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  "Aye, neither can any noise from here be heard in the rest of the house," roared Benedict with a great laugh. "I can assure you of that. There is, I believe, a bedroom through that door, isn't there, my lady?" He closed an eye in a broad wink at Lady Syrilla, who smiled back.

  "Who told you that, sire?" she asked as they walked from the room, followed by the servants.

  The click of the latch on the door echoed like a cannon in the still room.

  I thought my best course of action would be to act as bravely as possible. Madren always had a weak spot for bravery in others.

  I dropped to one knee before her, clasped my hands together and begged for my life.

  "Please don't kill me."

  But I said it with as much bravery as I could manage.

  "Andru, don't be absurd. It would make a terrible mess and upset our hostess. Of course I won't kill you here. Get up and pour us some wine."

  I felt better, but not much. I struggled to my feet and did as she asked.

  Perhaps if I could get her drunk, I could-? No, now I was getting desperate. As if I already weren't.

  I handed her a glass of Syrilla's excellent wine. I hoped I'd get to drink all of it that I wanted.

  She drank it off as if it were water, then looked at me for the first time since we had entered the room. She turned the glass thoughtfully in her long clever fingers as she examined my face.

  "You look frightened, Andru. As frightened as I was, the night you stabbed me."

  The glass shattered in her hand. The sound cut through my head as sharply as the shards cut into her skin.

  She didn't even notice the blood. She never took her eyes from me, waited for me to speak.

  I opened my mouth, curious as to what might come out.

  "You're bleeding," I said. Not too clever, I admit, but do better in a similar situation, if you can.

  She looked down, opened her hand. She shook it once and all the slivers of glass flew into the fire, sizzling as drops of blood and wine hit the leaping flames.

  She held her hand out, close to my face. I stared at the cuts, heard her muttering some nonsense gibberish.

  The cuts healed as I watched them, closed over and turned the pink-white of new scars.

  "You're an adept," I sighed, wondering why I had never suspected it, realizing how much it explained.

  She nodded once, dropped her hand. I saw her old crooked grin; one side of her mouth in on the joke, the other left out.

  "Yes, I am. Or was, rather. I was . . . asked to leave the Assembly of Orders. It seems that my attitudes and theirs did not match. My training has come in useful from time to time, however."

  I drained my own glass, feeling sick, then set it down on a small table and sank into a chair.

  Madren, in that fluid motion which I had always admired and could never match, drew her sword. The tip hovered between my eyes, scant inches away.

  I gripped the arms of the chair, swallowed around the lump in my throat.

  I'm good with a sword. I've had to be. But she's better. It had been the sheerest luck that had allowed me to take her life.

  Luck, and the fact that she had trusted me.

  I watched the tip of the sword, eyes crossed painfully. I could feel a bead of sweat run down my chin, hang there for a second, then drop off as though it were trying to escape from the inevitable.

  Then she tossed the sword onto the hearth rug and sat down in one easy motion, tossing one long leg up over the arm of the chair. The sleek black boot gleamed in the flickering light.

  "Perhaps that will make you more comfortable?" she asked, right leg swinging like a pendulum.

  I let my breath out. I hadn't even realized that I had been holding it. I wiped my hand over my forehead. It came away wet.

  "If your plan is to frighten me to death, you've nearly accomplished it." I could hear my voice shaking.

  "My plan, my dear Andru, is to find out exactly why you wished to kill me."

  "And then?"

  "And then kill you, of course. How else can I keep you from trying again?"

  Madren's logic is always impeccable.

  I relaxed, just a bit. I felt that I had a few more moments of life, at least. And if I could convince her of my true reasons for my murderous attack, maybe more than a few.

  "You may not believe it," I began, "but when I saw you just now, back from the dead, it was the happiest moment of my life." "You're right. I don't believe you," she said, the motion of her leg stopping for a second, then resuming. "In fact, it's going to be near impossible for me to believe anything you say."

