“So you are telling me,” Aefric asked Sifwyn, “that you were not in Thunderwood six years ago?”

  “I have never been to Thunderwood,” Sifwyn said firmly. “I swear it.”

  “Six years ago when?” Wylyn asked.

  Aefric frowned at Wylyn. “About Midspring. Why?”

  “Couldn’t have been her,” Wylyn said, relaxing. “Six years ago Sifwyn was heavily involved in my Midspring Festival. Some of the finest illusion work I’ve ever seen.”

  “Illusion,” Aefric said, as though pondering whether or not illusion magic fit the wizard he was making up.

  Sifwyn gave Aefric a considering look, and offered a small bow.

  “If my duke will give his permission,” she said, “I can offer proof that I am not the wizard his grace of Deepwater mistakes me for.”

  “How?” Wylyn asked.

  “I presume his grace of Deepwater would recognize the magic of the wizard he … encountered in Thunderwood?”

  “I’d know it anywhere,” Aefric said.

  “Then with my duke’s permission,” she said, giving Wylyn a slight bow, “I shall cast a small, inoffensive spell, and remove all doubt that I am not that wizard.”

  “Granted,” Wylyn said. “But when you’re done, I think it’s best if you leave.”

  “Of course, your grace,” Sifwyn said with another bow.

  Sifwyn raised her greenwood staff, and passed it through the air, trailing in its wake a rainbow of colors that turned into a rainbow of fluttering swallows, then faded to nothingness.

  That was what everyone in the room saw. But Aefric’s trained eye saw more.

  He saw the way she performed all the steps of casting a little nothing spell that she’d probably cast hundreds, maybe thousands of times over the years. Likely a spell she’d worked out back during her apprenticeship.

  Her breathing was right. The trace way her lips moved, as though they wanted to speak words she no longer had to say when casting that spell. She likely even moved power through her body in the process.

  But Aefric knew for a fact that she didn’t cast that spell.

  The feel of it was all wrong. Wasn’t hers.

  Maybe she triggered it from … something in her staff. He couldn’t be sure of that part. But he knew it wasn’t hers, just as surely as he knew the stone men were.

  But he forced a pretense of relaxation. Puffed out a breath. Made his shoulders sag a little. Shook his head, as though shaking away his anger.

  Made his voice sound tired as he said, “It’s not her.” He shook his head harder. “Excuse me, Sifwyn. Please. You look … the resemblance is uncanny. But I’d know that woman’s magic again anywhere, and clearly you can’t be her.”

  Sifwyn drew a relaxing breath of her own, and offered a small bow.

  “Your grace has no need to offer apology. He has traveled far and wide, and met a great many people. Some will naturally resemble others, and for him to be mistaken in recognition is no crime.”

  She offered a small smile then, that could have been intended as flirtation.

  “Nevertheless,” she said with that smile, “I am grateful to have cleared up the misunderstanding. And even more so that I need not match spells with your grace. From all I have heard, such a conflict would not go well for me.”

  “Best if you get going, Sifwyn,” Wylyn said. “I can tell you from my own experience that being around someone who reminds you of an old foe is not fun. Give Aefric here time to cool down, and maybe you two can discuss your art sometime.”

  “I’m sure we could,” Aefric said, affecting a weak smile.

  “Nothing would please me more,” she said, and began to take her leave.

  “Oh, and Sifwyn,” Wylyn said just before she was out the door. When she turned back and bowed, he continued, “You see another one of my nobles or knights running around with magic, you tell me. Understood?”

  “Understood, your grace,” she said, and bowed her way out the door.

  “She’s a good court wizard,” Wylyn said once she was gone, “but she overlooks the damnedest things. And here I was considering naming that jackass Leofstan my champion.”

  Wylyn shook his head and grimaced.

  “Can you imagine?” he asked. “What if I had? And a real challenge came along? There’d be the formal check for magic, Leofstan would lose his trinket, and he’d probably get trounced. What an embarrassment that would be.”

  “I’m surprised you’d be willing to let anyone stand champion for you,” Aefric said with a smile.

