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longer see to place our feet reliably. Pol helped me along, and I had to take a hand from Ambiades as well. Finally we came to a wider area of the trail and a flat space that had served many travelers as a camping spot. Someone had built a stone fireplace against the wall of the ravine, and the granite above it was blackened by many fires.
    After dinner, when our bedrolls were spread out on the ground behind us, we sat around the fire, and Ambiades asked again why we were in Eddis. The magus answered with another question, which Ambiades answered patiently, obviously used to this response to his inquiries.
    “What do you know about the rule of succession in Eddis?”
    “Well, they have a queen, like Attolia, so the throne can’t descend only in the male line. I suppose the rule is passed from parent to child, just like Sounis.”
    “And do you know if that has always been true?”
    Ambiades shrugged. “Since the invaders.”
    “And before?”
    “Are you talking about Hamiathes’s Gift?” Ambiades caught on quickly.
    “I am,” said the magus, and turned to Sophos. “Do you know about the Gift?” Sophos didn’t, so the magus explained.
    “It’s not surprising. Sounis and Attolia long ago converted to the invaders’ religion, and we worship those gods in the basilica in the city, but once we all worshiped the gods of the mountain country. There is an almost infinite pantheon with a deity for each spring and river, mountain and forest, but there is a higher court of more powerful gods ruled by Hephestia, goddess of fire and lightning. She governs all the gods except her mother, the Earth, and her father, the Sky.
    “The reign of Eddis supposedly arose out of one of the stories in which Hephestia rewarded a king named Hamiathes with a stone dipped in the water of immortality. The stone freed its bearer from death, but at the end of his natural life span the king passed the stone to his son and died. The son eventually passed it to his son, and the possession of it became synonymous with the right to rule the country. When a usurper stole the stone and soon thereafter died, it was understood that the power of the stone was lost unless it was given to the bearer, and so a tradition grew up that allowed the throne of Eddis to change hands peacefully when another country might have had a civil war. One person stole the stone and then gave it to his chosen candidate for the throne, in that way making him rightful king.”
    “But this is just myth,” protested Ambiades. I silently agreed with him.
    “It’s hard to say what is myth and what is real,” said the magus. “There may have been a king calledHamiathes, and he may have initiated this tradition. We do know that there was a stone called Hamiathes’s Gift and that at the time of the invaders people still believed in its power and its authority. So much so that the invaders attacked Eddis to gain control of the country by gaining control of the stone, which was additionally rumored to be some sort of fabulous gem. When the Gift disappeared, the invaders were thrown back off the mountain and returned their attention to Sounis and Attolia, which were more easily administered countries.”
    “What had happened to the stone?” asked Sophos.
    “It had been hidden by the king of Eddis, and he died without passing it to his son and without revealing its hiding place. It has remained hidden ever since.”
    “Do you think it could ever be found?” Sophos asked.
    The magus nodded. There was a short silence.
    “You think you can find it?” asked Ambiades, his face pinched with eagerness and probably greed, I thought.
    The magus nodded.
    “Do you mean,” I squawked, “that we are out here in the dark looking for something from a fairy tale?”
    The magus looked at me. I think he’d forgotten that I was there listening to him lecture his apprentices. “Reliable documents did survive from the time before the invaders, Gen. They mention the stone.”
    “And you