* * *

  Rodrick woke with a gasp to a room baking with heat, flames flickering in his peripheral vision. “Fire!” he shouted, and tried to rise and flee, but something was holding him down—a long golden rope was wound around his body and the bed itself, pinning him in place. He struggled, and the rope tightened like a serpent’s coils. Some sort of magic was afoot.

  Turning his head in panic, he saw a figure sitting on the edge of the bed. The man leaned forward, and was revealed as Nagesh, face flickering in the flames. “Nagesh? What—”

  Rodrick turned his head further, trying to find the source of the fire, and discovered the light came from a fiery creature—an elemental?—shaped like an immense toad, crouching in the corner in front of Hrym on his stand. There were sizzles and hisses as Hrym’s icy aura interacted with the elemental’s flames, but they weren’t outright fighting—that would have torn the entire room apart and killed Rodrick and Nagesh both, so fire and ice were behaving themselves, for now. The only reason Hrym would hold back would be for fear Rodrick would be hurt if he didn’t. Rodrick shared that fear.

  Once again, Nagesh’s face seemed to shift into contours that were somehow inhuman, but in the darkness and mystical firelight, everything looked unreal and flickering. “I understand you need time to think over the thakur’s proposal,” Nagesh said, patting Rodrick’s cheek with force just short of a slap. “I am here to aid your thought processes. You will accept the thakur’s very generous offer.”

  “I am completely persuaded,” Rodrick gasped. “I will tell the thakur we agree at this very moment, if you wish.”

  “I’m not finished. There’s a bit more to the arrangement than we discussed earlier. Your friend Hrym will be presented to the visiting rajah, as planned … and at the earliest opportunity, Hrym will kill the fool. Spikes of ice through the eyes, freezing his blood in his veins—the precise method doesn’t matter. The killing should be simple enough—the rajah will never anticipate an attack from a gift given by the thakur’s own hand.”

  “How about I put a spike through your eye?” Hrym said.

  “Perhaps your magics would be sufficient to kill me, Hrym,” Nagesh said, not taking his eyes off Rodrick. “If that is the price of my service to the thakur, so be it. But my pet elemental will see your friend consumed by fire. You should have never let us know how devoted you were to one another, Rodrick. Weakness is to be exploited. After we give you to the thakur, Hrym, we will keep Rodrick in the palace as an … honored guest. And hostage to your good behavior. If you serve as we require, Rodrick will not be harmed. If you attempt to resist … my elemental can be summoned again. Or a more mundane servant loyal to me—there are so many—could poison Rodrick’s wine, or simply put a knife in his back. But if you are obedient, there is no reason to fear. Once the rajah is dead, you will both be spirited out of the palace and put on a ship sailing away from the island, with all the riches you were promised and your partnership intact. How could our offer be more generous?”

  “You could leave out the part about murdering a stranger.” Rodrick winced as the rope around his chest tightened further.

  “Do you understand what is required of you?” Nagesh’s voice was pitiless and dry.

  “Absolutely,” Rodrick said. “Nothing has ever been more clear.” He smelled something he dearly hoped was not his own hair singeing.

  “Do you understand, too, Hrym?”

  “I’m not deaf,” Hrym growled from the stand in the corner. “Get this burning toad away from me.”

  “Marvelous,” Nagesh said. “You did strike me as reasonable creatures.” He rose and strolled out of the room, his elemental following after him briefly before disappearing in a cloud of roiling smoke.

  Moments after the door shut, the rope holding Rodrick loosened and went slithering toward the open balcony doors, vanishing into the night.

  Rodrick heaved himself from the bed, gasping, and went to the fountain to splash cool water on his face and hair. He sank down on the floor beside Hrym.

  “So,” Rodrick said. “Obviously we’re not going to do that.”

  “You mean take part in a plot to murder a rajah of the Impossible Kingdoms? No. I think I’ll pass.”

  “Glad we’re in agreement. That simplifies matters. We’ve bought ourselves some time by letting him think we’d cooperate, at least.”

  “What good does time do us?”

