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should have seen him, flirting with the merchants’ daughters like some sort of Inning prince. For that’s what he was, you know: a weakling corrupted by the Innings.”
    “No!” Spaeth interrupted. “He knew nothing of the Innings.”
    Agave turned on her. “You’re wrong. He was raised in the Governor’s family at Tornabay, back when the Governor was still an Inning, before Tiarch arose. It was clever and cruel of them, to try and corrupt the child who was the very soul of the Isles. The rest of us could only watch, and feel our hearts ache.”
    “But it didn’t work,” Spaeth said.
    “Didn’t it? Then why, when they set him free, didn’t he come here to Lashnish, to take up his responsibilities? No, he went off somewhere to soak in his carnal pleasures, while the land cried out in need.”
    Listening, Nathaway could easily reconstruct the situation in his mind: at the time Agave spoke of, after the battle of Sandhaven, Goth had been a political pawn, prisoner of the people who had killed his father. What could have been more natural than to mimic them? What better way to camouflage himself, than to appear feckless and irresponsible? But he had clearly alienated an orthodox faction of his own people.
    “And now,” Agave said, “there he is, back in Tornabay, collaborating with the Innings again.”
    “He is not collaborating,” Spaeth said hotly. “He is their prisoner, and it is nearly killing him. I know nothing about what happened years ago, but you are wrong about what is happening now.”
    “And what do you know about it?” Agave said, her demanding gaze on Spaeth.
    “I saw him ten days ago,” Spaeth said. “It was when he told us to come here, because he could not.”
    Agave paused at this, arrested by some thought. She looked at Auster; his eyebrows rose quizzically. “He told you that?” Agave said.
    “Yes,” Spaeth said. “We were to find the Isonstone.”
    “Tell me,” Agave said slowly, “did he give you anything? Some sort of talisman?”
    Spaeth shook her head. “No, nothing.”
    “What kind of talisman?” Nathaway said suddenly.
    Agave seemed to notice him for the first time. “Something ancient,” she said. “A token.”
    “Something like this?” Nathaway pulled at the string around his neck, and brought out the green stone pendant Goth had given him.
    The effect on the two Lashnurai was electric. They both gave involuntary exclamations and started toward it. Auster reached out, but pulled back without touching the stone. He looked at Agave, and there was strain in his voice. “Is it the real thing?”
    “Bring me a lamp,” she said, and he hurried to fetch one. She bent close then, but looked to Nathaway. “May I touch it?”
    “Yes, of course,” he said.
    She took it reverently in her hands as Auster held the lamp close. She examined first one side, then the other, then sighed, returning it to Nathaway. She straightened, looking at Auster.
    “What is it?” Nathaway asked.
    The Grey Lady’s voice was tensely controlled. “It is called the Emerald Tablet,” she said. “An ancient artefact of Alta.”
    He looked at it. “Is it really emerald?”
    “That is what the records say.” She seemed about to go on, but stopped herself. “Only the Heir of Gilgen may possess it. It has been passed down for generations from one Heir to the next.”
    Auster’s eyes on him were grave. “Son, are you sure he meant to give it to you?”
    Self-consciously, Nathaway glanced at Spaeth; she was watching curiously. “I asked him if it was for Spaeth,” he said. “He said no, I shouldn’t give it away to anyone.”
    “And you had no idea what it meant?” Auster said.
    “No,” Nathaway said. “I still don’t. Why would he give it to me? Obviously, I’m no Heir of Gilgen.”
    Once again, Auster and Agave exchanged a look. It seemed as if far more were going on between them than Nathaway could catch. Agave’s face was stern with anger. “That fool,” she said in a