“O Greatest of Lights,” Jureem said, “I must argue with you. The messenger’s demeanor clearly indicated that this, too, was a lie. Orden must be a fool, to send such a poor liar on such an errand!”

“It is not the messenger’s demeanor that convinced me,” Raj Ahten said. “I felt a dizziness at dawn. Virtue left me. Many hundreds of Dedicates died, and their endowments are lost. Of that I am sure.”

To lose so many endowments was a deep blow, a fearsome cut. Yet it did not terrify Jureem. In distant lands to the south, Raj Ahten’s facilitators worked assiduously to find new Dedicates for him. These were men with great glamour and powers of Voice, who could lure others into Raj Ahten’s service, put the forcibles to them. Raj Ahten was in a constant state of flux, gaining in strength and wit and glamour and stamina at an astonishing rate. Jureem no longer knew how many thousands served as his lord’s Dedicates. He knew only that his lord grew in power, day by day. Jureem could not yet see what his lord would become, when he became the Sum of All Men.

But this morning he had suffered a blow.

In a day or two, Raj Ahten’s occupying armies would arrive, a hundred thousand strong, and lay siege. Orden could not have anticipated so large an occupying force.

At the same time, three armies would enter the kingdom of Orwynne to the west, and King Theros Val Orwynne, upon seeing that he was caught in a vise, would have little choice but to either surrender or dig in for a siege. He would not be able to send aid to Orden in Longmot.

Meanwhile, saboteurs in Fleeds had begun poisoning the grain stock to the stables of High King Connel, preventing the horse clans from mounting their fierce cavalry attacks.

No, Orden had to be terrified. So he was sending this little yapping messenger to bark at Raj Ahten.

“Perhaps,” Jureem said, “Orden has taken Longmot, but he cannot hold it.” Yet if Raj Ahten was right, if Longmot had fallen, and this messenger had managed to feign dishonesty through his whole speech, was it yet possible that in every matter he had spoken the truth?

Now Raj Ahten said the thing Jureem dreaded most. “Do we have a spy in our midst?”

Jureem considered, could see no other way to explain how Orden had known that Raj Ahten planned to attack Heredon. Nor could Orden have known about the forcibles hidden in Longmot, or known that the garrison was undermanned.

Immediately, Jureem worried that he himself might have been the problem. Had he spoken of these things to any of his lovers? Had he spoken before any servants or strangers? A careless word to the wrong person?