"I can open the outside door." Aaron lifted his hand to knock on the inner door of the anteroom, "but we're going in." As his knuckles brushed the polished wood, the heavy door swung silently open.

  "Unlocked?" Darvish asked, loosening his sword in its sheath.

  "Shouldn't be," Aaron grunted.

  "Right." Perhaps Herrak had already run with The Stone. Perhaps they were walking into a trap. Darvish pulled the scimitar free.

  Moving cautiously, they entered a corridor barely wider than the prince's shoulders. The towering walls were composed of Herrak's treasures stacked haphazardly to the ceiling. The hanging lamps, guttering as they used the last of their oil, were almost worse than no light at all. Shadows leapt and lunged and a myriad of dark nooks and crannies drew the eye. An oppressive smell of mold and decay contributed to the claustrophobic feeling and dust motes danced in a glittering fog that thickened every time they moved.

  Aaron stopped suddenly, his head up, his expression demonic in the half light. "This is wrong."

  Breathing shallowly through his teeth, Darvish dropped into a fighting stance. And how can you tell what's right in a place like this?

  Above his head a lamp sizzled and sighed into darkness. "What's wrong?" he asked, ears straining for a sound, any sound, they weren't making themselves.

  "The lamps. He has a servant to tend them."

  "Do you think he's left with The Stone?"

  The thief barked with derisive laughter. "What? And leave all this?" As suddenly as he'd stopped, he sprinted forward.

  Darvish scrambled to catch up.

  The narrow corridors didn't change although the building materials did from time to time. Here, almost ten feet packed with bales of clothing. There, furniture jammed tight between floor and ceiling. At the top of a flight of stairs, a statue of a sad-faced man that could only have come from the Nobles' Garden. No rooms, no halls, only the neverending maze of Herrak's possessions. The lamps continued to die.

  How much farther? Darvish wondered. He couldn't ask aloud, he didn't have the breath to spare. Keeping up with the thin figure of the thief took almost all he had. Worse news-over the sound of his labored breathing he could hear an inhuman wail, rising and failing, permeating the maze like smoke. I may have to fight that. For now, he fought the tremors that shook his body and threatened to shake his blade like a leaf in a storm. He needed a drink to steady his arm.

  Then the walls began to change. Bookcases now, jammed with racks of scrolls and heavy leather-bound tomes. Then the walls stopped.

  The wailing grew louder,

  Weapon ready, Darvish traced the sound to its source.

  Tucked up against the base of a heavily laden desk was a small man, dressed all in dark gray, staring wide eyed at the stubs of his hands. His sleeves had fallen back and the jagged ends of his forearm bones jutted charred from flesh that eased from black to red, angry red lines disappearing under the fabric of his shirt. Blood dribbled from holes chewed out of his lips and his chest heaved with the breath necessary to keep up the constant keening wail.

  He shouldn't be conscious. Darvish closed his throat against the urge to vomit and took a shaky step forward. As he drew closer, unable to look away, a little more of the blackened flesh dissolved. There was no smell of burning or rot, just, very faintly, the bitter scent of the volcano. When he was close enough, he lifted the man's chin with the flat of his sword-the eyes were completely and totally insane.

  It took two blows to get the head right off. Panting slightly, Darvish wiped his sword on the body. At least the wailing's stopped.

  But the room was not quite silent and dreading what he'd see, he turned to face the source of the moaning. Over by one of the bookcase walls, Aaron stood staring at an immensely fat man, his face expressionless and cold. The fat man moaned, the sound rolling around the great echo chamber of his belly before being released to thrum against the heavy quiet. His hands cupped the air in front of the circle of his face, red to the wrist, the tip of each finger crowned in black.

  "Apparently," Aaron said without turning as Darvish came to stand by his side, "there is a price for touching The Stone."

  "Where is it?" Darvish slapped Herrak's hands down with the flat of his blade. He wanted out of this place. "Where is The Stone?"

  Herrak's eyes showed yellowish white all around and his hands rose back up as though pulled by an invisible puppeteer.

  "Answer, you fat fool!" Darvish slapped the hands down again and this time the edge of his sword drew across Herrak's palm. The red flesh parted, but no blood welled up to fill the wound. "Tell me, where is The Stone?"

  "Gone," Herrak moaned from behind his rotting fingers.

  "Gone where?"

  He had to repeat the question a second and a third time before Herrak responded, moaning, "The mirror took it."

  "What mirror?" Darvish rubbed his face. It was very hot in Herrak's hidey-hole and the blood of the thief, soaked onto the layers of carpeting, added its signature to the dust and mold and dead air.

  Aaron pointed, his long finger appearing whiter than ever.

  Almost hidden by Herrak's bulk, was a three-foot oval that Darvish had taken to be a slab of framed obsidian. A closer look and he saw it was a black mirror, its surface absolutely nonreflecting.