  "But it's true, nonetheless. I never wanted to harm you. I haven't been able to forget you, you and what we had together," I said, hoping she'd remember what those times were like as well as I did.

  "Andru. Don't make me angrier by recalling those times. Don't rely on my tender feelings to save your life. As you know better than most, I don't have any. Just tell me why you did it." She remembered, all right.

  I felt like Sheherhezade, who told tales to keep her head intact. If my story was good enough, Madren would let me live. But I didn't think I had a thousand nights to perfect my story. Maybe not even one.

  So I might as well satisfy my own curiosity.

  "How long did it take you to recover from the-" I hesitated.

  "Knife in my belly? Why, planning another?" she laughed, if something so sharp and bitter can be called such.

  "Push my luck again? I don't think so," I replied, shaking my head. "I just wondered if it had been-how painful it had been."

  "Very," she snapped. "It took all the powers I had, simply to stay alive until some friends I had left from the Assembly could help me recover. The ride to their tower was-" she paused, her face blank, her eyes stormy, "-difficult."

  "I'm sorry," I said. I didn't like to think of that ride, of her holding herself together while she desperately sought help. I didn't like to think of what she must have thought of me. "Sorry," I repeated, my mind full of that vision.

  "Are you really?"

  Madren jerked to her feet, walked to the table and poured us more wine. She handed me a glass, sat back down.

  "The reason, Andru, if you please," she sipped her wine. "I grow tired of this. I want to get it settled and get away from here."

  I sighed, looked into the depths of the wine. It was the pale yellow wine of Shirrene, one of my favorites.

  It seemed apt, somehow.

  We had shared a bottle on the night I had killed her.

  I began softly, "I received a message from one of my most trusted -"

  "Spies?" she interrupted, her tone harsh.

  I laughed.

  "It's what I do, you know. I'm not ashamed of it, any more than you are of being an assassin."

  Madren smiled in return.

  "Hard to be anything else, working for Damion. Let us accept our occupations and go on, shall we? What message did you receive?"

  I wondered if she would believe me. Probably not. It must be difficult to trust a man who has stabbed you in the belly after making love to you.

  Disconcerting. Not conducive to a healthy relationship.

  "I received a message that you were still working for Damion, in secret."

  "You believed that?" she asked in amazement. "After everything else, you believed that?"

  "No," I admitted, careful not to let her see my eyes as I sipped my wine. "I did not believe it. But to hear it from him, I realized that someone believed it, and enough to harm our plans."

  "So you killed me, to protect our plans?" she asked with a rueful smile.

  "I realized," I went on, ignoring her statement, "that someone was trying to ruin what was perhaps our last opportunity to put and keep Benedict on his rightful throne. We had all fought for it so hard, so long, that I did not feel I could take a chance. I did not feel you would wish for me to take a chance, either. So I investigated."

  "And found?"

  She didn't believe anything I had said so fa
r. I could tell.

  "Nothing," I admitted. "No one knew anything about it, no one had heard anything. From what I could see, you were precisely what you said you were. Benedict's champion. My friend."

  She laughed, sharp and biting. "So you tried to kill me anyway? Merely for the pleasure of it, I assume."

  I opened my mouth but nothing came out. A memory rose before my mind's eye, so suddenly, so intensely, that I could feel the knife yet again as it plunged into her, see the shock in her eyes as she looked down, realized what I had done.

  And my own shock at what I had accomplished, at who I had done it to.

  I had murdered my best friend, my lover.

  "I have never been able to trust anyone," I began, "least of all the adepts of Malmillard -"

  "Malmillard!" she interrupted in disgust, sitting up in the chair where she had flung herself.

  I nodded. "But when one of them arrived at my quarters late one night, I found that I had no choice. No, no choice at all . . . . "

  ****

  "Captain."