  “Haven’t you heard that old joke? I’ll even adapt it for our present environment. A man was caught sleeping with one of the thakur’s wives. The man was dragged before the thakur, and knew he would surely be sentenced to death. The thakur asked if he had anything to say in his own defense. The man said, ‘I am a very wise man. My death would rob you of a great opportunity. You see, I possess secret knowledge.’ ‘What kind of secret knowledge?’ the thakur asked. ‘I have the power to teach a monkey how to talk,’ the man said. The thakur thought that sounded amazing. He said, ‘How long will it take?’ ‘Oh, I could do it in ten years, Great Thakur,’ the man said. ‘I will give you one year,’ the thakur said. ‘If the monkey has not learned to talk by then, you will be executed.’ ‘I understand, Great Thakur,’ the man said, and was set free. The next night he was in bed with the thakur’s wife again, and she said, ‘Is it true? Can you truly teach a monkey to talk?’ The man said, ‘Of course not, but I just bought myself a year of life. Anything can happen in a year. I could die. The thakur could die. Or the monkey could learn how to talk.’” Rodrick paused. “You aren’t laughing.”

  “I’m a talking sword. Do you think a talking monkey would impress me?” They sat in silence for a moment, then Hrym said, “The thakur seemed like a gentleman. Do you really think that nice old man wants to use me as a tool of assassination?”

  “I don’t think you get to be the ruler of an entire country by being a nice old man,” Rodrick said. “I think it’s possible he’s involved, but it does seem a little overcomplicated. Surely the thakur could just sink this rajah’s ship and blame it on the Arclords, or something.”

  “Not without enlisting other confederates,” Hrym said. “We’re outsiders, and if we agreed to this plot, no one would have to know the plan except for us and Nagesh, which makes it much easier to contain. Even if we said anything, tried to warn someone, who would believe us, as savage strangers from a barbarous land?”

  The more Rodrick thought about this, the more of a morass it became. “Right. So they arrange to kill the man, then blame the outlander and his evil sword. The very fact that we’re outsiders makes it plausible. All very neatly done. But it works better if we don’t escape to tell a different tale, doesn’t it?”

  “Oh, the offer to let us sail away on a ship full of gold is nonsense,” Hrym said. “It would be a total waste of gold. No, you’ll be executed, and I’ll be tossed into a vault somewhere, surrounded by fire elementals boiling away my ice so I can’t avenge you. That’s true whether this is truly the thakur’s plan or Nagesh’s own plot.”

  “We can try to get the thakur alone…” Rodrick said slowly. “Tell him that Nagesh explained the whole murder plan, and we have some follow-up questions. If the thakur isn’t part of the plot, he’ll be glad we warned him, and he can protect us from Nagesh. And if it really is the thakur’s plan … we’ll have to figure out where to go from there. Whether we could find a way to warn this visiting rajah, or something. It would be tricky with Nagesh watching us, as he surely will, but maybe—”

  “Rodrick. You’re thinking like, I don’t know what—a paladin, maybe. Why don’t you think like a thief? Are we interested in rooting out corruption in Niswan? Getting into the middle of either an assassination plot or some kind of power struggle between the thakur and one of his chief advisors?”

  “Ah. No. Not particularly.”

  “What are our goals, then?” Hrym said.

  “To get off this island alive, without having to murder anyone in the process, ideally with a lot of gold.”

  “So let’s figure out how to do that,” Hrym said.

  “We could … just flee. Arrange passage with the smuggler we’re probably meeting tomorrow, and go at the first opportunity.”

  “Nagesh will be keeping a close watch on us already, won’t he? Surely he thinks we might run.”

  Rodrick nodded. “Yes. That’s true.”

  “I think our best hope is to play along,” Hrym said. “And run away when he doesn’t expect us to run away.”

  “In that case … I don’t suppose it changes our plans much, really. We were going to pass off an enchanted longsword as you, sell the fake to the thakur, then get our gold and flee. We should just … flee a bit more rapidly, now, before Nagesh has a chance to murder me.” He frowned. “How can this possibly not change our plans? Shouldn’t this change everything?”

  “Don’t grow a conscience now, Rodrick. It would be inconvenient. And it does change a few things. For one thing, we’ll definitely have to arrange our own way off the island now. That’s no longer contingency, it’s necessity.”

