Don't know how long I'll sit behind this door

Before you build a little moat one day

Around a castle that can't be ignored

Where no one ever comes to stay

-- Stuart Townend, My Fault

"This is a terrible idea."

"You've said that before."

Kitri scowled and folded her arms. The effect was ruined by the wind that kept blowing her hair over her face. No one could look menacing when they got a mouthful of their own hair every time they tried to speak. "It bears repeating. I just want to make sure you know what an absolutely dreadful idea this is!"

An especially strong gust of wind came along just as she finished speaking. It pulled her hair completely out of the loose plait hanging down her back. For a minute her face disappeared entirely behind her hair. It took a great deal of self-control for Abi not to openly giggle at the sight.

Instead she rolled her eyes. Kitri was too busy fighting with her hair to notice. "Don't be stupid. What harm can mice do, alive or dead?"

She meant it as a rhetorical question. Naturally Irímé took the chance to answer it. Unlike Kitri he had his hair pulled back much more securely. Not content with merely braiding it, he also had the braid tied up in a ponytail. Unfortunately that meant the wind wasn't distracting him as much, and he had more liberty to make smart comments.

"They eat everything in their path," he said flatly. She was sure that was an exaggeration. "If you get us killed by undead mice, I'll come back as a ghost and haunt you."

Abi was strongly tempted to retort with, Aren't you threatening to become a necromancer yourself? She stopped herself mainly because she still didn't know where the line was between necromancy and ghosts. There was a difference. Every scholar agreed on that, though they varied wildly on everything else. But no two books ever agreed on what the difference was. Not even ones by the same author, illogical though it sounded.

Perhaps the difference is ghosts choose to linger on, while necromancers call back spirits already gone, she mused as she picked up a relatively fresh dead mouse by its tail. But some ghosts only appear decades after they died. Does that mean ghosts necromance themselves?

She put that thought aside for future investigation. At the minute she had more important things to think about. Namely, proving she could in fact perform necromancy safely. It would have been more convincing if she was able to raise a dead person. Alas, she could just imagine the uproar that would follow if she suggested it. A mouse would have to do for now. That had the added benefit of her already knowing what she was doing. She'd raised many mice before.

True, she wasn't sure she'd raised them successfully. The problem with animals was that you couldn't tell if they were exactly the same as they had been in life. But no undead mouse had ever tried to eat her yet.

Abi stared very hard at the dead mouse. In the background she was dimly aware Kitri and Irímé were staring very hard at her. Carefully she gathered her magic and reached out with it towards the corpse.

Stand up, she ordered.

The mouse twitched. Slowly it staggered to its feet. It stood up and then stopped moving.

Abi sat back, feeling very pleased with herself. "There! You see? It's not attacking us."

"Yet," Kitri corrected her with the air of a born pessimist. "It's not attacking us yet."

Irímé took a few steps forward. He knelt down in front of the mouse, which was still on its feet but no more alive than it had been before. Abi watched warily.

What is he doing? she wondered. Does he think this is all a prank?

Even at the height of her career as a prankster, using a mechanical mouse to make everyone think she was a necromancer was not her style at all. Irímé should know. He'd helped her plan a few tricks in years gone by.

He held out his hand, pausing every few seconds as if he expected to be bitten. The mouse remained frozen in place. Abi and Kitri watched in confusion.

Then the mouse turned its head.

An icy chill fell on Abi. It felt as if someone had sneaked up behind her and poured cold water over her. The mouse couldn't move on its own. It was just a lifeless puppet. She knew that as well as she knew her own name. And she hadn't given it any orders.

The mouse's nose twitched. It gave a very good impression of studying Irímé through its empty eye-sockets. He remained as still as the mouse itself should be. Just for a moment, like the stillness before an explosion, nothing happened.

Then it sprang into his outstretched hand.

No matter how you looked at it there was no avoiding the fact a partly-skeletal mouse was a disgusting sight. A partly-skeletal mouse that was also moving around would turn anyone's stomach. Yet the mouse sat calmly in his hand. Its head was tilted up to look at his, even though it had no eyes. It made a slight wuffling noise as if it still needed to breath, its nose twitching like a living mouse's would. Its long, cold claws sent an instinctive shudder down Irímé's spine.

All his life Irímé had heard stories of how necromancy was evil. Creatures brought back from the dead were monsters that would tear living beings to shreds. The little mouse stayed motionless in his hand. It showed no signs of preparing to attack. Certainly no one could call it an evil monster.

In spite of all logic it was almost... cute.

Two hundred years ago a rival kingdom had attacked Tananerl. Ilaran had frightened them away by conjuring torrential rain to turn the road they took into a morass.

