The Face of Chaos

'You have one of the beynit?' the talesmith asked, impressed in spite of himself.

'They aren't that hard to come by,' the ex-crimelord responded casually, 'which reminds me. If you need a tidbit to keep your patroness happy with your services, tell her that not all the snakebite victims appearing lately are her people's work. There are those who would discredit her court by duplicating their methods.'

Hakiem raised his eyebrow in silent question, but Jubal shook his head.

'None of mine,' he declared, 'though the idea bears further study in the future. If you'll excuse me now, I have other matters to attend to ... and tell your escort I said to see that you reach your next destination safely.'

The sound of Jubal's laughter brought Saliman hurrying into the room.

'What is it?' he asked, half-puzzled, half-concerned by the first outburst of gaiety he'd witnessed from Jubal for many months. 'Did the old storyteller have an amusing tale? Tell me, I could use a good laugh these days.'

'It's very simple,' the Hawkmaster explained, regaining partial control of himself. 'We've been betrayed. Double-crossed.'

'And you're laughing about it?'

'It's not the intent, but the method that amuses me. Though I have no love of being tricked, even I must admit this latest effort displays a certain style.'

With a few brief sentences, he sketched out what he had learned from Hakiem.

'Substitutes?' Saliman frowned.

'Think about it,' Jubal argued. 'You know at least some of the Stepsons on sight. Have you seen any familiar faces in those uniforms lately? Perhaps the one who made the alliance with us? It explains so much, like why the so-called Stepsons suddenly don't know which end of a sword to grasp. And to think I expected to take advantage of a naive second-in-command.'

'So what are we going to do now?'

'That I decided as soon as I learned of the deception.'

All signs of laughter faded from Jubal's eyes, to be replaced by a dangerous glitter.

'I make alliances with men, not uniforms. Now it just so happens that the men, the Stepsons, whom our alliance is with are now somewhere to the north, putting their lives and reputations on the line for the dear old Empire. In their efforts to be in two places at once, though, they've left themselves vulnerable. They've turned their name over to a batch of total incompetents, hoping their reputation will suffice to bluff their replacements' way through any crisis.

'While we have an alliance with the Stepsons, we have no obligation at all to the fools they left behind in their stead. What's more, we know from our own difficulties in rebuilding exactly how fragile a reputation can be.'

The eyes were narrow slits now.

'Therefore, here are my orders to all under my command. All support for those in town who currently call themselves Stepsons is to be withdrawn immediately. In fact, any opportunity to harass, embarrass, or destroy those individuals is to take priority over any assignment save those directly involving the Beysib. In the shortest possible time, I want to see the name of the Stepsons held in somewhat less regard by the citizens of Sanctuary than that shown to the Downwinders.'

'But what will happen when word of this reaches the real Stepsons?' Saliman asked.

'They will be faced with a choice. They can either stay where they are and have their name slandered in the worst hell-hole in the Rankan Empire, or they can return at all speed, risking the label of deserter from the forces at Wizardwall. With any luck, both will happen. They'll desert their post and find they are unable to reestablish their reputation here.'

He locked gazes with his aide, then winked slowly. 'And that, Saliman old friend, is why I'm laughing.'

THE CORNERS OF MEMORY by Ly

1

A door that had been obscured by shadows opened to admit a hunched-over figure in dark, voluminous robes. The laboured wheezing of the intruder filled the little room as, with quick, bird-like movements, the winding sheet was opened and the naked corpse revealed. Light entered the austere room from a single barred window high on one wall, illuminating the face of a young woman who lay on a narrow, wooden table, masking her waxen pallor so that it seemed she rested in the gentle sleep of youth, rather than the deeper sleep of eternity.

Ulcerous fingers uncurled from the depths of the shapeless robe sleeves, fingers more morbid and repellent than the corpse they probed. From within the cowl came a sound like a laugh - or a sob - and the grotesque hands brushed the young woman's hair away from her neck. His dark robes concealed her as the crippled creature sighed, sniffed, and bent to her throat. He stepped back, examining a slim phial of blood in the faint light.

Still silent, except for his strained breathing, the robed figure lurched back into the shadows, where he conjured an intense blue light and, drop by drop, emptied the blood into it. He inhaled the vapours, extinguished the light with a gesture, and returned his attention to the corpse. His fingers re-examined every part of her without finding any mark other than the small bruise on her neck from which he had removed the blood.

Sighing, he drew the edges of the shroud together again and carefully rearranged the folds of coarse linen. He smoothed her ash-brown hair over the bruise on her neck and, reluctantly, folded the cloth over her face. There was no doubt, this time, that a sob escaped from the shadowed depths of his cowl. There had been many women when he had been young and handsome. They had pursued him and he had squandered his love on them. Now he could remember no face more clearly than the one he had just covered with the linen.

The mage, Enas Yorl, shuffled back into the shadows, lit an ordinary candle, and sat at a rough-plank desk, his face cradled in his unspeakable hands. She had been a woman from the Street of Red Lanterns; from the Aphrodisia House, where blue-starred Lythande was a frequent guest. Yet they'd brought her to Enas for the postmortem. And now he understood why.

Dipping the stylus in the inkwell, he began his report in a script that had been antique in his own youth. ' Your suspicions are confirmed. She was poisoned by the concentrated venom of the beynit serpent.'

Lythande had most likely suspected as much, but the Order of the Blue Star neither knew nor taught everything. It fell to such as himself, more shu

The mark on her neck concealed two punctures - like those of the beynit serpent, though, my colleague, I am not at all certain that a serpent slithered up her arm to strike her. Our new ruler, the Beysa Shupansea, has the venom within her - as she has shown at the executions. It is said that the Blood of Bey, the envenomed blood, flows only in the veins of the true rulers of the Beysib, but you and I, who know magic and gods, know that this is most likely untrue. Perhaps not even Shupansea knows how far the gift is spread, but surely she knows she is not the only one ...

A weeping ulcer on Yorl's hand burst with a foul odour, and a vile ichor seeped on to the parchment. The ancient, cursed magician groaned as he swept the fluid away. A ragged hole remained on the parchment; grey-green bone poked through the ruined flesh of his hand. The movement, and the pain, had loosened his cowl. It fell back to reveal thick, chestnut-coloured hair, which glittered crimson and gold in the candlelight - his own hair - if the truth were known or anyone still lived who remembered him from before the curse.