Hairlock jumped, then whirled to her. 'You hold on this?' he raged. 'You hold on the Fool? The second card? Absurd! Play on, woman!'

'No,' Tattersail replied, sweeping the two cards into her hands and returning them to the Deck. 'I've chosen to hold. And there's nothing you can do about it.' She rose.

'Bitch! I can kill you in the blink of an eye! Here and now!'

'Fine,' Tattersail said. 'A good excuse for missing Tayschrenn's debriefing. By all means proceed, Hairlock.' Crossing her arms, she waited.

The marionette snarled. 'No,' he said. 'I have need of you. And you despise Tayschrenn even more than I.' He cocked his head, reconsidering his last words, then barked a laugh. 'Thus I am assured there will be no betrayal.'

Tattersail thought about that. 'You are right,' she said. She turned and walked to the tent flap. Her hand closed on the rough canvas, then she stopped. 'Hairlock, how well can you hear?'

'Well enough,' the marionette growled behind her.

'Do you hear anything, then?' A spinning coin?

'Camp sounds, is all. Why, what do you hear?'

Tattersail smiled. Without answering she pulled aside the tent flap and went outside. As she headed towards the command tent, a strange hope sang through her.

She'd never held Oponn as an ally. Calling on luck in anything was sheer idiocy. The first House she had placed, Darkness, touched her hand ice-cold, loud with the crashing waves of violence and power run amok – and yet an odd flavour there, something like salvation. The Knight could be enemy or ally, or more likely neither. Just out there, unpredictable, self-absorbed. But Oponn rode the warrior's shadow, leaving House Dark tottering on the edge, suspended in a place between night and day. More than anything else, it had been Oponn's spinning coin that had demanded her choice to hold.

Hairlock heard nothing. Wonderful.

Even now, as she approached the command tent, the faint sound continued in her head, as it would for some time, she believed. The coin spun, and spun. Oponn whirled two faces to the cosmos, but it was the Lady's bet. Spin on, silver. Spin on.

CHAPTER THREE

Thelomen Tartheno Tobbkai...

find the names of a people

so reluctant to fade

into oblivion ...

Their legend rots

ray cynical cast and blights

my eyes with bright glory ...

'Cross not the loyal cage

embracing their unassailable heart...

... Cross not these stolid menhirs,

ever loyal to the earth.'

Thelomen Tartheno Toblakai...

Still standing, these towering pillars

mar the gelid scape

of my mind ...

Gothos' Folly (11.iv)

Gothos (b.?)

The imperial trireme carved the deep-sea troughs like a relentless axe-blade, sails stretched and spars creaking under the steady wind. Captain Ganoes Paran remained in his cabin. He had long since grown tired of scanning the eastern horizon for the first sighting of land. It would come, and it would come soon.

He leaned against the sloping wall opposite his bunk, watching the lanterns sway and idly tossing his dagger into the lone table's centre pole, which was now studded with countless tiny holes.