  One more step and the edge of his sword was at Herrak's throat. Close enough to smell terror, sharp and strong, he breathed the question into the fat man's face. "Where. Is. The. Stone?"

  "The wizard has it."

  "Wizard?" Bugger the Nine! We've lost it! A slight movement of the sword brought another spate of information. Darvish couldn't understand why. Given what Herrak faced alive, death had to be welcome.

  "The mirror came to me from the streets. ..."

  "Who brought it?" Aaron snapped.

  Herrak's eyes searched the past for a name. "Yaz," he said at last. "Yaz brought it."

  "Where did she get it?"

  "I don't know. It didn't seem important. I wanted it, you could see eternity in it."

  THE FIRE's S TONE 85

  Together, Aaron and Darvish looked again at the mirror. They could see exactly nothing.

  "Spelled," Aaron grunted. Darvish nodded.

  "You could. You could." Herrak protested. "I saw it. I saw eternity. Then he came."

  "Who came?"

  "The wizard."

  "He came here?"

  "No. To the mirror." A spasm of pain twisted Herrak's face and his fingers twitched and danced and grew a little blacker. When it passed, he needed no prodding to continue. "He said he would trade me a thousand precious things for The Stone of Ischia. A thousand for one." For a second he peered out from between rolls of fat, eyes hard, and Darvish caught a glimpse of the power that had made Herrak king of his own small part of the city. He realized that the man barely held on to a tiny fraction of his mind and would shortly be as insane as the dead thief. Suddenly Herrak twisted and fell to his knees, his whole body quivering from the impact.

  "He sent the thief through the mirror last night," he gasped. "I had The Stone just before dawn. Had to kill Jehara."

  "His servant," Aaron supplied.

  "She said we killed Ischia." The grimace almost became a smile. "A thousand precious things for one. I passed it through the mirror. I held it." His fingers were black to the second joint. "The thief had already begun to scream." The last word rose in volume until it was almost a scream itself.

  The Stone, the heart of Ischia, was gone.

  "The wizard," Darvish grabbed Herrak's shoulder and shook him viciously, "where is he?"

  "In the mirror!"

  Darvish's grip sank deep into the dimpled flesh.

  "Where is the other side of the mirror?"

  "I don't know!" Herrak wailed. One of the nails on his left hand curled off and drifted silently to the carpets.

  Darvish let the fat man go. Ischia was doomed. He lifted his sword.

  "No."

  The very calm and control of Aaron's voice, so much in contrast to his own raging thoughts and Herrak's tortured whimpering, stopped the scimitar's downward swing.

  "The thief is from Ytaili." He held out a small amber teardrop, the thong threaded through it sticky with blood. "This type, this color is found only in Ytaili, near Tivolic, the capital city. The royal family favors it."

  "How do you know," Darvish snorted, not willing to accept a new hope quite so quickly.

  "I stole one once."

  Ytaili. Six days at sea with good winds. A day to find The Stone. Six days back. A nineday and a half. Surely the wizards can hold the volcano for that long. Perhaps Ischia can live. The relief that came with that conclusion left Darvish feeling physically weak. Then he remembered. Ytaili. Where Yasimina's brother was king. He stood for a moment, scimitar point resting against the carpets and watched three nails fall from Herraks' hands. The whimpering had become a constant background noise.

  They had the answer, and yet, there was something more. He looked past Herrak to the mirror. Many wizards preferred to scry in mirrors, it wasn't a skill tied to any of the disciplines, but he had never heard of a wizard who could move things through a mirror. A wizard who can move a solid object through a solid object. ... A sudden fear stroked cold fingers down the prince's spine and he allowed himself to be distracted by the fat man rather than search out its source.

  We have all we'll get from him, Darvish thought, shifting to a two-handed grip and lifting his sword again.

  "No." For the second time, Aaron's cold voice stopped the beheading swing before it had begun. "What has he done to deserve mercy?"

  What indeed? Herrak had been responsible for the theft of The Stone. And the loss of The Stone would destroy the Ischia Darvish knew. The nobles could get clear, they had the means and estates elsewhere to retreat to. But Darvish's people, the whores, the wine merchants-he shot a quick glance at Aaron-the thieves would die, if not in the panic, then boiled alive by the rivers of molten rock that would soon follow. And Herrak would have killed them.

  Darvish sheathed his sword.

  Herrak had done nothing to deserve mercy.

  His face blank, Aaron turned silently to lead the way back out through the maze.

  They had barely started between the first of the bookcases when Darvish realized that Herrak was trapped. He was far, far too fat to make it through the narrow aisles of his own house. His treasure boxed him into that one small room and probably had for years.

  "He has poison in that room," Aaron said quietly as though he'd been following the line of Darvish's thoughts. "A quick death if he has the courage to take it." His voice was bitter and the line of his back so straight and hard that Darvish felt it would ring like steel if he tapped it.

  They were halfway down the first set of stairs when the screaming began.

