Surrender to the Will of the Night - By Glen Cook Page 0,181

weren’t possessed by the Night. We kept all that at bay.”

“I did? I died?”

“I thought you understood that.”

“I … No. I thought …”

“Don’t you go getting silly, too. There’s nothing different about you. A lot of people have been gone much longer than you were. They came back untouched. Will you still be here tomorrow night?”

“Probably. I don’t have the manpower to take this much farther. An unexpected diplomatic success could change things, though.”

“See you tomorrow night, then.”

* * *

An unexpected diplomatic success occurred. The high roads of Firaldia swarmed with messengers, Imperial and Patriarchal. On the Imperial side the news they carried was good. The nearest Imperial cities quickly affirmed their support for the Empress. Several nearby Patriarchal dependents volunteered to stay out of the squabble. “Promises written on air,” Titus Consent observed. “They’ll turn on us if Serenity has any success.”

“Of course. That’s Firaldian politics. They’ll never change.”

“Unless a strongman comes along and ends it.”

“Someone strong and long-lived. Johannes might have managed if he’d survived al-Khazen.”

Consent shrugged. “He did, we’d be on the other side, here.”

“No doubt.”

“I’m thinking Johannes’s offspring might have what it takes, too. If it interests them. If they have the drive.”

“Meaning?”

“Katrin and Helspeth are both capable of making the tough decisions. And their people seem accustomed to the idea of a female monarch, now. But the Empress doesn’t seem to have the commitment.”

“Uhm?”

“She’s changeable, boss. We could be knocking on the gates of Brothe and she’d get distracted by some ephemeral ambition somewhere else.”

“She’ll be constant till she’s shoved Serenity against a wall and made him explain why her special guy is no longer among the living.”

“You’re enjoying the hell out of this, aren’t you?”

“Titus?”

“You’ve changed since the Empress changed her mind about Serenity and the Church. You’re happy about it. Even though we’re likely to end up having to face friends we campaigned with before.”

“I hope it doesn’t come to that, Titus. I hope we can give Katrin what she wants before Pinkus can disengage in the Connec.” Word from that direction had the Captain-General facing serious difficulties. Serenity had few friends in the eastern Connec. Count Raymone Garete and his Countess had harvested the crop.

Hecht did think that Serenity would scream like a scared little girl when he understood what was headed his way. He was very much the product of his past.

His Plemenzan captivity had not been harsh. It was just time taken out of his life. But torments he had suffered earlier in the Connec remained tattooed on his soul. Never again would he allow himself to be at the mercy of another.

Failure, defeat, surrender, captivity, none were acceptable options. Unless God deserted him completely.

Hecht desperately hoped to see Heris again. The more he eyed the chances of success the more worried he became for Anna and the children.

There was an ancient saying: “Children are hostages to Fortune.” And, unhappily, any other asshole who could lay hands on.

* * *

A grimly weary Heris turned sideways, into being, seconds after Kait Rhuk and Drago Prosek left Hecht. She grumbled, “I know. I can sleep after I’m dead.”

“You can’t tell if there’s somebody here before you do that, can you?”

“Sometimes. Mostly not. I can halfway arrive and keep from being seen if I’m rested enough.”

“You missed popping in between Rhuk and Prosek by five seconds.”

“That would’ve been embarrassing.”

“You think?”

“Worried about them finding out?”

“Absolutely. About anyone finding out. We have a huge advantage as long as nobody knows. We lose that fast as soon as they do.”

“Get one of those folding screen things to drag around with you. Wherever you set up shop, put it in a corner so I can pop in behind it. That way I can get away again without anyone seeing if you’ve got somebody with you.”

“That might work. What do you have for me?”

“You don’t have a social life, do you?”

“What?”

“I know. All business, all the time. Saves having to deal with stuff. Story of my life, too.”

Hecht was confused. This was not the Heris of his experience. “You’re hanging around with the Ninth Unknown too much. You’re turning into another him.”

“I am a bad girl, little brother.”

Heris proceeded with a long report, some of it not very interesting. Since her last visit she had been a fly on the wall in a dozen venues, including Krois in Brothe, Pinkus Ghort’s camp a dozen miles above Antieux, Alten Weinberg’s Winterhall, Hochwasser, and even briefly in Salpeno, where Anna of Menand was ecstatic about the deaths of kings at