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glumly, the little animal flickering in and out of sight beside his feet. Looking back to make sure the others had not followed, Arunis murmured into her ear.
    “What?” screamed Macadra, breaking violently away. “Are you joking, mage, or have you taken leave of your senses?”
    “Come,” said Arunis. “Don’t pretend it’s not the solution you’ve been hunting for. The South is free of humans already, unless you count the degenerate
tol-chenni
. This will merely finish the job.”
    “It would finish far more than humankind,” she said. “You cannot control such a force!”
    “I can,” said Arunis. “Through the Nilstone, and the puppet we call the Shaggat Ness. Help me, Macadra. I know the Ravens wish it done.”
    Macadra stared at the parchment. “You speak as though we were devils.”
    “That is what you are,” said Orfuin.
    He rose, startling them all. “The bar is closed. I will give you two minutes to conclude your business here.”
    The four mages gaped at him. “You can’t mean it,” said the black man, smiling uncertainly. “You’re famous for your neutrality, old man.”
    “That and my gingerbread,” said Orfuin, “and precious little else. Goodbye, Arunis. Plot your holocaust elsewhere.”
    He clapped his hands sharply. At once several dozen tiny figures, shorter even than ixchel, emerged from the vines with brooms and began sweeping the terrace before the arch. The guests within the tavern slammed down their mugs and rose, shuffling for the exits as though obeying some irresistible command. The little
yddek
scurried across the terrace and flung itself into the night.
    “This is unprecedented,” said Arunis, “and if I may say so, unwise.”
    Orfuin shrugged. “Neutral or not, the club is my own.”
    “But we have nowhere else to meet!” said Macadra.
    “Then you have nowhere to meet.”
    He entered the bar and began snuffing lights. Stoman, face twisting with fury, stamped dead one of the tiny sweepers; the rest fled back into the vines. One by one, like wary dogs, the tables and chairs slid of their own accord through the archway. The wind grew suddenly louder. The four figures stood alone.
    “Devils in this life,” said Arunis, looking only at Macadra, “but in the next something else altogether.”
    He held out the parchment. Macadra met his gaze, snarled, and took it from his hand. She placed it inside her dress and raised her arms.
    “Do not think us fools, sorcerer. We will send you a crew indeed! And when your work is done the Nilstone will return to the Ravens.”
    “When my work is done I shall not need it,” said Arunis.
    Somewhere a door slammed shut. Then the archway became a wall, and the vines closed in like scaly curtains, and suddenly there was nothing beneath their feet but the roaring immensity of the darkness, cold and mighty as a vertical river, bearing them away from one another and toward the lee shore of their dreams.

 

Brothers and Blood
     

22 Ilbrin 941
1
221st day from Etherhorde
     
    Introductions were strained. The two younger
sfvantskor
s had some Arquali, learned in preparation for Treaty Day; Cayer Vispek spoke barely a word. Pazel, on the other hand, spoke Mzithrini better than his sister. Vispek and Jalantri listened with open suspicion.
    “You say you learned such diction, such grace with our tongue … from books?” the elder
sfvantskor
demanded.
    Pazel glanced uneasily at Neda. “That’s how it started,” he said.
    “It’s the truth, Cayer,” said Neda. “Pazel is a natural scholar. He taught himself Arquali by the time he was eight. Other languages, too. But they were mostly just nonsense from his grammar books, until our birth-mother cast the spell.”
    “The one that changed him, but not you,” said Jalantri.
    Neda shrugged, dropping her eyes. “It gave me white hair for three months.”
    Cayer Vispek shook his head in wonder. “And made him able to collect languages as easily as a boy puts marbles in a