Sword Brother

"And could you be so very kind, Wencit," Bahzell said, raising his voice but speaking with exquisite courtesy, "as to be explaining to us how it is you've happened along at just this very moment this time?"

Walsharno trotted towards the vehicle, just as a second hatch opened in its roof and a stranger in a uniform which looked just as outlandish as the vehicle itself poked his head and shoulders up out of it.

"As to that," Wencit said, "the person you want to be thanking is Gu

"And just how was it you . . . inveigled them into anything as daft as that? Did you ride up to them out of a snow flurry in a swamp?"

"I've only used that particular technique once, I'll have you know," Wencit said in dignified tones. "In this case, I simply mentioned to them that I had a friend-two friends, actually-who were about to get themselves into trouble all over again. Once I'd explained, they decided they didn't have anything better to do tonight."

"Did they now?" Walsharno reached the vehicle and halted. Sitting in the saddle, Bahzell was taller than the ungainly-looking thing, and he reached his right hand towards Houghton.

"I'm thinking as how no one in his right mind would be after volunteering for something like this," he said. "Still and all, it's grateful I am. And impressed."

Bahzell's voice was the deepest one Ke

That was Houghton's first thought. Then he noticed Bahzell's tufted, foxlike ears, thrusting up through the special openings in his helmet.

Nope, still not in Kansas, Toto, he told himself wryly.

"I probably wouldn't have volunteered if I'd really realized what we were getting into," he heard himself saying aloud as he reached out to take the proffered had. "And I imagine I'm even more impressed with you than you are with me." He shook his head. "You may think I'm out of my mind, but I know you are! At least I had an LAV and not just a sword!"

"Ah, well, as to that, I'd a bit more than 'just a sword' working for me." Bahzell's grin showed white, strong teeth.

"That's true enough," Wencit said. "On the other hand, if you two can tear yourselves away from your mutual admiration society, there are still some rather unpleasant people in the neighborhood."

"Aye, so there are." Bahzell nodded. "In fact, I've the oddest notion, given what's just been happening here, as how those unpleasant folk have been putting themselves to quite an effort so as to invite Walsharno and me to their little get-together. You wouldn't be knowing anything about that, would you, Wencit?"

"I believe I told you-once, at least-that I'm a wizard and wizards are supposed to know things."

"So much for your demons!" Garsalt snarled.

"My demons?" Cherdahn glared back at the balding wizard.

The priest and his three wizard "allies" sat in luxuriously comfortable chairs around a long, glassy-smooth table of stone. The stone walls were covered with tapestries-less horrifying, thankfully, than the mosaics of the main tu

"The Scorpion's servants did exactly what they were supposed to do," Sharnā's priest half-spat. "And, forgive me if I seem a little confused, but I was under the impression that you knew where Wencit was. Apparently, I was mistaken, wasn't I? And did you simply forget to mention that . . . that . . . whatever that thing out there is?"

"Of course not! But if you'd done what-"

"Enough, Garsalt!" Tremala snapped, and both men (assuming the term "man" was still applicable to Cherdahn) turned to glare at her, instead of each other.

"No," she continued, once she was certain she had their attention, "the demons didn't succeed. That certainly wasn't Cherdahn's fault, however, Garsalt. Nor was it ours. We opened the portal exactly as pla

"Then you should have checked more recently," Cherdahn said icily.

"We last checked less than twenty minutes before Bahzell arrived outside your door," Tremala said sweetly.

"That's ridiculous!"

"Yes, it is, isn't it? Unless, of course, he knew exactly what was going on-exactly what we had pla

"That's impossible, Tremala," Rethak objected. She looked at the dark, dapper wizard, whose specialty was the creation of sophisticated glamours, and he shook his head. "He may be Wencit of Rūm, but even so, he couldn't possibly have known. Certainly not long enough ago to set something like that up!"

"What's he talking about?" Cherdahn demanded suspiciously.

"The only way Wencit could have deceived us that way would have been to build two glamours," Tremala said. "One of which-the one we knew about-was designed to keep us from locating him at all, or so we thought. And the second of which was intended to deceive us into thinking he was farther away than he really was just in case we did manage to relocate him. And, just coincidentally, allowed us to 'know' where he was without letting us actually see him or his surroundings, which meant we didn't know anything about that . . . vehicle he brought with him."

She paused for a moment, one eyebrow arched, until Cherdahn nodded impatiently for her to go on.

"Unfortunately, there are two problems with that possibility. First, we-or, rather, certain . . . colleagues of ours-have been monitoring him for weeks. We knew, or thought we did, exactly when he became aware of our plans, because that was when his glamour of concealment went up in the first place. At which point, exactly as we expected, we lost track of him for quite a while. But not even Wencit of Rūm could have built two nested glamours without the ones watching him realizing what he was doing, and nested glamours have to be put together very carefully. The i