For a moment he didn't know where he was. For a moment he didn't even know his own name. In that moment you could entertain all sorts of illusions. A smell of sulfur in the air. Maybe he was a scientist, an alchemist of note, reputed to be the most honorable and trustworthy of all creatures. Then a tonic, the absent stench of healing herbs processed in water and oil. A healer, then? When the blank man opened his eyes onto the world he could be all sorts of things. He could be everything that he was meant to be in his dreams. And that moment was both rallying point and secret shame. He could never tell anyone about it. He'd still remember it, and think of it, and wonder at what could have been. When a pair of eyes finally opened it wasn't a blank man who took in the world. It was Skandra Tyullis the murderer, Skandra Tyullis the bastard, who killed his friends at least as often as his enemies. Somewhere in there he could imagine a decent person. Just that so far, the decent person hadn't reared his head.

( He must have been beautiful. )

How long ago had he met Shantar Tyullis? It seemed like longer than he cared to count. And in all that time he'd never let his grandfather down. No matter what the odds against him or how hard it was to come through Skandra had managed it, somehow. This time couldn't be any different. It wouldn't be any different. If those weapons were proliferated, if they became popular and known, there would be no way to stem the flow of blood that would roll across the world. Alchemy was still an infant science. Weapons made by alchemy weren't trusted generally. Those in power believed in the divine, not in the stigma of an art that anyone - no matter their station - could learn. But if one could believe, and he believed in unjust ideals, then the army he commanded would have no equal in all the world. It was about more than that, wasn't it? He was parroting the words Shantar had spoken to him but there wasn't any heart in it. Not really. What he wanted, what he believed, was right in front of him. It was there to be taken. All he had to do was reach out and seize it.

He could have.

( Any time he wanted. )

There was a part of him, limping along the packed-dirt path, which didn't believe the towers of smoke rising from that camp. He knew it was real. Some part of him hoped it was not. Vicious red lights streaked up through the center of those columns, heinous and honest, giving lie to the hopes he had for the survival of someone - anyone. Skandra tugged his sword into place, out of his way, and limped faster. Against the midnight sky those pillars of smoke and fire seemed god-like. Destroyers of worlds and dreams. Exactly how he'd always imagined the gods to be. And if the grim stare on his face was not enough to cow the gods then Ilyien's equally vicious mask ought to do the trick. He couldn't believe it. He didn't know why he couldn't believe it. There was nothing at all particularly unbelievable about it. A tug of his hat. A jerk of his coat. When they arrived at the gates to the campground nothing prepared him for what he would see. Those pillars belong to the fires of the dead and their worldly possessions. Washed clean by consuming fire as though ash was the only measure of its presence that creatures of conscience could allow.

( Creatures of conscience. )

There was something about the night's air that made him think of the past. Maybe it was the way it felt on his neck. Or maybe it was just the thrill of doing what he'd started his life doing. The skills of a thief diminished over time unless they were practiced with constant vigilance. He didn't. There was enough talent left for the basics, and his footsteps were light. He could still deal seconds as well as any card shark. Quick hands, was what they called it. Climbing onto a ledge without being seen and then breaking a window without being heard? Well, that was taxing his skills to their limit. Skandra didn't think Ilyien could manage it, even if he could, so with a roguish smile and a piece of parchment that was never unfolded Skandra had talked their way into the house of the great Lord Thalas as winemen. Ilyien drew the cart, Skandra kept the manifest and with a minimum of fuss they were in. The guards were much too busy to follow a pair of wine-delivering men into the deep places of the manor. So it happened that when they arrived in the wine cellar, they were alone.

It was starting out slow, but at least they were inside.

( For now. )

It wasn't a celebration or a gathering of good, decent persons. That was the first thing Skandra noticed as his eyes toured the gathering for which they'd just finished performing. Across the wide clearing there was a platform erected for the occasion, but not for the use of the menagerie. He could still hear the tiger's roar from his solo performance as he juggled eggs, between the tamer and the killer, ostensibly too drunk to know what he'd stumbled into. That had been a thing for memories. And Flora watching the whole time with her hands clapping gleefully. He wasn't sure how many had been cheering the beast and how many had been cheering the tamer, with whatever scant few were left for the hapless drunk so impressed with his single talent. He wasn't sure which one Flora had been cheering. Skandra mopped the sweat from his brow with a sleeve and cursed his lack of a hat. Regional styles weren't important. Stand-out features were. The hat rested in the wagon he shared with Ilyien. So did his sensible clothing. Outfitted in a short coat with flaring sleeves of many colors, Skandra felt every part the fool he'd been playing.