  The adept was dressed in flowing silken robes, of a red so dark that it seemed black in the light cast by the sliver of setting sun. A shaved head rose from the silks like the naked stalk of some poisonous fungus, growing out of the dried blood of a murdered man.

  Andru shook himself, wondering where such melodramatic thoughts had come from. He could not tell if the adept was a man or a woman-those of the Order of Malmillard rejected all gender identification when they took their vows. It was even whispered that the women sliced off their breasts and the men Andru shuddered in the chill wind that blew through the open door and tickled his neck with icy fingers.

  The adept smiled, showing long white teeth with the tip of a red tongue captive between them.

  "Well, captain? Are you going to allow me inside? Or shall we conduct our business here, at your door, for all to see and hear?"

  Andru did not want to admit the adept, but he knew that he must. He had received a message from one of his most trusted spies, to expect a visitor with important information concerning the lies that were circulating about Madren Savage.

  He knew they were lies. But he had to be sure.

  "Come," he said, his tone noncommittal and anything but welcoming.

  The adept entered with a sweep of silk that brushed against Andru's arm. Suppressing another shudder, Andru closed the door and shot the bolt, then turned to his uninvited guest.

  "What do you have for me?" he asked, straining to keep the unease from his tone.

  An odd sinuous twisting motion warped through the silken form, followed by a faint laugh.

  "Are we to stand here in the hallway, then, as though I were a servant you were reprimanding? Your study is this way, I believe."

  Andru stood amazed when the adept turned as if familiar with the way-and proceeded up the curving stairs that mounted to the tower study, Andru's private retreat.

  Shaking his head, Andru followed, staying well clear of the sweep of blood-hued silk as though it could contaminate him in some way.

  The adept paused at the top of the stairway, outside the only door on the tiny landing, and turned with a deep and overblown bow.

  "How kind of you to bring me to your private study instead of having our little chat in the rooms where you meet your . . . associates," murmured the adept. "I fear that my words will not please you. At least you will have the comfort of your books around you."

  For one brief instant Andru paused, his hand on the latch, wondering if he truly wished to know what the adept had come to tell him. But it was his responsibility, his duty to find out what threatened his liege lord and if this man-woman?-could tell him more of the rumored plot against Benedict, then he was determined to hear of it.

  Andru opened the door to his private study and entered, rude in his anxiety, before his unbidden guest. He caught himself just inside the door and turned, waved his companion in with as much grace as he could muster. The adept swept in with a flicker of smile and floated toward the two chairs before the small fireplace. Sinking into one, he nodded at Andru.

  "Your retreat is delightful," the adept murmured, flicking a red tongue over a redder upper lip.

  Andru found himself still at the open door, wide-eyed at the effrontery of thisperson. He decided to regain what control he could and slammed the door, suppressing a secret pleasure at his guest's startled jump. He shot the bolt and strode towards the fire.

  Captain Andru towered over the seated adept. Dressed in the heavy leather breeches and boots, the mail-entwined vest and coarse shirt of a soldier, he felt absurdly overdressed in the stuffy room, and wished that the adept had arrived later in the evening, after he had changed into more comfortable clothing for his studies.

  "What do you know?" Andru barked.

  "My name is Verelion," said the adept as though Andru had not spoken. "I am an adept of the order of-"

  "I know your order," snapped Andru, leaning his right arm against the mantle and cocking the opposite hip, heavy with sword, in an unmistakable manner. "I have heard of what your kind do, and I ask again, what information do you bring me?"

  Verelion tented skeletal hands, fingers tip-to-tip, then gazed into the resulting configuration as though to read the answer to Andru's question there.

  "I have knowledge that you have been seeking," the adept admitted at last.

  "Indeed?" said Andru.

  "Yes. Knowledge concerning the Savage." A pale eye met Andru's own, searching for confirmation of his understanding.

  "I know of any number of savages," Andru replied, deliberately obtuse. "There are whole tribes of them to the west, it is said. And the-"

  "You know of whom I speak!" spat Verelion, in the first display of emotion Andru had seen.