  “Ah, I’m not as fast as I used to be,” Wylyn said. “Besides, in our position, we’re not supposed to fight for ourselves outside of a battlefield. Not in anything serious.” He cocked an eyebrow. “You haven’t named a champion yet, have you?”

  “I’ve told him to more than once,” Ser Beornric said.

  “I’m not used to letting people do my fighting for me.”

  “Me either,” Wylyn said, grinning. “But it’s part of the job.”

  He poured them each another glass of ishka, and nodded towards the couch.

  “I can almost hear my seneschal begging me to let you go rest and freshen up before dinner,” he said, smiling, and sliding an arm around Aefric’s shoulders as they made their way to the couches. “But I’ve just got to hear what happened to you down in Thunderwood six years ago that had you ready to come to spells here in my war library.”

  One good thing about the days Aefric had spent adventuring. He’d done a good deal of traveling and fighting, seen more than his share of wonders and horrors and other things. And he’d had to tell about them so many times that he knew all the details he needed to add, to make the story work.

  And he drew on that experience as he invented the tale of the Necromancer of Thunderwood.

  Aefric was given a very nice suite of rooms overlooking Castle Stormsent’s central courtyard. He had four rooms to himself, and two more for Ser Beornric, with his knights quartered just down the stairs below them.

  His bags had been brought up, and nothing in them disturbed, which was reassuring. Not that Aefric didn’t trust Wylyn on this front, but he didn’t trust that Baron Leofstan at all.

  Aefric took time to wash up at a copper basin, rather than let the servants draw him a bath in the large copper tub. And after he had washed away his day’s travel, he changed into a navy blue silk shirt, embroidered with silver thread to represent Deepwater gray, and a pair of sturdy black breeches.

  He wore the same calf-high leather boots, though, because he couldn’t bring himself to pack changes of footwear.

  With the wand Garram on his belt and the Brightstaff in hand, he felt almost ready to go down to dinner.

  Almost.

  Ser Beornric had set aside his armor for this dinner, and changed into a forest green tunic with brown hose, though he wore his sword at his belt. And he’d combed out his graying black hair and bushy mustache.

  “Ready to head down, your grace?” Ser Beornric asked.

  “Not quite,” Aefric said, and dismissed the servants.

  Before the good knight could say anything, Aefric silenced him with a gesture, and cast a quick spell that sent a pulse of power through the room to settle into the walls, ceiling and floor, as well as filling the room’s windows, doorways, and chimney.

  “Now we may speak undisturbed,” Aefric said.

  “That tale was heartbreaking, your grace,” Ser Beornric said. “That the necromancer made a zombie of your dead lover, not five minutes after killing her.” He shook his head. “It’s a wonder you didn’t hunt her down to the ends of Qorunn.”

  “Yes,” Aefric said with a sigh, “well, first, as I said, she didn’t just flee the battle. She fled from our world to another plane entirely. There was no way I could have followed her. That’s still a power I don’t possess.”

  Aefric quirked a smile then. “Second, following the necromancer would have been impossible. Because she doesn’t exist.”

  Ser Beornric shook himself, but before he could ask, Aefric answered.

  “The lover in question,” he said with a wistful smile. “Lyssandra. She died fighting necromancy, all right. Mighty skeletal warriors we faced together in the ruins beneath lost Sereth-Ke.”

  “But—”

  “I lied to cover my reaction,” Aefric said. “Sifwyn. She’s the culprit. She cast those spells in the Dragonscar.”

  Ser Beornric narrowed his eyes, looking grim and dangerous. “You’re certain?”

  “Beyond the possibility of doubt.”

  “But…” Beornric furrowed his brows. “Then why would she cast a spell in front of you? If that alarm spell was hers, she must at least suspect you were involved in triggering it. Surely she knows you’d recognize her spellwork if you saw it again.”

  “Which was why she didn’t cast that spell,” Aefric said. “It was a splendid bit of deception. But those colorful swallows came from her staff, not her.”

  Beornric frowned. “She didn’t think you’d be able to tell the difference between a spell of her casting and a spell conjured from her staff?”

  “That’s not quite how it works,” Aefric said, trying to decide how to explain something that was a lot more intricate than he needed to make it sound.

