Vash shook his robe free of wrinkles and passed from the room.

The Golden One was reclining on the ceremonial stone bed in the Chamber of the New Sun, naked except for a short kilt decorated with jade tiles. On each side of him a kneeling priest bound the cuts in the autarch’s arms, delicate wounds made only moments earlier by sacred golden shell-knives. The small quantity of royal blood, enough to fill two tiny golden bowls which at the moment were on a tray held by the high priest Panhyssir, would be poured into the Sublime Canal just after sunset to assure the sun’s return from its long winter journey apart from its bride the earth.

Sulepis turned lazily as the soldier Daikonas Vo was led in, cradling his elbow as if it were a sleeping child. The man of Perikal had been wiped clean of blood, but his face and neck were still crisscrossed with raw, scraped flesh.

“I am told you killed a valuable member of my White Hounds,” the autarch said, stretching his arms to test the fit of the bandages. Already tiny blooms of red could be seen through the linen.

“We fought, Master.” Vo shrugged, his gray-green eyes as empty as two spheres of glass. There was nothing notable about him, Vash thought, except his accomplishment. He had forgotten the man’s face in the short time since he had last seen him and would forget it again as soon as the man was gone. “At your request, as I understand it. I won.”

“He cheated,” said the captain of the Leopards angrily. “He broke a floor tile and used it to stab Yaridoras to death.”

“Thank you, Kiliarch Marukh,” said Vash. “You have delivered him and nothing more is required of you. The Golden One will decide what to do with him.”

Suddenly conscious that he was drawing attention to himself in a place where attention was seldom beneficial, Hijam Stoneheart paled a little, then bowed and backed out of the chamber.

“Sit,” said the autarch, surveying the pale-skinned soldier. “Panhyssir, bring us something to drink.”

A strange honor for a mere brawler, to be served by the high priest of Nushash himself, thought Pinimmon Vash. Panhyssir was Vash’s chief rival for the autarch’s time and attention, but it was a contest Vash had lost long ago: the priest and the autarch were close as bats in a roost, always full of secrets, which made it seem all the more odd that the powerful Panhyssir should be carrying drinks like a mere slave.

As the high priest of Nushash moved with careful dignity toward a hidden alcove at the side of the great chamber, one of the autarch’s eunuch servants scuttled up with a stool and placed it so that Daikonas Vo could seat himself within a few yards of the living god. The soldier did so, moving gingerly, as though his wounds from the combat with Yaridoras were inhibiting him. Vash guessed that they must be painful indeed: the man did not seem the type to show weakness easily.