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‘Every year fewer of
us wake from the winter. We are all that remain. A few more winters will pass,
and we will sleep also. There will be none of us left to answer your call.’
    Logen nodded sadly. ‘Any news from the world?’
    ‘We heard a man fell off a cliff but washed up alive,
then crossed the High Places at the start of spring, wrapped in a rotten
blanket, but we put no faith in such rumours.’
    ‘Very wise.’
    ‘Bethod has been making war,’ said the spirit in the
centre.
    Logen frowned. ‘Bethod is always making war. That’s
what he does.’
    ‘Yes. He has won so many fights now, with your help,
he has given himself a golden hat.’
    ‘Shit on that bastard,’ said Logen, spitting into the
fire. ‘What else?’
    ‘North of the mountains, the Shanka run around and
burn things.’
    ‘They love the fire,’ said the spirit in the centre.
    ‘They do,’ said the one on the left, ‘even more than
your kind, Ninefingers. They love and fear it.’ The spirit leaned forwards. ‘We
heard there is a man seeking for you in the moors to the south.’
    ‘A powerful man,’ said the one in the centre.
    ‘A Magus of the Old Time,’ the one on the left.
    Logen frowned. He’d heard of these Magi. He met a
sorcerer once, but he’d been easy to kill. No unnatural powers in particular,
not that Logen had noticed. But a Magus was something else.
    ‘We heard that the Magi are wise and strong,’ said the
spirit in the centre, ‘and that such a one could take a man far and show him
many things. But they are crafty too, and have their own purposes.’
    ‘What does he want?’
    ‘Ask him.’ Spirits cared little for the business of
men, they were always weak on the details. Still, this was better than the
usual talk about trees.
    ‘What will you do, Ninefingers?’
    Logen considered a moment. ‘I will go south and find
this Magus, and ask him what he wants from me.’
    The spirits nodded. They didn’t show whether they
thought it was a good idea or bad. They didn’t care.
    ‘Farewell then, Ninefingers,’ said the spirit on the
right, ‘perhaps for the last time.’
    ‘I’ll try to struggle on without you.’
    Logen’s wit was wasted on them. They rose and moved
away from the fire, fading gradually into the darkness. Soon they were gone,
but Logen had to admit they had been more use than he dared to hope. They had
given him a purpose.
    He would head south in the morning, head south and
find this Magus. Who knew? He might be a good talker. Had to be better than
being shot full of arrows for nothing, at least. Logen looked into the flames,
nodding slowly to himself.
    He remembered other times and other campfires, when he
had not been alone.

Playing
With Knives
     
    I t was a beautiful spring day in
Adua, and the sun shone pleasantly through the branches of the aromatic cedar,
casting a dappled shade on the players beneath. A pleasing breeze fluttered
through the courtyard, so the cards were clutched tightly or weighted down with
glasses or coins. Birds twittered from the trees, and the shears of a gardener
clacked across from the far side of the lawn, making faint, agreeable echoes
against the tall white buildings of the quadrangle. Whether or not the players
found the large sum of money in the centre of the table pleasant depended, of
course, on the cards they held.
    Captain Jezal dan Luthar certainly liked it. He had
discovered an uncanny talent for the game since he gained his commission in the
King’s Own, a talent which he had used to win large sums of money from his
comrades. He didn’t really need the money, of course, coming from such a wealthy
family, but it had allowed him to maintain an illusion of thrift while spending
like a sailor. Whenever Jezal went home, his father bored everyone on the subject
of his good fiscal planning, and had rewarded him by buying his Captaincy just
six months ago. His brothers had not been happy. Yes, the money was certainly
useful, and there’s nothing half so