  “Think of it this way,” he said. “While I am the master of the Brightstaff, and the wand Garram, magic I work with them still carries a sense of me to it. The spells and their results, they’re not quite the same as they would be in anyone else’s hands. And the difference is perceptible to those who can see it.”

  “But if that’s true,” Ser Beornric said, “how could she fake a spell?”

  “She shouldn’t be able to,” Aefric said. “That’s the point. She knows that, and she knows that I know that. So if she thinks I suspect her of the spells in the Dragonscar, her little display should have thrown me off her trail.”

  “But…” Ser Beornric shook his head. “Forgive me, your grace, but I don’t follow. I still don’t see how she faked that spell then. Or at least, how you could be sure she faked it.”

  “I can be sure because I made the opportunity for a deeper study of the magic in the Dragonscar than she could know. Deep enough that I can connect her magic to her as easily as I can connect your hand to you. I only needed one look at her to know she cast those spells.”

  “But… you said…”

  “I know,” Aefric said, and sighed. “And I’m not sure how she did it. Something in the staff, I think, but I’d need to examine the staff to know for sure. It’s as though she had a completed spell prepared by someone else, that waited for her to trigger it.”

  Aefric shook his head. “And no doubt that’s a spell everyone around here has seen her do a hundred times.”

  “Regardless,” Ser Beornric said. “You’re certain it’s her, so I’m certain as well. What is our next step?”

  “I’m not sure,” Aefric said. “If she cast the spells, Wylyn must be involved. But if he is, he’s a better liar than I’ve met in a long, long time. Because I can’t tell.”

  “Nor I,” Ser Beornric said.

  “Well,” Aefric said with a sigh. “All we can do is go down to dinner. And afterwards, I can talk with Wylyn about slavers. And maybe, somewhere in there, he’ll trip up and let something slip.”

  “You don’t sound as though you think it’s likely.”

  “I don’t,” Aefric admitted. “But maybe it doesn’t matter. I know for a fact that Sifwyn is involved in acts against my duchy and my people. I can bring that much to his majesty, and … figure out the rest from there.”

  “I suspect you’ll end up on more formal terms with Duke Wylyn, after that happens.”

  “If that’s the worst that comes of it,” Aefric said, “I’ll happily pay that price.”

  Dinner that night was a much more enjoyable experience than Aefric had expected. Largely because, apart from Wylyn’s own family, Aefric and Beornric were the only guests at the table.

  Because that was true, Wylyn had announced there was to be no standing on formality at the dinner table that night. That all titles, graces and business were to be left at the door.

  Led to easy conversation and laughter.

  Duke Wylyn’s wife, Onetai, was a handsome woman about his own age, and an excellent hostess.

  The duke’s son — Wylyn Junior, though they all called him Wylie — had his father’s wiry build, but his mother’s gentle features. Which no doubt stood well with his wife, Nikia. Both were about Ser Beornric’s age, and had children of their own who were off being fostered down in Merrek and nearing the age of majority.

  The duke’s youngest daughter, Okelai, had seen about five summers more than Aefric, and apparently had her father’s gift for climbing and getting into places she shouldn’t.

  It was unusual for Aefric to be surrounded by nobles who were all older than he was, and he found it rather refreshing.

  The dinner itself was roasted venison, served quite rare, with sliced, braised potatoes and carrots, and a mixture of tossed greens. The red wine that was served with it went very well with the venison as well as the dessert, which was a thick, heavy berry compote, served with cream to lighten it.

  Afterwards, Wylyn and Aefric retired to Wylyn’s war library, where the duke lit up a pipe, whose smoke smelled of deep woods and moss.

  They reclined on those plush, maroon couches, and sipped ishka, while gazing into a small fire that Wylyn had built more for entertainment than for heat.

  “I’ve been thinking about that necromancer of yours,” Wylyn said at last. “Did you really think I’d hire a necromancer as my court wizard?”

  “I didn’t think,” Aefric said, shrugging one shoulder. “I saw the face, the height, the hair…” He shook his head. “I was hearing the death cry of Lyssandra all over again. I’m only glad I didn’t go so far as to cast a spell.”

