy boots.

  “When I have spoken with Kane in my chambers in the Tameiral Mansion,” she said, nodding toward the decaying district where Harnsterm's wealth once dwelt, “you shall have five golden companions to clink against this one.”

  The lamplighter grubbed for the coin as she turned away. “If you live past that tête-à-tête,” he mumbled to his beard.

  Tamaslei tossed her cloak to a maid and entered her private chambers. She considered the muck that smeared her boots and decided that a bath might remove the stench of the streets from her nostrils. First, though, a drink to calm her unease.

  Crossing to the decanter of brandy upon the sideboard, Tamaslei started to pour for herself—some indication of the urgency of her need—when she noticed that one of the matched set of crystal goblets was missing. In vexation, she glanced about the chamber, already preparing a tonguelashing for the servant who had not cleansed and replaced the goblet—and a worse sort of lashing if it had been broken.

  The goblet, intact and only just now emptied, was held in a hand that almost engulfed it. Tamaslei splashed brandy onto the sideboard, staring openmouthed at the man who watched her from the shadows of her chamber.

  He was huge—it seemed incredible that she hadn't noticed him instantly upon entering the room until she thought
of how beasts of prey seem to merge with their surroundings. He was dressed entirely in black, from his high boots and leather trousers to his close-fitting leather jacket. As he leaned against the wall, a sword hilt protruded above his right shoulder, showing a complex filigree against the dark panels. A closely trimmed red beard softened the planes of a brutal face, but the cold blue eyes that studied her from the shadow made Tamaslei choke back the outcry that shuddered in her throat.

  “Shall I pour?” suggested Kane.

  Regaining her composure, Tamaslei promised herself to take pains with the servant who had failed to inform her of Kane's presence. “You came here quickly.”

  “Bad news travels quickly.” Kane measured brandy into their goblets. Close to her, his size was even more forbidding, which made the polished grace of his movements all the more sinister.

  “You are Kane.” Tamaslei's inflection was not questioning. “Josin spoke of you to me. He called you his friend.”

  “A man of great promise—and, one would have thought, of keener judgment than to attempt to steal from the Vareishei clan. I drink to a comrade departed.”

  “And I, to a lover.” Tamaslei briefly touched her lips to her goblet. “I imagine you will have guessed why I have summoned you here.”

  Above the rim of his goblet, Kane's eyes were watchful.

  “Josin told me that you were the best, the very best. He said that just as he was the greatest of thieves because he stole for the thrill of it, so were you the greatest of assassins because you killed men for the sport.”

  “And for a price,” Kane reminded her.

  “They say that for ten marks of gold one may purchase a life from you—the life of anyone.”

  Kane set aside his goblet. Tamaslei looked into his eyes, and no other answer was needed.

  “I wish to purchase a life,” she said, “Four lives.”

  She unclasped a key from the belt of her gown and unlocked the iron-bound door of a massive oaken aumbry. From within she withdrew a pair of leather almoners. Carrying one in either hand, she deposited them upon the sideboard. Returning to the aumbry, she placed two more heavy purses beside the first pair. The decanter and crystal goblets vibrated in elfin cries to the sullen clink of gold coins.

  “Each purse contains ten marks in golden coins. For each purse, I demand a life. When four lives are taken, these four purses shall be yours.” Her smile challenged him. “Or would you think to take them from me now?”

  “I did not come here to steal,” Kane told her.

  “Because even assassins have their code—and their pride—just as thieves like Josin do.”

  “Certain rules of the game are essential,” Kane replied. “Otherwise it isn't a game. For the true adept, wealth is not the object. If I am offered a fee to perform a certain assignment, I will not accept that fee until I have accomplished it. Taking a fee by force—or accepting an assignment without the certainty that it will be carried out—would be pointless, a bore.”

  “Then you will accept this assignment?”

  “I am bored with the ordinary, and already this problem has surpassed the ordinary. It remains for you to tell me the names of the four lives you desire, and the problem shall be solved.”

  “Josin once told me that a certain etiquette is involved,” Tamaslei said. “I, too, believe in doing things correctly.”

  She thrust her hand into her boot-top and unsheathed a thin-bladed dagger. Setting its point to her thumb, Tamaslei drew a bright rivulet of blood. Using the dagger as a pen, she wrote a name in blood upon each leather almoner.

  Wenvor. Ostervor. Sitilvon. Puriali.

  “The Vareishei clan.” Kane's face showed interest.

  “The Vareishei clan.” Tamaslei's eyes were as pitiless as Kane's. “They killed my lover. I want their lives.”

  “I'm fascinated.” Kane's smile suggested some secret jest.

  “Further,” Tamaslei chose her words carefully, “there is the matter of a certain crown that dear Josin sought to steal for me. Should you chance upon the ducal crown of Harnsterm after the Vareishei no longer have need of it, I shall pay you a most generous price.”

  “So be it,” Kane agreed. “You have purchased four lives—and a crown. I had meant to conclude other business this night, but instead I shall give immediate attention to this problem.”

  “You will find me most appreciative,” promised Tamaslei.

