LITMIR.BIZ

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suppose I must look superstitious to you,’ Nehzaym said. ‘I don’t care. Take it. It’s unclean.’

      ‘Who am I to turn down such a generous gift?’ Soutan scooped up the slate.

      ‘Take the scarf, too. I don’t want it, either. It’s touched something unclean.’

      With a shrug he picked up the length of black cloth and began wrapping up the slate.

      ‘May the Lord forgive!’ Nehzaym said. ‘I’ll have to do penance. Necromancy! In my own house, too!’

      ‘Oh for god’s sake!’ Soutan snapped. ‘It was only an image of a ghost, not the thing itself.’ Soutan cradled the wrapped slate in the crook of one arm. ‘I’ll have to look through the books in Indan’s library. I wonder just whose ghost that was?’

      ‘I don’t care. You shouldn’t either.’

      Soutan laughed. ‘I’ve learned so much from your scholars that it’s a pity I can’t stay in Haz Kazrak. But all the knowledge in the world won’t do me any good if I’m dead.’

      ‘If you bring Jezro home, you’ll have an army of scholars to fetch your impious books.’

      ‘Oh, stop worrying about impiety! You’re too old to shriek and giggle like a girl.’

      ‘I what? That’s a rude little remark.’

      ‘You deserve it. I must say that you Kazraks have the right idea about one thing, the way you train your girls to stay out of sight. But you’re an old woman, and it’s time you learned some sense.’

      ‘I beg your pardon!’

      ‘You should, yes.’ Soutan shrugged one shoulder. ‘I’d better get back to Indan’s townhouse. He wants to leave early.’

      After she showed Soutan out, Nehzaym told the gatekeeper to loose the lizards for the night. Before she went back to her apartment, she stopped in the warehouse to wind the floor clock with its big brass key. As she stood there, listening to the clock’s ticking in the silent room, she suddenly remembered Soutan, talking about wanting the slate and looking at her in that peculiar way. She’d been so upset at the time that she’d barely noticed his change of mood. Now, she felt herself turn cold.

      He might have murdered her for that slate.

      ‘Oh don’t be silly!’ she said aloud. ‘He’s a friend of Jezro Khan’s. He wouldn’t do any such thing.’

      But yet – she was glad, she realized, very glad, that she’d seen the last of him.

      Beyond the Great Khan’s city, true-roses rarely bloomed, and the grass grew purple, not green. All the vegetation native to the planet depended for photosynthesis on a pair of complex molecules similar to Old Earth carotenoids, producing colours ranging from orange to magenta and purple to a maroon verging on black. At the Kazraki universities, scholars taught that the plant they called grass should have another name and that the spear trees were no true trees at all, but the ordinary people no longer cared about such things, any more than they cared about their lost homeland, which lay, supposedly, far beyond the western seas.

      Not far south of Haz Kazrak, on a pleasant stretch of seacoast, where grass grew green in a few gardens but purple in most other places, stood a rambling sort of town where rich men built summer villas. Fortunately, Councillor Indan’s lands were somewhat isolated; graceful russet fern trees hid his hillside villa. Behind the orange thorn walls of his compound lay a small garden and a rambling house of some thirty rooms – just a little country place, or so Indan called it – arranged on three floors. When Warkannan rode up, the gatekeeper swung the doors wide and looked over the party: Warkannan and Arkazo on horseback, and behind them, a small cart driven by a servant from Indan’s townhouse.

      ‘I’ve brought the councillor a present,’ Warkannan said. ‘A carved chest from the north.’

      Since wood hard enough to be carved meant true-oak, an expensive rarity, Indan’s servants saw nothing suspicious about the way Warkannan hovered over the well-wrapped chest and insisted that he and Arkazo carry it themselves. All smiles, Indan greeted them and suggested they take the chest directly upstairs. Soutan helped them haul the six-foot-long and surprisingly heavy bundle up to a third-floor storage room.

      The sorcerer watched as Warkannan and Arkazo unwrapped the rags and untied the rope holding the chest closed. It was indeed a beautiful piece of true-wood, sporting an intricate geometrical pattern, but someone had spoiled it by drilling a pair of holes in one narrow end. When Warkannan opened the lid, he found his prisoner nicely alive, still bleary from the drugs, but unsmothered.

      ‘Hazro!’ Indan whispered. ‘I would have never suspected him. One of the Mustavas – unthinkable!’

      ‘He bragged to someone, saying he was more important than he looked, the usual crap. Somehow it got back to the Chosen. We need to know how and who.’

      ‘Lies,’ Hazro mumbled.

      Warkannan and Arkazo pulled him out of the chest. When he tried to stand, he sagged and nearly fell. When Warkannan shoved him back against the wall, he whimpered and glanced around with half-closed eyes.

      ‘I tried to reason with him,’ Warkannan said. ‘Hazro, come on! One last chance. Tell us the truth. That’s all I’m asking you. Just tell us the truth.’

      ‘Nothing to tell.’ Hazro tried to stand straight and defiant, but he nearly fell. ‘You – how dare you – your family started out as a bunch of blacksmiths.’

      Warkannan glanced at the councillor. ‘This is what I’ve been up against. He won’t tell me a thing.’

      ‘May the Lord forgive us all!’ Indan said. ‘By the way, I’ve figured out a way to blame the Chosen for his death. We’ve got to keep his father on our side.’

      Hazro whimpered and let tears run.

      ‘He’s still drugged,’ Warkannan said. ‘I’ll question him later.’

      ‘Good.’ But Indan looked queasy with anticipation. ‘This room has thick walls, and no one will hear a thing.’

      That night they dined in a room with a splendid view of the ocean. Servants brought fresh seabuh, a spikey, six-armed creature in a purple carapace, a mixed vegetable salad, and ammonites dressed with sheep butter. As they ate, Warkannan told them what Lubahva had learned.

      ‘The Chosen suspect Soutan of being up to no good, but they’re not sure what.’ Warkannan nodded at the self-proclaimed sorcerer, who was stuffing his mouth with as much ammonite as it could hold. ‘They’re making inquiries all over the city.’

      Soutan shuddered and wiped his mouth on a napkin.

      ‘Let’s assume the worst,’ Indan said. ‘If they’re making inquiries here, they must have sent a man east.’

      ‘Probably so,’ Warkannan said. ‘But it’s going to be damned hard for him to make his way east alone.’

      ‘Who says he’ll go alone?’ Arkazo asked.

      ‘The Chosen always do,’ Warkannan said.

      ‘Not that this makes life easier for their enemies.’ Indan glanced away slack-mouthed. ‘For us, that is.’

      ‘Oh yes.’ Warkannan leaned back in his chair and considered him. ‘If the Chosen find out that the khan’s still alive, we have no cause, gentlemen. They’ll find a way to kill him no matter where he is. So we’d better make sure this spy doesn’t find him. I’m going after him.’

      ‘You can’t do that,’ Indan said. ‘Your leave from the Guard’s almost up.’

      ‘I sent in my letter of resignation before we left the city. I’ve put in my twenty years, and I told them that this investment venture looked too good to pass up.’

      For a long moment Indan studied Warkannan’s face; then he sighed. ‘That’s

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