Midnight Tides & The Bonehunters - By Steven Erikson Page 0,29

one wall and found the King's Sorceror behind it, perched on a stool. A tilted table with a level bottom shelf was at the man's side, cluttered with discs of polished glass.

'Your step has changed, Finadd,' Kuru Qan said, 'since becoming the King's Champion.'

'I was not aware of that, Ceda.'

Kuru Qan spun on his seat and raised a strange object before his face. Twin lenses of glass, bound in place side by side with wire. The Ceda's broad, prominent features were made even more so by a magnifying effect from the lenses. Kuru Qan set the object against his face, using ties to bind it so that the lenses sat before his eyes, making them huge as he blinked up at Brys.

'You are as I imagined you. Excellent. The blur diminishes in importance. Clarity ascends, achieving preeminence among all the important things. What I hear now matters less than what I see. Thus, perspective shifts. The world changes. Important, Finadd. Very important.'

'Those lenses have given you vision? That is wonderful, Ceda!'

'The key was in seeking a solution that was the antithesis of sorcery. Looking upon the Empty Hold stole my sight, after all. I could not effect correction through the same medium. Not yet important, this detail. Pray indeed it never becomes so.'

Ceda Kuru Qan never held but one discourse at any one time. Or so he had explained it once. While many found this frustrating, Brys was ever charmed.

'Am I the first to be shown your discovery, Ceda?'

'You would see its importance more than most. Swordsman, dancing with place, distance and timing, with all the material truths. I need to make adjustments.' He snatched the contraption off and hunched over it, minuscule tools flicking in his deft hands. 'You were in the First Eunuch's chamber of office. Not an altogether pleasing conversation for you. Unimportant, for the moment.'

'I am summoned to the throne room, Ceda.'

'True. Not entirely urgent. The Preda would have you present .. . shortly. The First Eunuch enquired after your eldest brother?'

Brys sighed.

'I surmised,' Kuru Qan said, glancing up with a broad smile. 'Your unease tainted your sweat. Nifadas is sorely obsessed at the moment.' He set the lenses against his eyes once more. Focused on the Finadd's eyes – disconcerting, since it had never happened before. 'Who needs spies when one's nose roots out all truths?'

'I hope, Ceda, that you do not lose that talent, with this new invention of yours.'

'Ah, see! A swordsman indeed. The importance of every sense is not lost on you! What a measurable delight – here, let me show you.' He slid down from the stool and approached a table, where he poured clear liquid into a translucent beaker. Crouched low to check its level, then nodded. 'Measurable, as I had suspected.' He plucked the beaker from its stand and tossed the contents back, smacking his lips when he was done. 'But it is both brothers who haunt you now.'

'I am not immune to uncertainty.'

'One should hope not! An important admission. When the Preda is done with you – and it shall not be long – return to me. We have a task before us, you and I.'

'Very well, Ceda.'

'Time for some adjustments.' He pulled off the lenses once more. 'For us both,' he added.

Brys considered, then nodded. 'Until later, then, Ceda.'

He made his way from the sorceror's chamber.

Nifadas and Kuru Qan, they stand to one side of King Diskanar. Would that there was no other side.

The throne room was misnamed, in that the king was in the process of shifting the royal seat of power to the Eternal Domicile, now that the leaks in its lofty roof had been corrected. A few trappings remained, including the ancient rug approaching the dais, and the stylized gateway arching over the place where the throne had once stood.

When Brys arrived, only his old commander, Preda Unnutal Hebaz, was present. As always, a dominating figure, no matter how exalted her surroundings. She stood taller than most women, nearly Brys's own height. Fair-skinned, with a burnished cast to her blonde hair yet eyes of a dark hazel, she turned to face him at his approach. In her fortieth year, she was none the less possessed of extraordinary beauty that the weather lines only enhanced.

'Finadd Beddict, you are late.'

'Impromptu audiences with the First Eunuch and the Ceda—'

'We have but a few moments,' she interrupted. 'Take your place along the wall, as would a guard. They might recognize you, or they might assume you are but