‘I’m getting too old to be climbing stairs in full armour,’ Sparhawk puffed when they were about half-way up.

‘You’re out of condition, Sparhawk,’ Khalad told his lord bluntly. ‘You’re spending too much time on your backside talking about politics.’

‘It’s part of my job, Khalad.’

They reached the door at the top of the stairs. ‘You’d better let me go in first,’ Sparhawk murmured, sliding his sword out of its scabbard. Then he reached out and pushed the door open.

A shabby-looking man sat at a wooden table in the centre of the room, his face lit by a single candle. Sparhawk knew him. The years of hard drinking had not been kind to Krager. His hair had thinned even more in the six or so years since Sparhawk had last seen him, and the puffy pouches under his eyes were even more pronounced. The eyes themselves, nearsighted and watery, were discoloured and seemed to be overlaid with a kind of yellow stain. The hand in which he held his wine-cup palsied, and a continual tic shuddered in his right cheek.

Sparhawk moved without even stopping to think. He levelled his sword at Martel’s threadbare former underling and lunged.

There was no feeling of resistance as the sword plunged into Krager’s chest and emerged from his back.

Krager flinched violently, and then he laughed in his rusty, drink-corroded voice. ‘God, that’s a startling experience!’ he said conversationally. ‘I could almost feel the blade running through me. Put your sword away, Sparhawk. You can’t hurt me with it.’

Sparhawk pulled the sword out of Krager’s substantial-appearing body and swept it back and forth through the man’s head.

‘Please don’t do that, Sparhawk,’ Krager said, closing his eyes. ‘It’s really very unnerving, you know.’

‘My compliments to your magician, Krager,’ Sparhawk said flatly. ‘That’s really a very convincing illusion. You look so real that I can almost smell you.’

‘I see that we’re going to be civilised about this,’ Krager said, taking a drink of his wine. ‘Good. You’re growing up, Sparhawk. Ten years ago, you’d have chopped the room into kindling before you’d have finally been willing to listen to reason.’

‘Magic?’ Khalad asked Sparhawk.

Sparhawk nodded. ‘And fairly sophisticated too. Actually Krager’s sitting in a room a mile or more away from here. Someone’s projecting his image into this tower. We can see him and hear him, but we can’t touch him.’

‘Pity,’ Khalad murmured, fingering the hilt of his heavy dagger.

‘You’ve really been very clever this time, Sparhawk,’ Krager said. ‘Age seems to be improving you – like a good wine.’

‘You’re the expert on that, Krager.’

‘Petty, Sparhawk. Very petty.’ Krager smirked. ‘Before you engage in an orgy of self-congratulation, though, you ought to know that this was just another of those tests a friend of mine mentioned to you a while back. I told my associates all about you, but they wanted to see for themselves. We arranged a few entertainments for you so that you could demonstrate your prowess – and your limitations. The catapults definitely confused the Cyrgai, and your mounted tactics against the Trolls were almost brilliant. You also did remarkably well in an urban setting here in Matherion. You really surprised me on that score, Sparhawk. You caught on to our sign and counter-sign much faster than I’d thought you would, and you intercepted the message about the warehouse in a remarkably short period of time. That Dacite merchant only had to walk through town three times before your spy stole the note from him. I’d have expected you to fail miserably when faced with a conspiracy instead of an army in the field. My congratulations.’

‘You’ve been drinking for too many years, Krager. Your memory’s starting to slip. You’re forgetting what happened in Chyrellos during the election. As I recall, we countered just about every one of the schemes Martel and Annias cooked up there as well.’

‘That wasn’t really a very great accomplishment, Sparhawk. Martel and Annias weren’t really very challenging opponents. I tried to tell them that their plots weren’t sophisticated enough, but they wouldn’t listen. Martel was too busy thinking about the treasure-rooms under the Basilica, and Annias was so blinded by the Archprelate’s mitre that he couldn’t see anything else. You really missed your chance there, Sparhawk. I’ve always been your most serious opponent. You had me right in your hands, and you let me go just for the sake of a few crumbs of information and some exaggerated testimony before the Hierocracy. Very poor thinking there, old boy.’

‘This evening’s festivities weren’t really designed to succeed then, I gather?’

‘Of course not, Sparhawk. If we’d really wanted to take Matherion, we’d have brought in whole armies.’

‘I’m sure there’s a point to all this,’ Sparhawk said to the illusion. ‘Do you suppose we could step right along? I’ve had a tiring day.’

‘The tests have all been designed to oblige you to commit your resources, Sparhawk. We needed to know what kinds of responses you had at your command.’

‘You haven’t seen them all yet, Krager – not by half.’

‘Khalad, isn’t it?’ Krager said to Sparhawk’s squire. ‘Tell your master that he should practise a bit more before he tries lying. He’s really not very convincing – oh, convey my regards to your mother. She and I always got on well.’

‘I sort of doubt that,’ Khalad replied.

‘Be realistic, Sparhawk,’ Krager went on. ‘Your wife and daughter are here. Do you really expect me to believe that you’d hold anything back if you thought they were in danger?’

‘We used what was necessary, Krager. You don’t have to send out a whole regiment to step on a bug.’

‘You’re so much like Martel was, Sparhawk,’ Krager observed. ‘You two could almost have been brothers. I used to despair of ever nursing him through his adolescence. He was a hopeless innocent when he started out, you know. About all he had was a towering resentment – directed primarily at you and Vanion – and at Sephrenia, of course, although to a lesser degree. I had to raise him from virtual infancy. God, the hours I spent patiently grinding away all those knightly virtues.’

‘Reminisce on your own time, Krager. Get to the point. Martel’s history now. This is a new situation, and he’s not around any more.’