Both of them turned toward the sound—a descending plume of blue-orange light filled with swirling Shock waves came down to the desert less than a kilometre away to the south.

“Ahhh, my guest arrives,” Leto said. “I will send you down on my cart, Moneo. Bring only Malky back with you. Tell the Guildsmen this has earned my forgiveness, then send them away.”

“Your for… yes, Lord. But if they have the secret of…”

“They serve my purpose, Moneo. You must do the same. Bring Malky to me.”

Obediently, Moneo went to the cart which lay in shadows at the far side of the aerie chamber. He clambered on it, watched a mouth of night appear in the wall. A landing lip extruded into the night. The cart drifted outward, feather-light, and floated at an angle to the sand beside a Guild lighter which stood upright like a distorted miniature of the Little Citadel’s tower.

Leto watched from the balcony, his front segments lifted slightly to provide him a better viewing angle. His acute eyesight identified the white movement of Moneo standing on the cart in the moonlight. Long-legged Guild servitors came out with a litter which they slid on to the cart, standing there a moment in conversation with Moneo. When they left, Leto closed the cart’s bubble cover and saw moonlight reflected from it. At his beckoning thought, the cart and its burden returned to the landing lip. The Guild lighter lifted in its noisy rumbling while Leto was bringing the cart into the chamber’s lights, closing the entrance behind it. Leto opened the bubble cover. Sand grated beneath him as he rolled to the litter and lifted his front segments to peer in at Malky who lay as though sleeping, lashed into the litter by broad grey elastic bindings. The man’s face was ashen under dark grey hair.

How he has aged, Leto thought.

Moneo stepped down off the cart and looked back at the litter’s occupant. “He is injured, Lord. They wanted to send a medical…”

“They wanted to send a spy.”

Leto studied Malky—the dark wrinkled skin, the sunken cheeks, that sharp nose at such contrast with the rounded oval of his face. The heavy eyebrows had turned almost white. There but for a lifetime of testosterone… yes.

Malky’s eyes opened. Such a shock to find evil in those doe-like brown eyes! A smile twitched Malky’s mouth.

“Lord Leto.” Malky’s voice was little more than a husky whisper. His eyes turned right, focusing on the majordomo. “And Moneo. Forgive me for not rising to the occasion.”

“Are you in pain?” Leto asked.

“Sometimes.” Malky’s eyes moved to study his surroundings. “Where are the houris?”

“I’m afraid I must deny you that pleasure, Malky.”

“Just as well,” Malky husked. “I don’t really feel up to their demands. Those were not houris you sent after me, Leto.”

“They were professional in their obedience to me,” Leto said.

“They were bloody hunters!”

“Anteac was the hunter. My Fish Speakers were merely the clean-up crew.”