The monk smiled, all amused tolerance for the enthusiasms of youth. “And bested it, I see. Hrym, how do you feel?”

  “I felt fine before,” the sword said peevishly. “But it’s possible I feel slightly finer now. I do notice my lack of arms and legs and wings rather more keenly than I did before.”

  The monk handed the sword to Rodrick, who took it, grinning widely, as they got to their feet. “I can’t thank you enough. Both of you, Lais, and—what was your name, master?”

  “Jayin. I am pleased to help prevent the demonic taint from spreading farther.” He frowned, a line appearing between his eyes. “Now that the immediate threat is past, there are your other problems to consider. My student tells me you are being hunted by members of the Knife in the Dark?”

  “I think so,” Rodrick said. “They—”

  His eyes widened, and he raised Hrym. A winged creature was swooping down toward them from the sky, big as a person—much like a person, but with the face of an eagle, and great spreading wings, more than twice as wide as it was tall. Was this another rakshasa? Did those with the heads of birds actually fly? He pointed the sword, intending to knock the creature out of the sky.

  His legs went out from under him and he fell onto his back, Hrym bouncing from his grip. The master’s bare foot pressed against his throat, and the man looked down at him, just as placidly as ever.

  “It’s all right, Rodrick, she’s a friend!” Lais said.

  “Friend?” he muttered. “You’re friends with a rakshasa?” Everything was confusing. He’d thumped the back of his head on the ground and sparkles and black motes overlaid his vision. “Or … harpy? No, those have the heads of women and the bodies of birds…”

  “She’s a garuda! Her name is Dhyana. An old friend of my master’s.”

  “Garuda,” Rodrick murmured. They’d appeared in the storybook he read on the voyage over, too. They were supposed to be as good as rakshasas were wicked. “Noble creatures,” he said. “Protectors. Gallant.”

  “He flatters me.” The bird woman now stood beside Jayin, looking down at him. He had no idea what her expression held. It was because of the beak. Beaks were difficult to read.

  He groaned. “Could you take your foot off me, please?” The master complied, and Rodrick sat up, rubbing his head. “Are you all right, Hrym?”

  “As long as I don’t have to meet any more people,” he said. “Did it have to be someone with wings? I just lost my wings.”

  “I very much look forward to finding out what I’ve missed,” Dhyana said. “I brought fish. Shall we eat them, and you can catch me up?”

  * * *

  The interior of Jayin’s cave was not a cave at all, but a snug little house built into the hill, its entrance made to look natural in order to conceal it. The house was hardly palatial—monks weren’t usually great lovers of material things, in Rodrick’s limited experience—but it was comfortable, and hardly seemed subterranean at all, apart from the lack of windows, and the many lamps made up for that. The decorations were sparse, just a tapestry depicting a robed figure in meditation beneath a semicircle of mystic symbols, a shrine to some Vudrani deity or another, and a shelf that held a bowl of Andoren pottery—that probably qualified as exotic, here. This room lacked anything that Rodrick would consider a chair, but there were a profusion of cushions on the rich carpets, brightly colored, and the others seated themselves casually, Dhyana arranging her wings neatly behind her as she knelt, Lais sprawling on her side, her master sitting cross-legged. “Lais,” he said. “Perhaps some refreshments?”

  She bounced up and set a kettle on a small iron stove, then brought out bunches of grapes and bowls of berries and flatbread and bean paste and arrayed them on a low round table. Rodrick did his best not to gluttonously devour everything, at least until the monk said, “Yes, eat, you’ve had a long day.”

  Dhyana chatted with Hrym, who rested on a cushion beside her. “So you two are treasure hunters?”

  “We seek our fortunes in different places,” Hrym said. That was true enough. “This is a beautiful island, but it hasn’t been lucky for us.”

  “To run afoul of the Knife in the Dark is bad luck indeed. They’re not a large cult, I don’t think, but if so many attacked Lais in the jungle, they must be having a meeting there. Best to avoid the area now.”

  Rodrick swallowed the last of his bread, washed it down with a cup of cool water, and said, “Have you heard of something called the Scepter of the Arclords?”