Or so the story went. What actually happened was much less supernatural. Ilaran and his generals knew the terrain of the area. The road ran through a flat plain bordered by steep cliffs. They knew that when rain fell in the mountains beyond the cliffs, a few days later it would come sweeping down on the plain. A person travelling across the plain would have no warning until the deluge began.

For almost a week the two armies faced each other on different sides of the plains. Ilaran delayed the battle as long as possible. He sent scouts to find out if it was likely to rain on the mountains. When they said it was, he sent a warning to the enemy general.

"Turn your troops back or I will call down a terrible storm on you," his message read.

Of course the enemy general had laughed. Of course he had thought it was just a bluff. And so, days after the rain began on the mountains, Ilaran brought out a golnuan[1] and began to play it. The enemy were close enough to see him. Less than an hour later the rain began. Faced with an opponent who was apparently powerful enough to control the weather, the enemy thought better of attacking.

When the story was retold most people focused on how clever the idea was. No one ever knew how frightened Ilaran had been. How his hands had trembled so much he could hardly play properly. How terribly, illogically alone he had felt, even with his army camp a mere stone's throw behind him. That hour had passed with agonising slowness. Every minute he feared this time would be the exception and the rain wouldn't come.

It was a feeling he never wanted to experience again. It was also the closest comparison to how he felt at the minute.

The throne room of Erthalas Palace[2] was far larger than his own throne room back in Viniok Palace. Never before had he realised just how large it was. He felt like a tiny, insignificant speck of dust in a vast emptiness.

"I don't understand," the empress said, staring down at him from her throne as if she wasn't sure she was seeing him properly. "If you have a serious matter to report, why not do it now? Why do you want to wait until the day after the festival?"

One wrong move and his plan would fall apart. Worse, the consequences would come crashing down not only on him, but on Siarvin and Shizuki.

"I have no solid proof yet," he said. "I will have that proof by next week, and I'd rather not cause a scene on the day of the festival."

Not unless it was necessary. The more people who learnt the truth, the better. He would strike a blow Haliran would never be able to recover from.

Raivíth continued to look baffled. "Perhaps this is the way you handle things in your principality. But here it is highly irregular to admit to knowing something worthy of reporting and then insist on delaying the report. Does this have anything to do with your trip to the country?"

Ilaran saw no harm in admitting that now, at least. "Yes. I was gathering evidence."

"But you have no solid proof." The disbelief in her voice was palpable.

He forced himself to stay still and remain calm. "None that ties it to the person I know is responsible."

Raivíth stared very hard at him. It looked almost as if she thought she could tell if he was lying just by glaring long enough. Ilaran didn't move. He refused to show any emotion at all.

"Very well," the empress grumbled at last. "I still don't understand any of this. I hope you can produce a good explanation for it."

Instead of going to visit Siarvin, Ilaran went straight back to his accommodations. As he had expected he found Shizuki waiting for him.

"Yes," he said in answer to his cousin's questioning look. "It's started."

Shizuki perked up like a child who'd been told they could have dessert before dinner. It wasn't the sort of attitude anyone would expect from someone helping to plot their mother's downfall.

"Can I be there when it happens?" he asked hopefully.

Not for the first time Ilaran wondered how in the world Haliran had treated her unwanted son. Obviously she hadn't treated him well. Ilaran had to admit it was difficult for him to imagine treating anyone well unless there was something in it for her. But Shizuki's gleefulness made him wonder if her treatment had gone beyond trying to ignore his existence as much as possible.

"Have you had anything to eat yet?" he asked, deciding it was best to change the subject. For a minute he worried that perhaps Shizuki's diet consisted of insects or frogs or something equally unappealing. "The cook told me that she's made three banor[3] of gruniaý[4]. Would you like to try them before you leave?"

Shizuki thought for a minute before he nodded. "Can I bring some back for Father?"

Ilaran tried to picture how a snake would bring dumplings anywhere. He knew Shizuki could somehow keep things in his pockets when he transformed, but all he could picture was a snake carrying a basket of dumplings in its mouth. "Er... perhaps it would be better if I brought them. Shall we go and see him now?"

Haliran, blissfully unaware of how certain events had been set in motion, was making her own plans. Many of her friends would be in the city for the Day of Comets. She would have the chance to meet up with them and discuss her investments. Perhaps she would even have a chance to talk to the silly little princess again. She had not been left with a high opinion of Abihira's intelligence. Someone so willing to go to so much trouble for a relative was either naïve or a downright idiot. It would make her easy to manipulate, but she would never be reliable enough to trust with any great secrets.

Perhaps she should encourage her oldest daughter to make friends with Abihira. Goodness knew Luamon was every bit as foolish. It was an unfortunate and very vexing fact that all of Haliran's legitimate children took after their father and had precious little of her personality. She did not have a high opinion of her husband. She'd arranged their marriage because she needed to get married, and she chose Siarvin precisely because of his stupidity. No one else would be so easily duped.