( And every part the drunk. )

From the moment the tent flap closed behind him Skandra was forced to wonder if he'd made a mistake. Ilyien had been biddable enough, once he'd been assured that there would not actually be any dresses involved - a lie that Skandra was still not sure he could transform into the truth - and he'd come without too much complaining. Only now here they were, waiting on her attendance. Skandra could never feel at ease asking someone for a favor. Especially since he knew that favor was going to be a pinch for her. You didn't show up in a friend's place of business and ask to put that business in a bind for the sake of your own goals. He was going to have to play this very carefully. Only she would know that he was playing it carefully. So he had to come up with a reason that he was playing it carefully, and a believable one. She always did know when he was lying, even if he wished she couldn't. One of the things he hated most about her. There were a lot of things he hated about her. You could see it in her eyes. The way she looked at you. The way a bird would look at a worm.

( Thoughtful. )

The ride cross-country had not been the most pleasant experience of his life. Half the reason he walked so often, to so many places, was that horses did suit him as a mode of transportation. Riding was not the problem. Feeding them was. Horses were voracious animals and prone to much overeating, which of course was half the problem. The other half of the problem was travel subjected to the whims and exhaustion of a creature that could not communicate. The last thing Skandra wanted was a woman that couldn't talk, and that was essentially what stolen horses were. They couldn't complain about their exhaustion while you worked, so they instead made strange noises and fell off the road with a gasp of tiredness that nothing could resolve. Skandra had been faced with that problem once again, only this time he had an arrogant ass of a knight to deal with as well. Vacations were all well and good, but...

( ...he was starting to think he'd prefer the cell. )

Sitting there in his cell, with only his own annoyingly morbid thoughts for company, Skandra wondered what his gallows was going to look like. Hopefully they'd roll out every gilded rope in their possession. No expense spared to the comfort of the accused or the entertainment of the wicked who came to watch a man die. There would be a crowd, of that he was certain, and most of them - who loved their liege lord only because experience had not yet taught them to do otherwise - would be cheering the death of the one person who'd ever tried to help them in their lives. How it had come to this, Skandra could not rightly say. What he could say was that when he woke up he was promptly put back to sleep by a very polite and yet hauntingly violent fellow who liked to punch people in their broken nose until the pain forced them to pass out. Not a very civilized place, the Free Cities, and he was dismayed to add that it had only just improved since his first visit. If they'd caught him the last time, they would have just executed him and let that be that.

It should have figured. Shantar had sent him here to stop someone from taking advantage of the people in an outlying area of the Free Cities. That, and the old man was convinced that this fellow had dealings with Gershul, though as usual Shantar was very shy about giving any kind of evidence or proof to support his claim. Skandra believed that the proof existed. He was just tired of having the proof denied to him. Although, in a day's time that wasn't going to be a problem for him. The rows of cells with their cramped and narrow passageways proved to be as much of a death sentence as the word of a lord, or the hatred of a magistrate. A clove rolled with pages from the copy of The Path of Fire which every cell was furnished with and the spare flecks of tobacco in his pocket tasted as grim as death, and he had to pass it down the row to get the other inmates to light it on a torch - but at least it was something.

( Not exactly, a lot, or anything. )

Skandra adjusted his glove with a glowering eye toward the short hills around him. Someone had been tracking him for the better part of a day and a half. Tracking him and refusing to be thrown off by one false trail after another. Across a swamp and through Feinharad. Now they were in Astarii, on the Black Deer Plains, and the fellow still hadn't lost a step. Whoever he was, Skandra had decided, he didn't work for Lord Thalas or his council of idiots, morons, vagabonds and other ne'er-do-wells. Skandra had been on many raids precisely like this one, over the last four months, and every time it would end the same way. Thalas sent someone after. Skandra killed them, and gave them a decent bury in whatever godsforsaken place they finally encountered one another. And a week later, maybe two if the weather wasn't very good, Skandra would return and do it all over again. This time he hadn't sent the usual two-bit mercenary with his tin hat and his broad challenges. This time he'd sent a professional. That might have worried someone else.

( Fortunately for Skandra, professionals usually weren't true believers. )