  The monk and the garuda exchanged a look, and then the monk said, “Why do you ask?”

  Rodrick shrugged. “That … might be where the treasure map leads. I’m not sure, but I heard it mentioned. I assume the scepter dates from the days when the Arclords ruled Jalmeray?”

  “The Scepter of the Arclords is very famous here, a legendary artifact of great power,” Jayin said. “The Arclords left it behind when they fled from the island, and the stories say it is still hidden somewhere on Jalmeray. The unscrupulous routinely try to sell jeweled staves covered in glowing runes, claiming they’ve found the true scepter, but they’re all counterfeits, mere trickery and illusion.”

  Rodrick would have to remember that. Selling false scepters of the Arclords could be a lucrative scam.

  “The scepter is reputedly so powerful it would make even Hrym here seem commonplace in comparison,” Jayin went on.

  “Doubtful,” Hrym said.

  “What does it do?” Rodrick said.

  Dhyana shrugged, with a great rustling of feathers. “No one knows, not really. Even its provenance is unclear. Was it a scepter that belonged to Nex, inherited by his servants, who in time became the Arclords? A magical rod the Arclords used to maintain order among their servants? No one can say, and the Arclords are notoriously closed-mouthed.” Her tone became gentle. “This map you found … I hope you didn’t pay too much for it. There are people who sell fake maps, as well as fake scepters.”

  “Ah, no. My partner, she’s from Nex, and she had me dig around among some old books and scrolls in a forgotten corner of a library. That’s where we found the map.” Let them think he’d found it in Nex. He was trying not to lie outright, just to be on the safe side, but it was like asking a fish not to breathe water. The shame of Nagesh catching him in mid-scam was too fresh, and who knew what powers garudas had? If she could read minds, he was doomed anyway, but couldn’t some creatures detect lies?

  “Maybe the map really does lead to the scepter,” Lais said. “Wouldn’t that be a find!”

  “Do you still intend to seek this treasure?” Dhyana asked.

  Rodrick shook his head. “I just want to get away from here. Besides, the jungle is crawling with the Knife in the Dark, and with my luck they’ll be camped right on top of the thing.”

  “This … is very troubling.” The monk’s tone didn’t sound troubled, but that didn’t mean much. “You told Lais your associate ran off with the map, because you disagreed with her desire to continue your search?”

  “I did say that, yes,” Rodrick said, still carefully keeping to the letter of truth.

  “If your former partner saw members of the cult and survived the experience, they might well be hunting her. When they find her, they will find this map, and will surely be curious about where it leads. If it does take them to the scepter…”

  “That would be disastrous,” Dhyana said. “Anyone who possessed an object of such power could easily use it to gain influence with the thakur and the Maurya-Rahm. The Knife in the Dark could parlay such a find into positions of untold power, and bring about terrible destruction.”

  Lais stood holding the tea kettle, a cloth wrapped around the hot handle, her eyes wide. “That would be horrible!”

  “It must not be allowed to happen,” the monk said. “Dhyana, I think you should fly to Niswan and alert—”

  The door burst inward, wood shattering, and a tiger nearly the size of a horse charged into their midst, snarling and lashing out with its claws.

  The next seconds were a blur of fur, teeth, blood, and howls. Dhyana snatched up Hrym, bellowing in anguish and rage, and Rodrick dove out of the way before the garuda could point Hrym anywhere in his general direction. He didn’t like being around the sword’s icy wrath, not without the protective power that came with holding the hilt. But Dhyana didn’t try to use his ice magic at all, just swung Hrym like an actual sword, something Rodrick had rarely done himself. Hrym’s blade was supernaturally sharp as well as supernaturally cold, and the dire tiger’s head tumbled from its shoulders, rolling on the floor.

  There was no moment of relief, though, because two others followed the tiger in, equally furred, but moving upright like men—more weretigers, prominently wearing the medallions of the Knife in the Dark. Lais hurled the teakettle at one weretiger’s face, and he fell like a branch cut from a tree, giving her room to launch herself at the other, fists and feet in a flurry, driving him back against the wall. The garuda still had Hrym in her hand, and she stepped to the fallen lycanthrope and stabbed him neatly through the heart—he still didn’t twitch, unconscious unto death.

