"Because he's sending us after The Stone," Darvish corrected. "A thief and a drunk. Nine Above, he must be out of his mind."

  "A thief to catch a thief. And perhaps it's time to prove you're more than a drunk."

  Darvish stopped and looked back over his shoulder at the younger man. "Am I?" he asked, then sighed and turned away. "I need a drink."

  Shahin thinks you are. So does the lord chancellor . . . or he wouldn't have tried so hard to make you into one.

  Aaron scowled at Darvish's back and thought suddenly of the brooch he'd been taking to Faharra that last night. "More good jewels are ruined by their settings. ..." For a crazy old lady, she'd been pretty smart.

  "I said," Darvish raised his voice above the distant cries of the peacocks, "that I need a drink." He frowned. No dresser appeared from the bedroom, filled goblet on tray, apologizing for making him wait. All was silent and still.

  For a panicked instant he feared his father had taken them away, a punishment of some sort he wasn't meant to understand. Then he called himself several kinds of fool and silently pulled his sword. His most exalted father barely acknowledged him, his servants were less than nothing.

  If they were able, they would have answered his call. Something prevented them.

  He motioned for Aaron to continue moving about and, tufted brows high, the thief obeyed. Using Aaron's noise as a cover, he slid along the wall and peered through the arch into his bedroom.

  A young woman sat cross-legged on the near corner of the bed, calmly braiding a luxuriant fall of chestnut hair.

  The point of his weapon hit the rug with a muffled thud.

  "Who the One are you?" he demanded. She looked vaguely familiar, sort of pretty in a thin, serious way. Had he asked her to meet him here and then forgotten? It wouldn't be the first time although he generally preferred his women older. He took a step into the bedroom. Behind her, stretched out side by side on his bed, were all three dressers.

  The scimitar moved back up into a fighting position. "What have you done to them?"

  "To who?" She finished the braid and flipped it back over her shoulder. "Oh. To them. Relax." Unfolding her legs she stood and stretched. The top of her head came no higher than the center of Darvish's chest. "I've put them to sleep. When I'm gone, they won't even remember it happening." Brown eyes flecked with gold rested for an instant on Darvish's face. "Your portrait was accurate enough, I suppose. They left out the baggy bits, but your eyes are very blue, aren't they? Now, what have you done with The Stone?"

  "... and so when I found no one else knew it was missing, I came back here to wait." Chandra spread both hands in a gesture that clearly said her story was finished, and waited for a response. She hadn't mentioned her capture by the Wizard of the Fourth. That she, a Wizard of the Nine, should have been frightened so by a wizard of lesser ability was, was. . . . Well, it wasn't any of their business anyway.

  Darvish took a deep breath, opened his mouth to speak, and had a swallow of wine instead. It had been a peculiar sort of a day, to say the least. "Look," he said, pacing the width of the room, "I don't want to marry you either, but at the risk of hurting your feelings, there's more important things going on right now."

  "Why should that hurt my feelings?" Surely he didn't think that she'd consider a treaty marriage neither party wanted more important than The Stone of Ischia? "What happened to The Stone?"

  "It was stolen. Just before dawn." Darvish saw no point in hiding it from her. He could see her storming into the throne room and demanding the information from his most exalted father. If the situation hadn't been so One abandoned serious he'd be tempted to let her do just that. "The thief is dead. We think The Stone is with the wizard who arranged the theft in Ytaili. ..."

  "Of course it's with the wizard, where else would it be? Ytaili's a big place." She raised both brows sarcastically. "I hope you have better directions than that."

  Darvish sighed wearily. "All evidence points to Tivolic arid someone in the royal family being involved. Aaron and I will start there."

  "You and Aaron?" She looked from the tall prince, admittedly muscular but showing definite signs of dissipation, to the slight thief, who for all his breadth of shoulder stood barely taller than she did and who moved as if even breathing hurt. "Why?"

  "Because we're the ones who tracked it to Ytaili. Because we've got the best chance to succeed. Because the fewer people who know the less chance of panic. Because. . . ."He searched for another reason. "Because we can slip away without being missed." Say something often enough, forcefully enough, and you could almost convince yourself, Darvish discovered. Almost. Because they know it can't be done and they're setting me up to fail.

  "Oh." Chandra considered the options. It made sense. Of a sort. She turned to Aaron. "You're soul-linked to him. Why?"

  "I'm a thief." He turned his head to face her but let the rest of his body remain still on the pallet. The day had left him weak as a baby.

  He ached, his head pounded, and they still had to catch the evening tide out of Ischia. "They think I'll run."

  "Will you?"

  "I doubt it."

  "I've never met a thief before."

  "I'm not surprised."

  "I'd like to talk to you about it later."

  "Later," he agreed shortly. She reminded him of Faharra, of how the gem cutter must have been when she was young. He didn't want to like her. He had nowhere to run. Even if Herrak's interference meant he, Aaron, hadn't failed Faharra it didn't, it couldn't, cancel how he'd failed Ruth. Lightly, very lightly, he touched the soul-link. It had been a confusing day.