  Satisfied, Andru said, "If you speak of Madren Savage, then call her by her name. I will not deal with those who speak in riddles."

  A broad grin turned the shaven head into a skull.

  "Forgive me, captain, if I offend. I had forgotten the connection between you and the-and Madren Savage."

  "We are members of the band who placed the rightful king upon the throne," Andru said as he eyed the adept. "A king who is grateful, might I remind you."

  Verelion nodded. "Of course. I meant no more than that. But you trust her, do you not?"

  "I trust no one. I am master of spies to the king."

  Andru raised his hand as the adept opened his mouth to speak. "But I have no reason to distrust her more than I do, oh, you for example."

  Verelion gave another skull-like grin.

  "She is devious. I know her of old. One may smile and be a villain, as the ancient adage has it. But I am here, not to sway your belief in your friend. That is something I would never seek to do. No, I am here only to ask whether or no you have seen this?"

  The adept reached a hand through a slit in the crimson robe and brought out something clasped tight inside a fist. Andru leaned forward as Verelion's arm snaked towards him. Long white fingers spread to display, balanced on a wrinkled pasty palm, a gleaming jewel.

  The gem was as large as a hen's egg, glittering emerald green in the firelight as each separate facet seized a beam and redirected it, split into a myriad of fragments. Andru could see that the jewel held untapped depths and he leaned closer to it, fascinated by the depth and intensity of the color.

  "It is lovely, is it not?" came a soft murmur from somewhere far away from Andru, sunk as he was in contemplation of the great emerald.

  Andru waved away the pesky sound, anxious for no distractions as he stared into the thing. Were those runes etched on its many surfaces? Did they spell out some esoteric message, some great truth, meant not for any ordinary person but only for himself? What was that he saw in the center, that looked so like a beating heart? Yes, it was a heart. He could see it with perfect clarity now as he leaned closer still, a deep pulsing vermillion shape in the very centermost point of the greenness.

  A heart.

  With a
sword plunged through it.

  The jewel grew, grew until it filled the entire room with its sea tint, and always at the center the great heart beating in time with Andru's own. Andru slipped into the immense icy bauble and pulled its planes close around him.

  How happy he was to be as one with the stone, the heart, the sword.

  How happy.

  The wind was icier now than earlier in the evening. Andru bade his guest a last fond farewell, clasping slender fingers in his own strong hand as if reluctant to release them.

  "Thank you," Andru muttered for the fifth time. "I will not forget this."

  Verelion smiled. It reminded Andru of a-the thought was snatched from his mind even as it occurred. He shook his head and tightened his grip as though to keep his friend still longer.

  Verelion drew long thin fingers slowly, lingeringly, from Andru's tight grasp.

  "You will remember what must be done?" whispered the adept, glancing over a silken shoulder down the empty street.

  Andru nodded, his enthusiasm and excitement palpable.

  "I will remember. I will not fail you."

  "Good. Savages are dangerous," came the soft sibilant whisper. The words were snatched up by the errant wind and whirled away into the night air. "Now go. And forget I was here."

  Andru looked up and down the empty street outside his door. The town bell was clanging the twelve strokes for midnight. What was he doing here, standing with the door open on such a cold night? He looked down, saw that he was dressed for bed.

  Of course.

  He had fallen asleep in the chair in his study and had gone to dreaming, had been awakened by an odd sound, had come down to investigate.

  Of course.

  Andru slammed the door and bolted it.

  One could not be too careful, after all. Who knew what evil creatures could assault a man, so late at night, in such a part of town? After all, that was why he lived here.

  ****

  "A dreamstone. And a Malmillard."

  Madren's tone was bitter as gall as she spat out the name of the most treacherous of the multitude of Orders.

  I spread my hands, begging for her understanding. I knew that what I had done was too much for forgiveness, but surely I could hope for understanding?