So any rumors you have heard about me -- and I can see Vos peering around the corner there, and I'm sure he's heard plenty himself -- come from that. A frightened little boy following a ghost. The plague was over one way or the other, I always thought; even if those guardsmen had successfully ransomed the store of elixir, the fellowships knew how to brew more, and it was not a terribly difficult mixture. The real challenge was quarantining the skeletal legions under the city. That's not something I was part of.

The representative from the fellowships at the barracks was a man I knew, and he was insistent I follow Master Ulleth's directives and return to Gallowsport. He took possession of the letters to the Emperor and my uncle. My uncle never received his. I didn't mention the third letter, the one to my father. I had never quite trusted the fellow, even though he was one of my father's clerks. I had overheard my father's criticisms of him.

My parents were overjoyed to see me alive and whole. As curious as they were about what had happened in Munazyr, my father was far more interested in my visitation from a spirit of the dead. He knew what it meant, you see: that I was almost certain to become a cursewright, and that I shared the same gift as that of Lady Terazla herself. I didn't believe him, really. I knew in his heart he wanted me to follow him into the bar of seer-magistrates. But we were never at odds over it. At the time, though, I wasn't concerned with any of that. I was mourning Master Ulleth and the others. And I was simply delighted to be home -- Sailor's Crown gave me a whole fortnight of respite from classes to recuperate from my ordeal. Most of all, though, I was burning with curiosity at what Master Ulleth might have written to my father.

He didn't tell me until years later, and when he did it was knowledge that nearly broke my heart.

*

Ammas had finished with Denisius's hand and forearm some time ago, and was now treating the cluster of blisters behind his ear, which seemed to be causing Lord Marhollow less discomfort. Although, Carala supposed, that might just have been the great quantity of wine he had drunk during his treatment. He looked distinctly glassy-eyed, but thoroughly fascinated with the cursewright's boyhood tale.

"Why?" she asked after a long silence. "What was in the letter?"

Ammas snorted. "Surely you of all people must know."

Carala blinked and shook her head. "I really do not, Ammas."

Denisius winced as Ammas dug at an especially stubborn blister nestled deep in his hairline. "Don't you?" Seeing the confusion on the princess's face, Ammas frowned. "Why, I thought it must have been common knowledge in the Chalcedony Palace. The Yellow Death was not only cured by the fellowships of cursewrights and healers. It was created by them in the first place."

Silence fell among the group, punctuated only by the unpleasant sounds of Ammas digging into Denisius's infected flesh. Frowning, Lord Marhollow inspected his bandaged hand as Carala stared aghast at the cursewright. "But why? Why in the name of the gods would they do such a thing?"

"There you are asking one of the greatest mysteries of the last three decades," Ammas said, mopping away the yellowish fluids oozing from Denisius's ear. "No one knows. My father spent his last years investigating that very question, determined to root it out and punish whoever was responsible for it. The only greater mystery than why it was done in the first place was whether the infection of Munazyr was an accident or intentional. My father believed it was intentional, and so did my uncle, though I don't know all their reasons. But maybe the most important reason was simply that a burst of plague striking the greatest city in the world that is not allied either to the Malachite Throne or the Eternal Sultan could not possibly have been a coincidence."

"Then my father was right to purge you all," Carala said. Casimir glared angrily at her. "If your fellowship was capable of doing something so terrible, then letting you work in the Anointed Realms was a mistake from the first."

Denisius fidgeted as Ammas began bandaging his ear, not looking at Carala but not contradicting her either. Despite Casimir's furious expression, his master merely shrugged. "Perhaps so. But I certainly find it curious that in his denunciation of the fellowships and the dissolution of the academies, his Majesty never once mentioned the Yellow Death as a reason for his decree. It was conspiracy this and assassination that, and nothing about the atrocity that was visited upon Munazyr a decade before -- an atrocity, by the way, which noticeably diminished the Sultan's desire to reconquer the place again."

"The man you gave those letters to must not have delivered either of them. You said yourself that you didn't trust him. That your uncle never got his letter."

"While I have no trouble believing he burned my uncle's letter rather than deliver it to him, I find the idea he was so disloyal to the Throne as to not inform the Emperor unlikely in the extreme." Ammas smiled and clapped Denisius on the back. "That should clear you up, Lord Marhollow. We'll give you the day to recuperate and resume our journey tomorrow morning. Be sure to eat well today. I'll tell Barthim to allow you double portions. Come to me right away if any more blisters should appear. I'll present Coldspring Hall with a bill for my services when Princess Carala's matter is resolved."

"A bill?" Denisius looked at him, bemused. "Is that a jest, Ammas?"

Ammas laughed, wiping off the twinhooks, but would not say yes or no.

Carala, however, was not to be dissuaded. "Why are you so sure of this man's loyalty to my father? He was your father's clerk, you said."

"One of them, yes. My father had numerous clerks over the years, some very skilled and knowledgeable and loyal, some less so."

"And what about this clerk made him so loyal, Master Cursewright?"

Ammas smiled gently at Carala. "Don't ask me, Carala. It was your father who appointed him Grand Chancellor not long after my father died. Varallo Thray's loyalty to the throne has always struck me as beyond question." Still smiling he took Casimir by the shoulder. "Come on, lad. Just because we're on a country holiday doesn't mean you don't have lessons to attend."

So he left Carala and Denisius, staring at each other. Neither of them could think of a thing to say. Only Vos seemed unsurprised, watching Ammas depart the stable with a troubled look.