  Before it even occurred to Rodrick to draw his knife—the only weapon he had on him—the fight was done, and Lais and the garuda were kneeling beside Jayin. Rodrick joined them, looking down at the man, or what was left of him. The dire tiger had struck Jayin fast and hard with claws and teeth, and his body was a ruin, face spattered with blood and eyes glazed and lifeless.

  Dhyana dropped Hrym and stalked outside, and after a moment Rodrick grabbed Hrym and went with her. There might be more cultists outside, after all. He didn’t make a habit of running toward danger, but being in the room with a man who’d done him a kindness and been killed for his trouble was worse than the prospect of fighting devotees of a treacherous god.

  The garuda leapt into the air and spiraled upward, flying in wide circles overhead, as Rodrick walked around the hillside, almost in a daze. There were no other assailants, as far as he could see.

  Hrym said, “I liked that old man, Rodrick.”

  “He … I … yes.”

  “The old man saved my life. You know that. Probably my soul, too, if I have a soul.”

  “We’re lucky he died after doing so, for sure.”

  “We brought this trouble down on him, Rodrick. The Knife in the Dark was looking for us. He died because of us.”

  Rodrick kicked at the ground. “We don’t know that. Lais came upon the cultists in the jungle, too. They said the Knife in the Dark hunts down anyone who might identify them. This could have happened anyway. It can’t be laid at our feet!” But everyone who’d seen Lais’s face was dead or frozen in place in the jungle, probably food for predators by now. There was no reason anyone would be looking for her.

  “You can lie to others all you like,” Hrym said quietly. “Don’t you lie to me. Don’t you lie to yourself.”

  Rodrick watched Dhyana swoop through the sky in circles. “Yes. Fine. They came for us. So?”

  “I think we should avenge him.”

  Rodrick frowned at the sword. “Avenge? Where’s the profit in avenging people?”

  “Gold isn’t the only thing that matters.”

  That was like hearing a fish say water was unimportant. “What’s gotten into you, Hrym? I thought most humans were interchangeable bags of fluid and gas as far as you’re concerned. When Jayin removed the demonic taint, did he fill the hole left behind with some of his own excessive holiness?”

  Hrym snorted. “Don’t be absurd. You’ve said there’s a circle drawn around the two of us. The only reason that circle isn’t broken forever, the only reason I didn’t lose myself to the taint of a demon lord, is because of that monk.”

  “Granted,” Rodrick said grudgingly.

  “As far as I’m concerned, that lets him into my circle—at least a little, at least for a moment. The cult seems determined to find us anyway. Striking them down would avenge the old man and protect us.”

  Rodrick saw some holes in that argument, and would point them out when the time came, but Hrym had raised a troubling point. “How do they keep finding us, anyway? I don’t understand. It’s a big island, a big jungle, and twice now members of the cult have come straight for us. Did Nagesh mark us somehow?”

  Before Hrym could answer, Dhyana landed in front of him. She stalked back and forth as she spoke. “The hills are clear, but I saw movement on the edge of the jungle. More may come. I don’t intend to wait for them. Lais!”

  The student stepped out of the house, face wet with tears, hands stained with blood. “I couldn’t help him,” she said. “He was dead, dead before he even knew what happened, and I couldn’t help him.”

  “He is beyond help,” Dhyana said. “But he is not beyond vengeance. You know I owed Jayin my life, twice over. Without him, I would have died twenty years ago in a cage, or ten years ago when my wings were broken and I was stranded on that terrible rock in the sea. The past two decades of my life were bought and paid for by Jayin’s efforts. I have already lived longer than I should have, by rights, and I will gladly give up whatever years I might have left to kill those responsible for his death.”

  That’s me, Rodrick thought, and couldn’t suppress a shiver.

  “I’ll help you,” Lais said. “He was my teacher.”

  “I’m going, too,” Hrym said. “I owe Jayin a debt. Besides, if you’re armed with me, this might not necessarily be a suicide mission.”

  “Thank you, friend Hrym,” Dhyana said. “You will make a great difference.”

