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assassins of Spikatur Hunting Sword had murdered him.
    I felt that a new wave of terror would be unleashed, that this new leader the Spikatur adherents had acquired, this dark unknown, would bring down all that we had been struggling to achieve.
    Once, I had seen Spikatur as a potent if suspect weapon in the struggle against Hamal. Now that weapon was being turned against the very people who had emerged successfully from the fight against Hamal — the Hamal represented by mad Empress Thyllis — and against innocent people who stood aloof from the conflict. This did make sense. But in the context of Kregen and the future we all faced in dealing with the marauding Shanks, the sense was completely overshadowed by the greater sense of mutual preservation and freedom.
    “Cheer up, my old dom,” quoth Seg as we emerged into the glorious twinned rays of the Suns of Scorpio. “Now this fresh air after those dungeons gives me an appetite.”
    “Capital,” I said, and off we went to find our second breakfast.
    Not in the mood for one of those huge festive meals of Kregen, Seg and I bade a temporary farewell to Nedfar and took ourselves off to our private rooms. There we ate well, quaffed good Kregen tea, and discussed just what we planned to do.
    As usual, Seg took up the latest stave on which he was practicing his magic. In due time that stave would become a superb bowstave. There is, as I have said before and will no doubt say again, no finer archer in all Kregen than Seg Segutorio. His face was intent as he worked.
    “And you plan to take off, leave all this high life, tramp off into the wilderness?”
    “If fate takes me that way. Otherwise, I plan a little jaunt to a few places I know where one may come by some action, a few drinks, good food and a lot of laughs—”
    “You will go alone?”
    “Only if you elect not to come.”
    He looked up quickly, and the fey blueness of his eyes struck like daggered lightning through a black overcast. He smiled. He gave the stave a tremendous buffet so that it spun around and around.
    “The elections have just taken place,” he said.
    So that was all right.
    Then whiskery Rubin stuck his head around the door and bellowed.
    Rubin, incidentally, like so many of my old swods, was a Zan Deldar and would, at his own request, remain so. Not for him the escalation of the dizzy heights. He could become a Hikdar, the next rank up, at once, should he so wish. It would not be long before he was a Jiktar. It would take a little longer, a matter of a decade, if no one got massacred too recklessly, before he made Chuktar. But for whiskery Rubin, being a Deldar, and a Zan Deldar, the top of the tree at that, was ambition, reward and pleasure enough.
    “Majister! Hamdi the Yenakker craves audience.”
    “Show him in, Rubin, please.” I glanced across sharply. “You have been on duty a long time.”
    “Aye, majister. Standing in for young Long Wil, who has a twisted shoulder.”
    “Oh?”
    Rubin looked evasive. The magnificence of his uniform was entirely superficial. All the gold and braids and feathers would not interfere with his sword arm. But he did look splendid. His medals — the bobs — on his chest glittered.
    “Fell, majister, twisted his shoulder.”
    Far be it from me to inquire further. But, just to be devilish and to let my swods know I wasn’t senile yet, I walked across, digging out a gold zan-deldy piece. This I placed in the horny palm of Rubin.
    “Puggled, winner or loser. You will know, Zan Deldar Rubin, who deserves this acknowledgment from me.”
    “Aye, majister, may the glory of Opaz shine on us all.”
    He stiffened up into attention. On Kregen it could not be ramrod attention; but he stiffened up as straight as one of Seg’s best shafts. His face, brown and lined and like a chunk of that hard stone they can never seem to break under a year’s hard labor in distant Shalasfreel, betrayed nothing. If Long Wil had been in a fight, his comrades would see to it