"So, you chose to stay," Cassa said, returning with a platter of spiced meats, unleavened currant bread and a bowl of sun-roasted nuts. "Can I tempt you with some more sva akem?" Tan pulled a face. "Complimentative as ever. Well, besides water, it's all I have. My apologies it is not to your taste. I hope my food suits you better."

Tan had already sunk his teeth into a peppered sand-fowl leg and he watched as the guard leisurely stripped the bone of its meat with a small, brass knife.

"I see your table etiquette has improved with your status," Tan said through his food.

Cassa blinked at him slowly. "I see yours is still as disgusting. Your mother leads a pack of wolves, it seems. Though your Farban tongue is rather good. Do you still practice?"

"Yes."

"Even in green Almysia?"

"'Bout that," Tan muttered, spooning a handful of nuts into his mouth, "I don't live there. I don't live anywhere."

"You must have somewhere you are based? Somewhere you keep your belongings?"

"Mostly on my person, but you could say I spend a good portion of my time looking for opportunities in Odeis."

"The city of scholars?" Cassa replied incredulously. "How do you find it? Do you understand any of their science?"

"A little," Tan shrugged. "But the way they obsess over it... Been out in the sun too long and drank the seawater, I think."

Cassa raised an eyebrow. "Tandei, jokes aside: Odeis is a continent apart from the forests, with Farba the warden between them. Why would you choose to flee in the opposite direction of your birthplace? Your home?"

Tan grabbed another leg, tore off the skin and slurped it. "Cassa, I want nothing more in this world than to go home to my tribe. I want to feel welcomed somewhere at last, and not hated - judged - for everything I do. I want to live comfortably and unafraid of being myself, but you know I can't just do that. Besides, the forests would have been my obvious destination. I felt Odeis would be safer."

"Understandable, yet the Western Wastes teem with ghûls of late. I should know; I hunt them." Cassa refilled his cup. "Tell me, why would you come back here at such terrible times? You heard about the mass ghûl attack, didn't you?"

"Yes, but Odeis will never put its trust in kuzoroism, and shuns it even when conventional medicine fails. Farba'al Mar relies on sorcery. I've seen the posters; you can't miss them. You only need walk the streets five minutes to understand how the Rera Kuzorocari is loved like a father and worshipped like a king. I felt there was more hope of finding what I sought, here."

"And what is that?"

"My nephew in Odeis is dying, my friend. His mother begged me to come all the way out here to find some way of reversing it."

"Nephew? But your family live in the forests - "

"People don't have to be blood to be your family. He's my nephew in name only. I owe Shara for my life and the least I can do is save her little boy's."

Cassa scratched his whiskered chin. "What happened to him?"

"He was one of victims mauled by a great winged beast when it swooped down on the plateau less than a month ago. Cassa, ghûls that far west of their desert haunt are unheard of. That's what made it so terrifying. Soldiers brought it sailing to the ground with their flaming catapults, but it recovered in a matter of seconds and took to the air again. Now the Odeise are almost as unsettled as the High Farbans, living in fear of that monster haunting the skies at night. Phaladri lies wailing in a cot and his skin turns stiffer and bloodier by the day. Six people have already died and the doctors can do nothing more for him."

"He's cursed."

Tan nodded. "It's horrific. We already fear the curse has seeped beneath the skin. If it reaches his organs ... his heart ..."

"Will die," Cassa finished. Tan didn't thank the guard for saying it.

"If I return without a means of curing her son, Shara will never be able to look me in the eye again. I don't want to ruin the closest thing I have to love."

"I'm truly sorry to hear of your hardships, Tandei. You'll find those learned in all disciplines of sorcery, here, but it is the healers and masters of potionlore that you seek. I can help you obtain what you need. Money is no obstacle."

"I suppose I should thank you."

"Anything I can do to help. Although ... now you've explained the real reason for your visit, I need to know: why the charade? It was appalling."

Tan tugged at his clothing. "Look at me, Cassa. Do I look like a man who can afford a remedy or a healer?" He paused and watched Cassa's eyes glance at the milk urn by the front door. His old friend looked back to him and his expression darkened; the shadows on his face deepening.

"You took it? You stole it from somewhere?"