  “Hrym,” Rodrick said carefully. “Are you sure you want to—”

  “You don’t have to go,” Hrym said. “You are what you are, and I don’t expect you to be anything else. Maybe you can bury the monk, and burn the corpses of his killers. That would be helpful. Dhyana can wield me in battle. I’ll explain how I can be used for more than chopping off tiger heads.”

  Rodrick closed his eyes for a moment. He spent most of his life doing unpleasant things and not feeling a bit guilty about it. Most people were terrible, and deserved more trouble than he gave them anyway. Admittedly, these particular people were good, but they had the kind of hyperdeveloped sense of honor that coincided entirely too often with violent death. Rodrick didn’t want any part of that. He was a pragmatist, and an opportunist, and a survivor, and joining an ill-considered vengeance crusade against a murderous cult wasn’t pragmatic, opportune, or likely survivable.

  “Don’t be ridiculous, Hrym.” He opened his eyes. “If you’re going, I’m going.”

  “That circle around us,” the sword murmured, almost too low to hear.

  Rodrick nodded. That much was never a lie.

  “I found this on one of the weretigers.” Lais held out her hands. A small compass rested in her palm, arrow pointing back toward the house. “At first I thought it was a regular compass, but it doesn’t point to the north. Then I thought, maybe it’s magical, and it’s the way the cult finds their camp in the jungle—it was pointing that way, at first, toward the trees. But when I brought it outside the needle spun around again, and now it’s pointing back the way we came.” She shook her head. “I don’t understand, or know if we can use it.”

  “Let me see it,” the garuda said, frowning. “My people have a sensitivity to magic. If we concentrate … yes. There is some enchantment here.”

  “Rodrick,” Hrym said.

  “Yes,” Rodrick said. “I had the same thought. If you two would excuse me?” Without giving them time to question him, he hurried back into the little house. The stench of blood and bowels emptied in death made him gag. The lovely, spare space had been transformed into a charnel house. Rodrick snatched up his pack and went back outside. He reached in, removed the jeweled scabbard, and began to walk slowly in a circle around Lais and Dhyana. “What’s the compass doing?” he asked.

  “It’s … pointing at you. Following you.”

  Rodrick threw the scabbard on the ground. “It’s this. The compass is pointing to this.”

  The garuda knelt and examined the scabbard, then tapped one taloned finger on a tiny diamond near the hilt. “Not the whole thing. Just this. Only this gem is enchanted.” She pried it out with a talon and held the gem in her palm, then looked at Rodrick. “Where did you come by this?”

  He wondered again if garudas could detect lies, and chose his words carefully. “I got the scabbard from a member of the cult.” True. It had obviously come from Nagesh, who’d had ample reason to keep track of Rodrick’s whereabouts, but let them think he’d taken it in battle. “I thought I could use the jewels to finance my escape from the island. I had no idea it was enchanted so the cultists could find it.”

  “I suppose it’s not surprising that they poison even their treasures,” Lais said. “Just be lucky it wasn’t cursed, too.” Tears welled in her eyes. “Though it was cursed, in a way. It brought death to a man of learning and honor.”

  Rodrick bowed his head. He was uncomfortable with shame. He didn’t feel it often, and when he did, it was that much more acute for its rarity. “This is my fault. I brought the cult down on you. Led them to your door.”

  “You murdered no one,” the garuda said. “And your greed in taking the scabbard … it’s unfortunate, but understandable. I will not pretend you have no culpability. You do. But if you intend to join battle with us, you can make up for your mistake.” She picked up the scabbard. “In the unlikely event that we survive, these jewels will pay for a lavish funeral for Jayin, befitting his nobility of spirit, and to finance Lais’s studies with some other master.”

  Rodrick’s fortunes were dwindling more every moment. But Jayin had lost far more than jewels. “Absolutely. Take them. It’s the least I can do.”

  “Almost literally the least,” Dhyana said. “And now, to battle. Right after I toss this filthy diamond off a cliff.”

  “No, wait,” Rodrick said. Now that he’d committed to joining them, his pragmatic opportunism could be put to use. “Don’t be so hasty. There might be better uses for that diamond. As for battle—you just want to run into the woods and look for cultists to kill? Is that the plan?”