  "Well," said Chandra, in the tone that said this settled things to her satisfaction, "I'm going with you."

  "Not if all the Nine showed up and demanded it." Darvish refilled his goblet and took a hasty swallow. "You're going home. Trust me, no one's thinking much about marriage plans right now and your people are going to be worried about you."

  "My people, " she mimicked with an edge to her voice, "don't even know I'm gone and won't miss me when they find out."

  Darvish considered arguing the point, but Chandra's expression told him she wouldn't listen. He decided not to bother. He was hardly the person to be counseling someone about their home life.

  "And what are you and Aaron going to do when you find this unknown and, I might add just in case you haven't caught on yet, very powerful wizard with The Stone?"

  "What do you mean?"

  "I mean what are you going to do? Whack him with your sword while Aaron picks his pocket?"

  "Something like that." Darvish had another drink. This kid had a vicious tongue.

  "It would make sense to take a wizard along."

  "We don't have a wizard."

  "You have me."

  "And you can't come."

  "Why not?"

  "Uh. ..." Darvish had wanted to take a wizard along, but they were all needed in case the volcano erupted before The Stone was retrieved. The lord chancellor had been most apologetic. " You're too young."

  Chandra smiled. What a jerk. "I'm old enough to get married," she pointed out.

  "Look, Chandra," Darvish tried being reasonable, "why is it so important for you to come?"

  Her nostrils flared in an unconscious imitation of Rajeet's expression. "I told you. The Wizards of the Nine created The Stone. I'm a Wizard of the Nine and, unless you know another one I don't, the only Wizard of the Nine around. That makes me historically responsible for The Stone." She tossed her braid back over her shoulder. "And besides, if I help you recover The Stone, I'll be in a better bargaining position to refuse this marriage."

  "The marriage won't ..."

  "And if you don't take me with you, I'll tell the whole city The Stone is missing."

  "You wouldn't!"

  "Try me."

  She didn't look like she was bluffing.

  Darvish finished his wine and glared at her over the rim of the goblet. She met his eyes, smiling smugly. "Bugger the Nine," he sighed at last. "You win. You can come. Not," he added a little sulkily, "that I could stop you anyway. "

  "I was wondering when you'd figure that out."

  "Figure what ..."

  "That you couldn't stop me."

  "Then why. . . ?"

  Chandra spread slender hands. "Because I'd prefer we have this conversation now rather than on the deck of a ship or at the palace in Tivolic where you'd give the whole mission away."

  Darvish had never liked being patronized and he liked it even less when it was done by a girl half his size and seven years his junior.

  "They never told me you were a wizard," he growled.

  Chandra shrugged. "They never told me you were a drunk. I'd say we're even."

  "Yeah? Well, you're . . ."A strange, strangled noise cut him off.

  Aaron, his arms wrapped tightly about his body in a futile attempt to keep his chest from moving, rocked in the grip of helpless laughter. It sounded slightly rusty, as though it had been a long time since it had been used. And it sounded just a little desperate.

  Darvish and Chandra turned identical faces of aristocratic disdain on the writhing thief.

  Aaron didn't know why he laughed, unless it was at the thought of the three of them-a drunken prince, a runaway child-wizard, and a failed thief-taking Ytaili by storm and returning in triumph with The Stone of Ischia. Soul-linked. I can't get away. I'm going to have to go through with this.

  Perhaps he laughed because he'd forgotten how to cry.

  Eight

  "I'll meet you at the docks" had been such an easy thing to say back in the quiet of the palace. Chandra shifted her weight and wove the notice-me-not tighter around her. Her un-betrothed and his thief were leaving from the temple, from the prince's "seclusion," so she couldn't leave with them and besides, hadn't she traveled to Ischia on her own?

  "I'm a wizard, remember, " she'd snapped at Darvish's warnings. "Remaining unseen is one of the most basic of disciplines. "

  When the prince had looked to Aaron for support, the outlander had studied her for a long moment and said, "There's a row of seven warehouses just in front of the docks, meet us at the western end."

  Darvish had protested and Aaron had replied, "She's a wizard." His tone had added, let her prove it.

  She'd bridled at the prince's grin and stomped from the room. Then she'd had to return to lift the sleep off the dressers. She couldn't remember the last time she'd been so embarrassed.

  "I'll get his stone back for him," she muttered, her voice lost under the screams of a thousand seagulls, "and then he'll be sorry he laughed. He'll see. 7 am a Wizard of the Nine."

  The rough, undressed stone of the westernmost warehouse dug into her back and the docks of Ischia spread out before her.

