Mortirmir frowned at his emperor. “By an order of magnitude,” he said. “Have you tested your powers since we flayed the souls off the Necromancer?” He laughed. “I am like a god. I can be anywhere, do anything. I assume you are the same.”

Gabriel hid a smile. “There are limitations,” he said.

“Really?” Mortirmir said. “Beyond our own ideas of ethics? Really?” He smiled. “I begin to think there are no limitations to mastery, Gabriel. I think that you reach a point at which the horizon is infinite, and there is nothing but will. A place at which we . . . I . . . you . . . become the only defining points in reality.”

“I have had those thoughts since I was thirteen,” Gabriel said. “It’s a fine point of view if you want to justify doing something really excessive.”

Mortirmir slumped. “You mean this is not original?” he asked.

Gabriel thought a moment. “No. It’s just more terrifying from the most puissant mage in the world than it is from most seventeen-year-olds.”

There was a loud snort from behind them, and Bad Tom loomed over them; even on horseback he was bigger than life.

“Any loon can take what he wants,” Tom said. “But then he has to hold it. An’ he has to watch his back. Take a man’s woman; take his land; kill his mother. Aye. See what crop you reap.”

“I’m not talking about force of arms,” Mortirmir said dismissively. “I’m talking about altering reality.”

“I’d hate to think you were takin’ me for a fool, Ser Morgon. Because mayhap I ain’t one, for all my Hillman way of speakin’. And force of arms alters reality. Ask any dead man.” Bad Tom raised both eyebrows.

Mortirmir narrowed his eyes. “Are you threatening me?”

Tom grinned. “Never, lad. Because the difference between us is that if I want you dead, I won’t mention it. I’ll just make you dead.”

“Gentlemen,” Gabriel said brightly.

Mortirmir wasn’t offended. “I wonder,” he said. “Could you kill me?” He raised a hand. “Not a challenge!” he said, and smiled. “Very well. Force of arms alters reality as well. I accept it.”

“So what Tom is saying is that your philosophic revelation is pretty much the reason that chivalry exists,” Gabriel said. “Because every thug with a sword has the ability to alter reality to his own will.”

“Fascinating,” Mortirmir said. He thought for as long as it took them to ride down the eastern face of the ridge, while scouts reported and they watered their horses at a river and waited their turns to cross at the ford. Adrian Goldsmith was drawing the watering spot in charcoal, and Gabriel went and watched him sketch the look of intense concentration on Mortirmir’s face.

Gabriel smiled. “When this is over, you can put a whole series of mosaics into the imperial palace,” he said.