  II. Fortress of Fear

  NORTHWEST OF THE SOUTHERN KINGDOMS, CHROSANTHE WAS A heavily forested, mountainous region of many small villages, usually situated within the protection of an overlord's fortress. Over the years, some of these clustered villages had grown together into fortified cities under the general control of the lord of the castle, who now vied for power with the city mayors. Such a city was Harnsterm, well isolated within the deep valleys and rocky summits of the Altanstand Mountains, but a city of wealth and power because it had developed along the main trade routes through the mountain passes and across the frontier.

  It was a land where central power was difficult to maintain, and only the strongest of kings had ever successfully controlled the wealthy cities and the mountain-guarded fortresses of the powerful lords. Since the assassination of King Janisavion a decade before, Chrosanthe had known only anarchy and civil war that threatened to endure forever. Beyond the security of city walls, Chrosanthe was a lawless wilderness, ravaged by the private armies of the powerful lords and plundered by marauding bands of outlaws. Often the distinction was of little consequence, if it could be drawn at all: the Vareishei were a case in point.

  It was generally agreed that Altharn Keep had guarded the major pass through the Altanstand Mountains between Harnsterm and the frontier for centuries before Harnsterm had grown into a city. Other legends, according to one's credulity, suggested that the stone fortress had always scowled down from the precipice there, that its ancient walls were raised upon older walls and yet older foundations—a monastery abandoned for uncertain reasons, a temple to a forgotten deity, a castle raised and toppled in an age lost to history, perhaps a prehuman edifice from the ruins of Elder Earth. Whatever its history, Altharn Keep was not a congenial locale, and the lords of Harnsterm had not been long in shifting the seat of their authority to a new castle built along the trade routes somewhat farther within the lands of Chrosanthe, which with the passage of generations became the city of Harnsterm. Altharn Keep, of undeniable strategic importance, had remained under the control of Harnsterm—the command of the fortress and its garrison usually bestowed upon lesser scions of the ruling house.

  It was not a holding younger sons plotted murder to possess. In the settled years of King Janisavion, no one thought it unusual that Lonal, duke of Harnsterm, had given command of Altharn Keep to a bastard brother, Vareishei. Presumably Vareishei's excesses would have soon demanded intervention, even had not civil war and its ensuing anarchy given Vareishei a free hand to indulge his despotic whims. To pass beyond the Altanstand Mountains meant to pass below Altharn Keep; where previous wardens had collected taxes and duties, Vareishei took whatever he desired. As lawlessness spread and caravans grew fewer, Vareishei turned his attentions to the surrounding countryside and villages, extending his depredations to the shadow of Harnsterm's walls. Lonal at last had led an expedition against his mutinous half-brother. Some of his army returned with tales of red massacre beneath the somber heights; Lonal never returned at all.

  Vareishei might well have claimed lordship of Harnsterm, had he long survived his half-brother. Popular ballads had it that Lonal had given Vareishei his death wound, that their skeletons lay locked together in eternal combat upon the field of battle. Those who claimed to have fought in the battle swore that Vareishei had ridden away unscathed. Regardless, Vareishei had not been seen again following that battle, and some said he had died of his wounds, and some said he had vanished from his chambers on a stormy moonless night. Some few hinted that his children might know the truth of Vareishei's fate, but this was never sai
d above a whisper, and often not a second time.

  For some years now Altharn Keep had been held by the Vareishei clan. There were four. Wenvor was the oldest son, powerfully built and a man to be feared in battle. Sitilvon, the sole daughter, was of a subtle mind, and her poisons were subtler still. Ostervor, her younger brother, had some of Wenvor's talents and some of Sitilvon's, and it was not wise to turn a back to him. The fourth, Puriali, was a half-brother, born to a girl Vareishei had abducted from a lonely mountain cottage. Puriali was the only one of his bastards that Vareishei knowingly spared, and some said it was out of love for his mother and others said it was out of fear of her. It may have been out of fear of Puriali, for his mother had guided his footsteps upon darker paths.

  As central power and the rule of law fast became a distant memory, much as a cancer victim dimly recalls a life without pain, the Vareishei clan assumed absolute rule of the mountains beyond Harnsterm. Altharn Keep was unassailable; Harnsterm dared not spare more of its soldiers to defend its holdings. The Vareishei demanded heavy tribute from those they spared, and those they chose not to spare might only beg for a quick death. Where their father had been ruthless, the Vareishei clan were malevolent. The people of Harnsterm looked to their walls and prayed against the evil day when tribute would not suffice.

  Kane smelled death long before he came upon the caravan. The fresh mountain breeze brought the musty scent of stale blood, the sweetness of torn flesh, and an acrid stench of burning. Moving silently beneath the stars, Kane's black stallion stepped from the edge of the forest and onto the weed-grown trail. Once this had been a well-traveled road, but that had been in days when corpses did not dangle from tree limbs to mark the way.

  As Kane passed between the rows of the dead, he heard the sound of hoarse breathing and paused. One, a boy barely into his teens, was still alive—although from the blood that yet trickled from his mutilated loins down his legs and into the earth, he would not see the sunrise. Kane cut him down from the limb over which they had bound him. His eyes opened as Kane stretched him out upon the trampled ground.