"The fool practically handed it to me. I don't have four thousand marakgel to spend on swill."

"So you're a thief."

"Yes, I'm a thief. Disappointed? But now you know my story, do you still wish to hold me captive? Phaladri is dying. I'm desperate."

"I swore vows to the Brotherhood of Four, Tandei. Theft is punishable by death - I can't change the laws."

"You'd truly stand and watch me perish? You would sleep at night knowing that a child in Odeis dies painfully and slowly, and that his mother's heart would wither with grief for the loss of us both?"

"I'd do it myself."

"You've only just found me alive."

"You're better than this ... this thieving!"

"And I suppose since you're patrolling the citadel with your head up your own arse that poaching is legal now? You're no model citizen, Cassa, the law needs only look into your life to convict you. All they need is an anonymous tip-off."

"You wouldn't."

"I do what I have to, nowadays. We're at a stalemate and I'd say we both have a lot to lose."

"Don't blackmail me."

"Then don't offer me to my executioners. I go down, so do you."

"You would punish me for doing my job?"

"Without a second thought."

Cassa hmph-ed and maintained eye contact. Tan mirrored him. "I can't believe I'm saying this, but I've already grieved for you for six years. Nor do I want to wind up in the Hold with you, so I will hear no more accusations of poaching."

Tan almost laughed in the face of it. "And I'm absolutely not a thief," he said.

Cassa closed his eyes a while, evaluating his options. Clearly he found no humour in Tan's comment. "Listen close. You will find a way to transport the cure to your nephew and see that it arrives safely, but I shall not permit your permanent leave of Farba'al Mar under commencements two and fourteen of the Decree of Theft. Consider it punishment for your crime in my city -"

"Your city?" Tan spat.

"Let me finish. Consider this: If you slip between my fingers I will publicise that Tandei Sol still lives, and I'll inform the Oval Court first. Oh, I'm sure the news would be of interest to higher authority than me. General Jaikham will see to your arrest. He'll have you hunted until the day you die. You knew the perils of coming back here and I certainly don't wish to have to expose you."

Tan threw his food down onto the platter. "I knew the risks," he retorted, "but the sooner I got here the sooner I could leave. Why do you wish me to stay? What does that even matter to you?"

The muscles in Cassa's jaw tensed and twitched as he chose his words. "I'll lay my cards on the table," he replied after a while. "Say I let you send this cure to your nephew: you have saved a life thanks to me and repaid the debt to the woman you seem to hold so dear. After that you remain here under my supervision and pay back the good will. Understood? There are bigger things afoot than the curse inflicted on the child - bigger than the ghûls. Has the news reached as far as Odeis?"

"I travel. I wouldn't know."

"Tandei, Dia Taleem passed away over a year ago."

"The empress? That's old news, my friend."

"Quite. She was elderly, but neither her health nor longevity concerned anyone. Following her death, Farba'al Mar suffered weeks of melancholy, and now we are faced with yet more. There have been dreadful stirrings in the palace since ... well, I don't quite know how to say this ... Do you know who rules in her stead?"

From the tone of Cassa's voice Tan could only assume the answer was someone unpleasant. "Prince Yussephe of Dartam?"

"Fates be good! If only. Tandei, Rera Dashaan claimed the throne mere days after her final breath."

His heart curled into a ball. "What? No. That's impossible!"

"Impossible indeed, and yet this is our reality. You've seen the posters around the city. Like a king, you say? Try an emperor. Not only is he the head of the Order of Kuzorocari, but now the overseer of the citadel and the entire Farban Empire. This man controls half the damn desert by his own appointment. The continent does not need another power-hungry sorcerer. Especially - Fates forbid it - one like him. Self-congratulating, spineless worm. He was a Rakhai noble, not a prince -"

But Tan had stopped listening. He shuddered and felt the blood drain from his face for so many more reasons than Cassa's news alone. For years he'd had nightmares about Rera Dashaan Zigiera, and had collapsed on an Odeise street after he'd been informed Farba's most treasured grand sorcerer still lived following the ordeal six years ago. This news was almost as bad. "I think I feel sick," Tan muttered. Dashaan could never know Tan was still alive, too.

Never.

What the hell am I doing here?