  “I don’t suppose we’ll ever see that chest of gold the thakur promised me, either. We’d have trouble carrying it out of here, anyway, fleeing from assorted armed men and elementals. Nagesh really wants us to sit around, knowing he’s watching us, for almost two weeks while you wait for this rajah to arrive so you can kill him? Even if we didn’t mind being assassins, how dull. I’d never be able to stand it.” Rodrick sighed. “It’s just as well I took that small commission from Grimschaw, isn’t it? And we’ve got that jeweled scabbard. This trip won’t be a total loss.” How could it be so painful to lose a large quantity of gold he hadn’t even received yet? Somehow, it was. “I doubt Nagesh—or the thakur, if he’s involved—will give up his plan to kill this rajah, though, just because we slipped away. They’ll find some other way to see it done.”

  “Leave a letter somewhere with a warning for the rajah, if you feel that bad about it,” Hrym said.

  “The problem with that is knowing where to leave the letter. How can I possibly know who to trust?”

  “That’s easy. I can trust you, and you can trust me, and that’s it.”

  “True enough,” Rodrick said, though when he thought of how Hrym pulsed with demonic light sometimes, it did unpleasant things to that trust.

  13

  Errands

  When they left the palace, they were trailed by a eunuch, fortunately, and not a djinni or an efreeti. The man tried to be discreet, but Rodrick had been followed many times by men far more skilled, so he ducked down an alley, and then another alley, and then doubled back, and in no time he’d lost the man, without seeming to do so on purpose. Nagesh himself might be skilled at intrigue, but his operatives were not equipped to follow Rodrick.

  Unless this was the obvious tail, to draw attention away from a more subtle one … Rodrick didn’t let his dismay show on his face. Of course, that was it. Nagesh assumed he was an idiot—or just counted on him to underestimate the Vudrani. But they were an ancient empire, with many servants skilled at stealth and spying, and Nagesh was highly placed in the thakur’s court. Rodrick wasn’t sure what the man’s job was, apart from “advisor”—for all he knew, Nagesh was the thakur’s spymaster. He’d surely have legions of skilled operatives, and magical ones at that. Thus, the purpose of the bumbler following them was to let Rodrick know he was being watched.

  Why, a lesser man might have quailed at the idea.

  They went to Kaleb’s house, pounding on the front door until the conjurer appeared to let them in. He was unshaven and red-eyed, but looked triumphant. “Come in, come in.”

  Rodrick and Hrym trailed him up the narrow stairs, past the closed doors of other tenants—ones less inclined to explore the cause for frenzied knocking, apparently. The interior here was musty, and Rodrick commented on it.

  “We don’t have legions of eunuchs or bound elementals to do our cleaning for us around here. The people in this house are scholars, students of the arcane come to Niswan to learn what we can—but we’re not wealthy, or supported by academies. Most of us spent everything we had to get passage to this island and secure a place with one of the masters who’s willing to teach. There’s not a lot left over for maid service.” He stopped at the top floor landing, unlocking a door and ushering them in.

  The space beyond was surprisingly congenial, with lots of windows letting in light, and enough of those open to keep the room from smelling like the place where dust went to die. There was a good-sized fireplace, clearly made for a much bigger space, an indication that this top floor had been chopped into smaller apartments long ago, which was proven by the ugly plaster wall on one side, contrasting with the beautiful stone of the exterior walls. Flames danced in the fireplace with no apparent source of fuel, an obvious advantage of being a pyromancer.

  Kaleb moved a pile of books off a rickety chair beside a table that doubled as a workspace and a dining area and gestured for Rodrick to sit. Rodrick complied, looking around at the shabby furnishings and bottles of powders and books, books, books.

  Kaleb put a bare longsword on the table—plain, but not noticeably rusty or bent—along with various pouches and vials. “If you could put your sword beside this one? They should touch, if possible.”

  Rodrick drew Hrym and rested him on the table, the edge of his crystalline pommel touching the burnished bronze of the other sword. Kaleb bent over to examine Hrym, his nose so close it nearly touched the blade, and Rodrick had a sudden imagining—so strong it nearly seemed a vision—of Hrym pulsing red and shooting out spikes of ice, tearing the conjurer’s head off.