  Sailors swaggered everywhere, rolling their weight from one hip to another as though they still walked decks, gold gleaming in ears and noses and teeth, every second word a curse. Merchants, either comfortably fat or cadaverously thin, spoke with pursers and captains arranging cargoes and payments and bribes. Whores kept heavily kohled eyes open for opportunity and as Chandra watched, a skinny girl,

  younger than herself, followed a laughing sailor down between two large piles of rope. Common men and women of Ischia searched the docks for bargains-a bit of silk barely salt stained, a fish not quite freshly dead. Nobles, perfumed sleeves lifted to mask the constantly changing smells of the area and the ever present reek of the less fortunate, searched for thrills, with their guards present in case those thrills got the upper hand. Just at the edge of her hearing, a beggar whined for alms but received, from the shrieks of pain that followed, a less gentle reward.

  For over five years Chandra had lived on a quiet country estate with her teacher, her servant, and her old nurse. Once a month her father traveled to her. Once or twice a year she traveled to her father's court.

  The docks of Ischia swarmed-there could be no other word for it-with people. Too many people.

  In the midst of the procession she had been part of a larger whole. Here, she sat alone. Not that she was frightened. She was a wizard.

  And a Wizard of the Nine, besides. There was a certain, raw power in it all. There were just so many people. . . .

  When the prince and the thief finally arrived, she almost didn't recognize them. The movement of the crowd around them drew her attention, but it took a moment of puzzled staring before she realized who the lithe outlander and his huge hireling were.

  Darvish, his hair cropped swordsman short and whiskers a dark shadow along his jaw, looked much less pretty than he had in his long hair and exaggerated court fashions and much larger. The heavy cotton and plain sweat-stained leathers showed well-defined muscles, and the grubby white sunrobe he wore could've been poled to make a tent. He still looked like he drank too much, but he didn't look as weak as he had surrounded by silks and softness. He looked nothing like a prince.

  Aaron did. Not a single movement was wasted. He looked neither to the left nor the right, his expression hidden within the shadows cast by the stiffened edges of his sunrobe hood. Chandra knew much of his bearing came from his recent injuries-movements were restricted in many ways by burns not quite healed-but he still looked as if he owned the city. Like he stood alone at the top of a mountain and nothing could topple him from the peak. Chandra was impressed in spite of herself; her father had once been a man that strong.

  "There's the warehouse." Darvish waved a hand in its direction, studded wrist guards flashing for a moment in the wide sleeves of the sunrobe. He knew he shouldn't be enjoying himself, that his city and its people were in great danger, but he couldn't help it. For at least a nineday, maybe longer, he was free. Free of the palace, free of the plots, free to prove himself to his father. "Where's that girl?"

  "Here."

  Darvish couldn't stop the jump back, so he added a glare and dropped his hand to his sword hilt. He was not going to look ridiculous in front of this girl he was not going to marry.

  Chandra allowed herself a smug smile. She wasn't fooled. And up close, he still smelled of wine. "Your eyes are brown," she said peering up at his face. "A good idea although I could have cast a stronger spell. I doubt this will hold much past morning."

  "It doesn't have to last beyond the docks," Darvish snarled, shifting the weight of his shield on his back. It caught on the small pack he wore and, brows down, he yanked it free. "And there won't be much left of a good idea if you tell the whole city."

  "My words were pitched to carry only to you."

  "Next time, O Awesome Wizard, spare me as well."

  "Next time ..." Chandra looked beyond his bulk, saw Aaron regally indifferent, blushed and fell silent.

  "I'm going to find us a ship," Aaron said, his voice as expressionless as his face. "Stay here." He slipped easily into the movement of the crowds although the press of people set his teeth on edge. If they wanted to go on bickering, they could do it without him for a time. Even as a small part of him envied their ability to say what they thought, he despised the waste. Their constant sniping served no purpose, it only wasted time, wasted words.

  "One Below, boy, you count out your words like a miser. "

  Aaron had looked down at the old gem cutter from his perch on her window ledge. "Didn't one of your own poets say that empty words show an empty mind and silence speaks most eloquently of all ?"

  Faharra had snorted and waved one clawlike finger at the thief. "It wasn't meant to be an excuse for never holding up your end of a conversation."

  The pain of Faharra's death had burned down to a gentle ache during his anger at Herrak. His failure to gain the emerald for her tomb, although it still tormented him, no longer weighted every breath. Without it, the walls had weakened and it was getting harder to maintain the void.

  "I don't want to know their thoughts," Aaron muttered, deftly sidestepping two whores and a bleeding beggar. He could see danger in that, for what if the thoughts they started speaking began to concern him. If the thoughts Darvish began speaking. . . . I must be out of my mind; I should've told them to find their own Stone, stayed at the palace and been quietly tortured to death. Before Faharra died, I had my life under control. This is all your doing, old lady.

  From out of memory, he heard her laugh and he allowed himself a small smile in answer.

  Darvish watched Aaron cut his way through the crowds like a sword through silk. He moved with an intensity that easily marked his progress in spite of his lack of height. I could do that, Darvish realized suddenly. Just walk the docks like a normal man. No one expecting a performance from the prince. No one reporting that performance back to the lord chancellor. There were no guards at his back, no spies in the shadows, just him and Aaron and . . .