What concerned young King Kheva, however, was not so much random disasters as it was the fact that his friend Unrak had been invited to participate while he had not. The injustice of mat rankled. The fact that he was a king seemed to automatically exclude him from anything that could even remotely be considered hazardous. Everyone went out of his way to keep Kheva safe and secure, but Kheva did not want to be kept safe and secure. Safety and security were boring, and Kheva was at an age where he would go to any lengths to avoid boredom.

Clad all in red, he made his way through the marble halls of the palace in Boktor that winter morning. He stopped in front of a large tapestry and made some show of examining it. Then, at least relatively sure that no one was watching—this was Drasnia, after all—he slipped behind the tapestry and into the small closet previously mentioned.

His mother was conferring with the Nadrak girl Vella and with Yarblek, Prince Kheldar's shabby partner. Vella always made King Kheva nervous. She aroused certain feelings in him with which he was not yet prepared to cope, and so he customarily avoided her. Yarblek, on the other hand, could be quite amusing. His speech was blunt and often colorful and laced with oaths Kheva was not supposed to know the meaning of.

"They'll turn up, Porenn," Yarblek was assuring Kheva's mother. "Barak just got bored, that's all."

"I wouldn't be so concerned if he'd gotten bored by himself," Queen Porenn replied, "but the fact that this boredom seems to be an epidemic worries me. Barak's companions aren't the most stable men in the world."

"I've met them." Yarblek grunted. "You might just be right." He paced up and down for a moment. "I'll have our people keep an eye out for them."

"Yarblek, I've got the finest intelligence service in the world."

"Perhaps so, Porenn, but Silk and I have more men than you do, and we've got offices and warehouses in places Javelin hasn't even heard of." He looked at Vella. "Do you want to go back to Gar og Nadrak with me?" he asked.

"In the wintertime?" Porenn objected.

"We'll just wear more clothes, that's all." Yarblek shrugged.

"What are you going to do there?" Vella asked. "I'm not really very interested in sitting around listening to you talk business."

"I thought we'd go to Yar Nadrak. Javelin's people don't seem to be having much luck finding out what Drosta's up to." He broke off and looked speculatively at Queen Porenn. "Unless they've picked up something lately I haven't heard about yet," he added.

"Would I keep secrets from you, Yarblek?" she asked with mock innocence.

"Probably, yes. If you've got something, Porenn, share it with me. I don't want to make the trip for nothing, and Yar Nadrak's a miserable place in the winter."

"Nothing yet," she replied seriously.