Gyir slowly nodded. Pointless? Likely. It will take preparation and luck, and even so we will probably gain nothing but a violent death—but at least the death will be of our own choosing, and that is worth more than a little. However, first I must find the serpentine, and think of a way to lay my hands on it.

The what? Barrick did not recognize the idea that went with the snaky word-picture—a trail of fire, a sudden expansion like a pig’s bladder too full of air. What do you mean?

Gyir paused for a moment as if listening. I spoke of it before. The burning black sand, the Fire of Kupilas. Ah, Ferras Vansen reminds me that your people call it “gun-flour.”

Gun-flour? How would we get our hands on such stuff, locked in this cell? demanded Barrick. Might as well ask for a bombard or a troop of musketeers while we’re at it—we won’t get any of them.

They are using the swift-burning serpentine in the earth below us every day, Gyir told him. They pack it into the cracks and speed their digging that way, by smashing apart the stones. It is here in Greatdeeps, somewhere. We have only to find it, and steal some.

And then fly away like birds, said Barrick. How will we do any of those things? We are prisoners, don’t you realize? Prisoners!

Gyir shook his head. No, child. You are only a prisoner when you surrender.

32

Remembering Simmikin

The renegade gods Zmeos the Horned One and Zuriyal the Merciless (who was his sister and wife) were banished to the same Unbeing which had swallowed Sveros, father of all, and for a while peace reigned on heavenly Xandos. Mesiya, the wife of Kernios, left him to shepherd the moon in the place of dead Khors, and Kernios generously took Zoria to be his wife, caring little what dishonor she had suffered.

—from The Beginnings of Things
The Book of the Trigon

IT WAS ODD, BRIONY REFLECTED, how much traveling with a troop of players was like going on a royal progress. In each town you stopped for a night and entertained the locals to keep them sweet, pretending as though you had never been in a more delightful place until they were safely behind you, then complaining about the take and the poor quality of local food and lodgings.

The main difference between this journey and her father’s occasional jaunts through the March Kingdoms was that as part of the king’s progress you stood a smaller chance of having stale vegetables thrown at you if the local citizens didn’t like the way you spoke your piece. That, and the royal faction brought along enough armed guards that no one cheated anyone too obviously.

Tonight, this thought occurred to her with some force. Although the hour was long past midnight, instead of sharing a comfortable hayloft or even a spare tavern room, they were making their way along a rutted roadway through southernmost Kertewall in a drenching rain. It had turned out that the keeper of Hallia Fair’s biggest tavern, which they had just left, was also the brother of the local reeve, and when he had claimed that the Makewell troop had cheated him on the takings from the night’s performance—although Pedder Makewell’s sister Estir swore it was the other way around—they got no support from the reeve and his men, and in fact were stripped of an even larger pile of coin than the innkeeper had claimed in the first place. Thus, here they were, poor and hungry again despite an evening’s hard work, soaking wet in the middle of the night as they trudged off in search of a town more congenial to the playmaking arts.