  “Yes,” Wylyn said, “and don’t think I don’t appreciate your restraint.” He chuckled. “I expect Sifwyn appreciates it as well.”

  Aefric gave Wylyn a chagrined look. “I do apologize for my reaction. Not exactly the act of a good guest.”

  “Bah,” Wylyn said, waving dismissal. “Not as though you attacked her. And if I’d thought she’d killed my Onetai, let alone raised her as a zombie in front of me, well, I’d’ve been hard pressed not to put a dagger through her eye the instant I saw her.”

  Aefric raised his glass as though confirming a toast, and they drank to both vengeance and restraint.

  Wylyn nodded at the Brightstaff, which stood just behind where Aefric sat on the couch.

  “Bit of a tell for you, isn’t it?” Wylyn said. “That diamond, I mean.” He gave a breathless chuckle. “Dead giveaway that you were fighting not to strike her dead.”

  “It’s got its good and bad sides,” Aefric admitted. “Sometimes it’s useful for people to know how close I am to doing something … extreme.” He shook his head. “But yes, there are times it’s a hindrance.”

  “Unusual, too,” Wylyn said, looking at the Brightstaff. “I mean, I’ve known a lot of wizards over the years, with their staves and wands and rods. But I’ve never seen…”

  Wylyn turned his eyes back to Aefric. Quirked a half-smile.

  “It’s true then,” he said, a little wonder in his voice. “You really aren’t a wizard. Properly speaking. But you’re not a warlock either.”

  “No,” Aefric said. “I’ve trained as a wizard, but I frustrated my teachers. Same as I frustrated the dweomerblades I trained with, because I’m not quite one of them either. I’m something … in between.”

  “You and me both,” Wylyn said, then puffed his pipe and blew out a wide smoke ring. “Some people say I was a thief. Others an assassin. But I was never really either. I just made use of those skills, to further the things I wanted to do.”

  Aefric gave Wylyn a sly smile. “So you’re saying you didn’t steal the Coldriss Diamond?”

  Wylyn laughed. “Oh, I stole that all right. A fair few other things as well. But only when there was something more on the line than my next bed and meal. I stole things, but I wasn’t a thief, if you take my meaning.”

  “I think so,” Aefric said. “You weren’t a robber, or a second-story man or the like. You didn’t steal from guilds or merchants or nobles, for the most part. Is that it?”

  Wylyn nodded as he puffed. Blew an impressive smoke ring.

  “I stole big things,” he said, “from big places. Usually ones that were hurting people.”

  “And gave you a big name?”

  “That too,” Wylyn said with a smile. “Nothing wrong with reputation. Doing big things is what got me all this.”

  Aefric nodded. He couldn’t deny it. He’d done the same, in his own way.

  “But you didn’t come here to talk about our adventuring days,” Wylyn said. “And you didn’t come here to duel my fool of a baron.” He cocked an eyebrow at Aefric. “So why did you come here in such a rush?”

  “Slavers,” Aefric said, and told the story of how he’d fought smugglers and slavers in the mouth of the Dragonscar. Though he made it sound as though he’d been riding nearby when the smugglers were spotted. And claimed that after the battle, he and his had gone south to make sure the captives were dealt with, and the refugees taken care of.

  At all cost, he avoided implying that he’d gone riding deeper into the Dragonscar.

  Wylyn was a good audience. He darkened with anger at the mention of slavers, and grumbled appreciatively through the tale of the fights, the taking of the ships, and the freeing of the refugees.

  “Few things in this world are fouler than slavers,” Wylyn said. “How can I help?”

  “This is the delicate part,” Aefric said with a pained expression. “That smuggler ship. The Swift Wave. It had been docked in Redport that day, waiting to come down for the pickup.”

  “Redport?” Wylyn demanded, sitting forward and flinging his pipe into the fire. “My Redport?”

  “It’s been confirmed,” Aefric said. “Through independent interviews with the captive smugglers and slavers, my court wizard, Karbin, was able to recreate the routes of both the slavers and the smugglers.”