Marit smiled mirthlessly. “They are not only at each others’ throats, they are making real efforts to slay one another. Just today, Nofret told me, someone attempted to poison Magus Kephru with the wine served at the shadow council meeting. If he had not taken the precaution of testing it first, whoever it was would have succeeded. And no one but another Magus could place poison in a single cup when all were served from the same jar.

“Oh,” Gan replied, rather nonplussed. “That is—interesting.”

“But not useful, at least, not to us,” Heklatis opined. “I would not trust any of them as an ally, and that is the only possible use any of them could be to us.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Kiron said thoughtfully. “Any-thing bad that happens to any of them is likely to be placed first at the doorstep of the nearest rival, and then every other Magus, and only third at an outsider.”

“You have a point.” Oset-re sucked on his lower lip. “The problem is, they each have a half century or more of experience in active deceit and treachery to call upon, whereas we—” he shrugged. “Experience and treachery will overcome youth and idealism with no effort whatsoever.”

Kiron shook his head. “But we have some of that experience available to us.”

“Not unless you are far older than you look!” said Gan.

Kiron sighed. “Perhaps, having grown up with education available to you, you think too lightly of it. I do not. Scrolls, Gan. Volumes of wisdom available to all of us at any time. You have studied more of them than I. What do our texts, the words of our great generals, say to do when an enemy has superior resources?”

“Run away?” Gan suggested brightly.

“Move to a theater where he no longer commands those resources,” Kaleth said immediately. “Find ways to deny him those resources.”

Kiron turned to Aket-ten and Heklatis. “This is where I ask you if you have an answer to that question I asked you some time ago.”

He didn’t actually expect an answer; he really just wanted them to say “no,” or that they were still working on it, so that he could explain to the rest what his idea was—an idea even more urgent now that Toreth was no longer with them.

But to his shock and amazement, the two looked at each other for a long moment. And then Aket-ten answered, soberly, “I believe that we do.”

SIXTEEN

SIXTEEN

GAN looked from Kiron to Aket-ten and back again. “I don’t suppose you would care to explain that? I don’t mean to be rude, but—well, I’m not completely sure just how a girl and a Healer could fit into this situation, no matter what you asked them to find.”