  Seven

  Shifting her burden on her hip, Chandra tried to look properly subservient. It wasn't easy. Her head hurt. Fanfares had been blowing at intervals since they left the docks, the bells that dangled from the ornate palanquins set up a constant brassy jangle, the crowds cheered and yelled, and, once they realized that this was the dowry procession, shouted a number of crude comments about her future unintended that set her ears burning. Things they would certainly not have shouted had Chandra been officially present. She hoped.

  There were a number of things about Prince Darvish that Aba hadn't mentioned.

  Remaining with the servants until they were actually in the palace had seemed like a good idea back on the ship, but now she wasn't so sure.

  Still, it's not everyone that gets to carry her own dowry. And, she added philosophically, it could be worse. The four muscular bearers carrying Lord Assahsem had her complete sympathy as they struggled up the steep streets under the weight of the corpulent ambassador. "Hang on," she thought at their glistening backs as his lordship gave a little bounce and four sets of knees almost buckled,

  "we're nearly there. "

  The litters themselves she found fascinating. Back home, people who didn't wish to walk, rode or rented a shau, a two wheeled carriage pulled by the man or woman who owned it. After climbing her third, or maybe fourth, set of stairs, she realized that wheels would be completely impractical in a city built on so many levels. Her calves began to ache.

  As the small procession-half a company of guard, litters for the two nobles welcoming the dowry as well as the two delivering, the six servants carrying the dowry, the other half a company of guard-crossed the last terrace before the palace gate, Chandra reached out and lightly brushed the wards surrounding the palace with power. If they were too specific. . . .

  Might as well use pots and pans and a piece of string, she snorted silently. The wards were predominantly of the Fourth and served only to tell if the wall had been breached. I could have spelled a notice-me-not against this in my first year of training. Someone in this city must be growing rich selling charms to thieves.

  The gate was not warded at all and in the wake of Lord Assahsem's grateful bearers, Chandra passed unnoted into the palace. She placed her small chest with the rest of the dowry, bowed beside the other servants, stepped back, and then completely surpassed them at fading quietly into the background. Not one of them remembered they had once been six.

  A short time later, having gently persuaded a senior servant to tell her where Prince Darvish's rooms were and having discovered that he was not at present in the palace, Chandra headed for the nobles' viewing platforms to get a look at The Stone. Although she could feel great currents of power moving about the volcano, she couldn't feel The Stone and she began to grow uneasy. She was a Wizard of the Nine. Why wasn't it calling to her?

  The guard at the entryway surprised her even as she passed him easily. She hoped there wasn't a ceremony of some kind going on. She wanted a chance to really study the artifact without the bother of keeping her presence masked. Moving cautiously, she peered out onto the platform.

  Four wizards-one of the Second, one of the Fourth, two of the Eighth-stood at the railing, focus directed down into the crater. Chandra frowned; wizards seldom cooperated across disciplines. Curiosity warred with common sense and curiosity won.

  Dropping her minor disguise spells lest her power signature give her away, she slid along the back wall of the platform, the tile mosaic warm against her shoulder blades, heading for a position where she might safely get a glimpse of The Stone. Given time and materials, she could build a notice-me-not so strong not even another wizard could spot her, but as she had neither, she'd trust to luck.

  As she moved past the barrier of silk clad backs she could see, across the crater, a small cluster of wizards on the temple platform as well, their multihued robes billowing in the hot updrafts from the molten rock below. Her frown grew more pronounced. Obviously, she'd stumbled onto some sort of ceremony; one she'd never heard of. She'd studied everything written on The Stone of Ischia and recognized none of what was going on. Something had to be very wrong.

  She leaned forward slightly and, yes, there were wizards on what had to be the private royal platform. A quick glance up to the open areas of the rim showed the public platforms were empty.

  She could feel the power gathered, waiting to be focused, and she could feel the power spread like a net over the crater's mouth.

  Stranger and stranger.

  Inch by inch she moved toward the railing.

  Then the Wizard of the Second turned and looked directly at her, so close that she could see her reflection in the drops of sweat that beaded his high forehead. His fleshy lips parted and he snarled, "Have you been sent to bring us refreshment? This is hot work."

  He thinks I'm a servant! Quickly, gracelessly, she bowed. "Yes, Most Wise." If wizards are called something different here than they are at home. . . . "Do you and your Most Wise brethren desire wine or ices or chilled fruit juices?" Thank the One for this tunic! She managed to move a hand's span closer to the rail.

  "Wine, and ices, and chilled fruit juices," the Wizard of the Second informed her. "And be quick about it!"

  "Yes, Most Wise." A step. A bow. Another inch and she'd be able to see into the seething cauldron of the volcano. Her left foot lifted to step again.

  "What is going on here?"

  The grip on the back of her tunic almost jerked her off her feet and Chandra found herself dangling from the fist of the Wizard of the Fourth.

  "It's a servant, Amarjite," sneered the Wizard of the Second. "Release her so she can get my ices."