Padrigan and Tahr embraced each other and wept, she in the place of his missing wife, he in the place of her missing husband. Kindalana went off into the darkness and then came back to the fire with an armful of her fine garments, which she cast into the flame, to burn into ash for mourning. Abdumasi ran to his mother’s arms and then looked at Tau-indi trembling with some inexpressible grief.

Tau-indi stood there trying to imagine some way in which this was not their doing, the course of the war as selfish and disastrous as their own conduct, the world visiting retaliation on Oriati Mbo for the monstrousness of its young Prince.

Cairdine Farrier whispered, “Tau, Your Highness, there are better ways than war. Please remember, as the news comes bitter, that there are many in Falcrest who would rather trade and teach than fight with you.”

“There are many in the Mbo who would trepan themselves before they forgave this loss,” Tau said, with more grief than bitterness.

“Perhaps,” Farrier said. “Perhaps the Mbo needs to learn how to rid itself of those people. So we may have peace.”

The next day a mob sailed across the lake from Jaro to kill Cairdine Farrier and Cosgrad Torrinde.

And in the chaos there came up Prince Hill a sorcerer, her hands and eyes alight with blue-green uranium power, to cast a spell of ruin. She spoke En Elu Aumor, the tongue of the Cancrioth. Abdumasi Abd witnessed her, and Tau-indi, and the two men of Falcrest. And in that spell all their fates were written: three men to seek that power, and one laman to refuse it and all it represented.

But first, before they could go to their fates, they had to survive that day.

23. The Pithing Needle

23

THE PITHING NEEDLE

THE plan to disappear Baru forever had encountered a complication.

Call me a callous old bitch, but I prefer that my pawns be interchangeable. If one falls off his carriage and dies of a broken spleen I damn well want another ready to take his place. The smaller the conspiracy the more its success hinges on particular people, and people make me nervous. I’ve never known anyone who didn’t compromise themselves somehow. My brother married a royal. I betrayed my brother for it. Heingyl Ri took a Falcresti husband. Even Tain Hu trusted the wrong woman, in the end.

There is no unalloyed good in the world of power. Even a healer has to choose whom to save.

Himu help me if Heingyl Ri refused to divorce Bel Latheman. Himu help me if I had to kill Bel. But Ri had to be ready to wed the Necessary King. There was only one path between the Falcresti quicksand and the jaws of the Stakhieczi, and I needed access to the Stakhieczi royalty to walk Aurdwynn down that path.