“I’d like to remain here, a while, and study with Amirantha.”

“Of course,” said Pug. “You are both welcome here at any time.” He looked at Laromendis and added, “Your task may prove difficult, if I understand what is occurring with your Lord Regent and his Meet. Still, if we must, we shall endeavor to extend our hand and offer friendship.”

Laromendis smiled. “Remember, we are a long-lived people, Pug. Give Tomas a few more years to come to terms with the Lord Regent, then we’ll introduce you.”

Jim laughed and drank his wine. Wiping his mouth with a dirty sleeve, he was once again dressed as the ragged head of a Krondor street gang, Jim Dasher, also known as Quick Jim, Jimmyhand, or, to a select few, the Upright Man. He had said earlier the Kingdom could do without his services for a few more days, but he doubted the Mockers, the thieves of Krondor, could. “I must be off in a few minutes, but I have a question, and this seems the perfect time to voice it, while you’re all here.”

Pug nodded, looking around the room. Only Kaspar was missing, having returned to his responsibilities in Muboya with those soldiers who had come up for the fight. Brandos was sitting next to Sandreena, and had complained for most of the day about having missed the fight, much to Amirantha’s amusement.

They had all returned a few hours before sunrise and had bathed and rested and were now enjoying a late breakfast or a very late supper from the night before, depending on one’s perspective.

Jim asked, “What was really going on down there, Pug? I know what I saw, both times I visited, but what did I really see?”

Pug looked around the room and said, “One way or another you’re all members of the Conclave, even if you don’t consider yourselves as such; you’ve all shown a stead-fastness in defending this world beyond any duty you owe to any crown or faith”—he looked at Sandreena as he said the last. “You deserve to know what I know.

“For over a century I have been confronted by a dark agency. I have had suspicions over that time as to who the agency is, but twice now I’ve had to rethink my assumptions.” To Amirantha he said, “That your brothers were servants of that agency is, I think, a coincidence.”

Amirantha nodded. Putting down his wine, he said, “It must be. They would never knowingly work with each other; they were as anxious to kill each other as they were to kill me. Sidi was driven quite mad, and Belasco was…less mad, but certainly not sane.”

“Which tells me this evil agency you speak of, Father,” said Magnus, “draws to it those inclined toward dark madness.”

“You can’t cheat an honest man,” said Jim Dasher.

“What?” asked Gulamendis.