Rubines didn't have to knock this time. Delarin's door opened at his approach.

He found the man himself again hunched over his worktable, delicate silver threads twisted together with precision beneath his fingers, weaving a casting the likes of which Rubines had never seen.

The casting trailed away off the edge of the table, coils and chains and flat sections like leaves, intricate and unfathomable. Rubines recognized only a few sections here and there. An eight-loop circle that looked like it belonged in an enchanter's web to be placed on an item. A thread he remembered from his long-ago studies, to encourage growth in a plant. More, far more, that he had no knowledge of.

"What now?" grumbled Delarin, when Rubines didn't immediately speak.

Rubines paced the room. "I blackmailed Othrelos Darholden. I threatened him with ruin and violence to force him to capitulate."

"Good."

"Good? What if he betrays us? What if he thinks he can outplay me? I don't know how to do any of this underhanded nonsense. I bet the whole city knows it was me who robbed the council by the end of the week."

Delarin finished a new loop, then set his tools aside. When he turned to Rubines, he was smiling. "You are finally beginning to see."

"See? See what!"

"Past your damn naive perceptions of how the world should be to what it is. What you are seeing, Rubines, is truth."

"It doesn't feel that way."

Was his life a lie? Was there any purpose at all to his decades of faithful service to his people, to their Council? Or had he always been a blind fool dancing at the whims of heartless manipulators?

Was Delarin Shadowcalled right after all?

"So why have you come to me?" demanded Delarin. "If you want someone to reassure you about your morals, it won't be me."

Rubines drew himself from his recriminations and stopped pacing, reminded of his purpose. "I need you to come with me to the border. Othrelos should be arriving soon and I think you should inspect the ingredients to be sure they're sufficient."

Delarin rummaged in his workdesk, then tossed Rubines an intricate silver casting in the shape of a four-point star, set with a single pearl crescent. "Signal me when he arrives. I've much to do."

Othrelos did not arrive.

Rubines waited all afternoon as the faint bloody light of the first moon waned and well into the night and rising of the second before finally admitting that his one-time ally had betrayed him once again.

And that left him with no recourse. How could he possibly obtain all the ingredients for the passage? He had called in everything he could possibly borrow, he'd stolen as much as he could possibly get away with from the Council, and what little he had left wouldn't buy a quarter of what Delarin needed. Othrelos was his only option.

Rubines turned from pacing the border and returned once again to Delarin's subterranean home. Othrelos had disregarded his bark. Now he had to bite.

"Othrelos never showed up."

"He must have realized what would happen to him if he did."

Rubines looked at Delarin sharply, but as usual the man remained focused on his crafting. "What are you making?" he asked, to put off what he knew he had to ask, delaying the inevitable as long as possible.

"I've showed you. A new world."

Rubines stared at the casting, spilling over the edges of the worktable like a delicate lace curtain. Silver links and glowing crystals combined in an unknowable pattern of impossible complexity. "This? This is the world?"

Delarin grunted irritably. "No. This is a tiny portion of the world. You think it's trivial to recreate a whole damn planet? We can count ourselves lucky if it's a tenth as hospitable as this one, and that's assuming you get everything I need to power the damn thing."

"How does it work?"

"Do you have something to say, or are you just trying to waste my time?"

Rubines wilted. "I need a way to force Othrelos into cooperating. He's defied us, and needs to learn the consequences."

Delarin's hands finally slowed, and Rubines could see his smile even though he was facing away. "That, I can do."

Breaking into the private lodgings of a Councilor should be harder than this, Rubines thought as he slid the window open. Othrelos Darholden, though officially the representative of Lower Aelenhiegt, was in practice the representative of the merchant faction as a whole, and Aelenhiegt in particular. His home, appropriately humble for his official standing, sat unobtrusively nestled between that of a banker on the left and a tailor on the right.

No sign announced his presence, but everyone knew where he lived. Councilor Darholden regularly received visitors of every economic strata at all hours of the day and night, though of late he'd spent more time in emergency Council meetings than at his place of residence.

Tonight, Rubines watched and waited as Othrelos dealt with the steady stream of supplicants, then finally sent the last away before retiring upstairs to his bedroom.

Rubines waited until the lamp had gone dark, then slipped around back of the block and climbed to the adjoining roof. Swinging around to the front window proved a trivial task for an elf in the prime of his life, and Rubines slipped the window open with silent dexterity.

He nearly activated the casting then and there, but crept forward instead to ensure Othrelos hadn't left his bed for any reason. It would be a problem if he wasted it while the merchant was downstairs fetching a midnight snack.

Othrelos lay on his side, curled beside an elf woman who showed traces of age, much the same as Othrelos himself. They looked peaceful and content, untroubled by the approach of death.

Part of Rubines wanted to creep back out the window and find another way. But the larger part felt only disgust. How dare he sleep so peacefully, so comfortably, while refusing aid to thousands of helpless refugees? How dare he defy the only people trying to actually make a difference here?

Who did Othrelos think he was, living in comfort and denying help to the world?

Rubines dropped the casting and crushed it beneath his foot, the stored power rushing out in a wave. Its inner core flowed up and enveloped Rubines completely, while its outer edges spread away to fill the room.

"You dare defy me." Rubines spoke, and Delarin's voice echoed through the room. Othrelos startled awake, staring around wildly as, to his eyes, Rubines appeared to be The Shadowcalled himself. "I told you what I needed, and you have defied me. Thrice now. There will be no more second chances."

"Othy, what--" the woman hid herself behind Othrelos, holding him close. Rubines flicked out a second casting from the dozens he held in his sleeves, this one striking her unerringly on the forehead. With barely a twitch, she fell limp and slid backwards, flopping onto the bed.

"Ria, no! What have you done?" Othrelos leapt to his feet, but the barrier now protecting Rubines was as solid as that which had been left behind to aid in his assassination.

"She will live, so long as you do as you were instructed," Rubines snarled, letting his anger tint Delarin's voice. "If you didn't have to make things difficult this could have all been avoided. Now, you have a choice. Bring me the ingredients I require within three hours, or suffer the consequences of my displeasure."

"No, please, it's impossible. Like I told Rubines, it can't be done. There simply is no way to gather so much--"

"I DO NOT CARE!" Rubines thundered. If not for the barrier holding sound to within the room, he'd have wakened half the city. "You have had time, you have had grace, and you have been given all the resources necessary. What I am going to do, that is what's truly impossible. Gathering items is merely difficult. You have three hours. Do not fail me again."

Othrelos grabbed his jacket and ran for the stairs.

Rubines let him leave, releasing the casting holding the illusion in place once he was well away. The tracing of silver fragments on the ground dissipated, its energy spent, drifting away through the open window to return to the moonlight from whence it originated.

The third moon gleamed crimson as it rose over the city, and Rubines knew that this particular quantity of silver would not have time to be reborn.