  But there was no flash, and Kaleb grunted, then straightened and opened a drawstring pouch. He reached inside, taking out a pinch of powder like gold-colored salt, and scattering it along Hrym’s length.

  The crystalline blade changed color, turning to gleaming steel, the change creeping down Hrym’s length and altering as it went. The pommel and hilt changed, too, until they matched the workmanlike grip of the longsword beside it. The two weapons might have been twins.

  “Are you all right?” Rodrick said.

  “I suspect I’m uglier than I’d like, but I feel fine,” Hrym said.

  “Good work, conjurer. And the other sword?”

  Kaleb nodded, muttering to himself as he sifted a handful of bluish sand from another pouch onto the sword. Its steel turned to glittering ice, and its hilt and grip altered to resemble Hrym’s. The swords might well have just switched places. Rodrick reached out and touched the false Hrym’s blade, drawing his finger back quickly. The blade was cold, and felt like ice instead of steel. “Good, you got the tactile element right, too.”

  Kaleb nodded, scowling. “Yes. The alterations will last forever, unless someone takes steps to reverse the spell.”

  “It’s impressive work. You should be proud of yourself. Why so glum?”

  “Making a lasting illusion of this complexity is … a bit outside my level of expertise. I had to purchase scrolls—don’t worry, I bought them from someone discreet—and it took a goodly portion of the jewel you gave me. I should have asked you to pay my expenses, too.”

  “You certainly could have asked,” Rodrick said pleasantly. “How about Hrym? Is his disguise likewise perfect and permanent?”

  Kaleb shrugged. “I doubt I could suppress his cold if I wanted to, but I also doubt anyone will grab your sword’s blade and notice. It—he’ll—look like an ordinary longsword until you choose to change him back.” The conjurer passed over a small vial of bluish sand. “Pour this on his blade, and it will remove the illusion.”

  Rodrick prodded the fake ice sword. “Does it talk?”

  “Try it,” Kaleb said.

  “Ah … hello, Hrym.” Rodrick felt like an idiot talking to an ordinary longsword, even if it did look like his friend.

  “What? Can’t you tell I’m trying to rest? Leave me be.” The new sword perfectly matched Hrym’s gruff and curmudgeonly tone.

  “I don’t sound anything like that,” the real Hrym complained.

  “It has a couple of other phrases,” Kaleb said. “But along similar lines, things to discourage further attempts at conversation. Now, about the rest of my payment.” The fire in the hearth grew brighter … and then stepped out of the fireplace, taking on the form of a small wolf.

  “There’s no need for that.” Rodrick reached into a pocket and drew out a diamond, even larger than the ruby had been, and tossed it to Kaleb, who caught it deftly. “Don’t suppose that longsword came with a scabbard?”

  The conjurer held the diamond up to the light, peering at it, then nodded to himself. The wolf climbed back into the hearth, curled up, and became just a fire again. “Hmm? Oh. Yes. I don’t have any use for it.” He gestured to a scabbard and sword belt of sturdy leather dangling from the back of a chair.

  Rodrick strapped the plain scabbard onto his back and sheathed Hrym there. “All right, old friend. You’re living a secret life now. Keep conversation to a minimum.” He took the fake Hrym and slid it into the jeweled scabbard on his hip. It would be good not to get the two weapons confused.

  “Stop moving me around so much,” the fake sword complained. “Where’s my bed of gold?”

  “He’s captured you to perfection, Hrym.”

  “Your mother was a butter knife,” Hrym said.

  Kaleb snorted.

  “Sentient sword insults,” Rodrick said. “There’s really nothing else like them.” He started for the door, then paused. “Remember, this transaction never occurred. If anyone asks why we spoke, we were just reminiscing together about Absalom and complaining about Vudrani food, and you were kind enough to help me find a new sword. Right?”

  “For what you paid, if you wanted me to say we were lovers, I wouldn’t refuse.”

  “I don’t think that will be necessary, but the enthusiasm is appreciated.” He went downstairs, out onto the street, and the eunuch was there, pretending to carefully study a tile mosaic beside a fountain. Rodrick walked directly up to him and said, “Hello there, haven’t I seen you in the palace?”