Now that she thought of Siarvin, she'd have to find a way to stop him meeting with that little pest Ilaran. Haliran had detested the

prince's late and unlamented mother. The son was just as irritating. If he didn't leave of his own accord soon she would have to find some way to have him sent away. It would only make Siarvin restless and more likely to lash out if he heard too much about his homeland. She didn't like him, but she'd spent too much time and effort making sure he could never leave, that someone at least was completely dependent on her. He would never betray her when she was the only person he knew in the entire city. She wouldn't let this wretched interloper undo all her hard work.

He'd defied her once, when against all logic he insisted on raising her bastard. She'd never been able to prove it, but she was sure he had something to do with the boy's father so mysteriously disappearing too. If she wasn't careful he might defy her again.

Haliran finished signing the day's paperwork late in the afternoon. For a while she sat at her desk lost in thought. At last she stood up and went to the medicine cabinet in the bathroom. She reached past the bandages and mixtures for poultices. At the very back of the cabinet was a small glass bottle full of light orange liquid with gold swirls through it. Written on the label in a barely-legible scribble were the words, Pain relief. USE IN MODERATION.

It had been more than twenty years since she last gave Siarvin the sedative. The threat of it alone should keep him in line. Even if it didn't then it shouldn't take much now to send him to sleep if she did have to use it.

Like most capital cities Eldrin had been built beside the sea. It sprang up on both sides of the Bay of Kérol. In spite of its name the bay was a long deep fjord, almost a very wide river, full of boats at all times of the day or night. At high tide the water was so deep in the middle of the bay that the largest ship ever built could have sunk without a trace.

When she first entered the bay Kiriyuki swam along mere inches above the sea bed. She very quickly discovered the problem with this. Over the millennia many ships had sunk in the bay. Much debris and trash had been thrown or swept into the water. Pieces of wood, metal, and goodness knew what else sank to the bottom, getting tangled up in the seaweed and just waiting to snare any large creature that came their way.

Kiriyuki swam higher, away from the danger. Above her the sunlight flickered intermittently. Sometimes it was blocked out entirely by a ship sailing overhead. Sometimes it caught on her scales and made them glisten in a way that formed perfect camouflage from below but was entirely too conspicuous from above.

It was an unfortunate but undeniable fact. Sea serpents were not made for subtlety. Yes, they could move very fast. They could sneak up on a school of fish without being seen. They could stay motionless for hours on end.

They were also very large. Ambushing fish was a very different thing from trying to swim through a busy inlet. For one thing, the fish didn't have harpoons.

Kiriyuki stayed as far below the surface as she could. She dived deeper when passing under ships, always taking care not to blunder into the forest of trash below. Getting out of that would be much worse than getting out of a fishing net.

She breathed a sigh of relief when she finally got out of the bay and into the River Kérol. It wasn't as deep as the bay, but for now it was still deep enough for her. When she was safely away from the city she would change back into her immortal form and swim for the shore. So far everything was going better than she expected.

With a flick of her tail she surged ahead, further away from the busy parts of the river.

On one of the bridges connecting the two sides of the city a group of curious passersby stopped and gawked at something very strange in the water. No one got a clear look at it. No one agreed on what it was. But everyone knew they'd seen a large -- and definitely living -- creature just below the surface.

"Now do you believe me?" Abi demanded. "I know what I'm doing. And necromancy is perfectly safe."

Kitri still didn't look convinced. She eyed the motionless mouse corpse on the floor as if it was about to jump up and bite her. "That's what you said last time. Those poor people are still afraid to go to the market."

Irímé hadn't said a word since he put the mouse down and it went back to being an ordinary dead body. Abi glanced at him questioningly from time to time. He didn't know she hadn't meant it to jump into his hand like that. If she told him the truth he would go back to opposing necromancy. If she didn't tell him he would think she deliberately made it jump at him.

Kitri turned to him. "Don't you agree?"

It took him a minute to realise she was speaking to him. "Sorry, what?"

"Don't you agree necromancy is dangerous?" she said, slowly and distinctly. Abi recognised her tone from the times the weapons master had explained something to her while trying not to lose his temper. "It has to stop."

"I don't know," Irímé said, amazing both his listeners. "The mouse was cute."

...Cute. Cute. Never by any stretch of the imagination would Abi have called it "cute". She and Kitri exchanged matching worried looks, for once in perfect agreement.

Something was wrong with Irímé.

I hope he's not going to turn out like his mother, Abi thought. A bizarre image sprang into her mind, of Irímé starting a collection of reanimated corpses and calling them his pets.

Abi had seen many strange and disturbing things. That idea made her shudder more than any of them ever had.