Denisius had wanted to head straight for Munazyr, unknowingly echoing Carala: the city was a bustling port and if it turned out to be a fruitless effort, then a sea voyage to either Gallowsport or Summervale would be less of a hardship. But Vos seemed to think that Swiftfoot Carting merited closer inspection. He had found Varallo Thray's willingness to contradict the Emperor, even on so ambiguous a matter as this, most intriguing. "I told you he knows more than he's letting on, Deni," he had snapped, sneering at Thray as he hurried away from the inn. "It's not that he isn't sure about the Gallowsport fellow. He fucking well knows it."

That may well have been, but if there was indeed a living cursewright in Gallowsport, Vos and Denisius had been unable to find so much as a whisper of it. They visited taverns and gaming dens and merchant stalls; prowled the docks and alleys in the Foreign Quarter, hustled by drunken sailors from the realms of the Ocean Kings and Lao-Xian and propositioned by slovenly whores not fit to wash the feet of the girls at the Prideful Lioness; combed through the ruins of Nightgate Academy, which had been converted into an armory for the city guard. They displayed Denisius's scrolled letter from the Emperor at taverns, guildhalls, and even the Grand Curia itself. But no amount of gossiping, plying tavern girls and barmen with drink and coin, or rifling through seemingly endless stacks of collated court documents and records at the Curia had turned up a trace of anything useful. Worse, Denisius's inexperience in such things had nearly gotten them into serious trouble.

They had been in Gallowsport less than two hours, afternoon dimming into evening, and found their way to a modest tavern called the King's Faithful Hound. It sounded friendly enough, and was a trice cleaner than either of them expected a Gallowsport tavern to be, so Vos secured them a table while Denisius approached the bar with a polite smile on his face and the Emperor's letter in one hand.

"Good afternoon, my good man," he said, Vos pricking up his ears and turning his face toward his master with growing alarm. "My name is Denisius Gallis Lord Marhollow. I come here on urgent business from the Chalcedony Palace. I need to know if there are any rumors in this city of a cursewright operating illegally. I would pay you for your trouble, of course, if you have information."

Vos groaned aloud.

"Cursewrights?" the polite barman thundered, flaring up into red-faced fury almost at once. "Cursewrights? How fucking dare you be darkening my bar with that old truck, boy! Take your urgent business and your gold and shove 'em up your fat ass!"

"Now, sir, please, I meant no offense -- "

"Get out! Get out of here, ye stupid, pig face boy! May the Hangman take ye! Get out wi' your man or so help me by the gods I'll plant this in your skull!" The barman's voice had grown shrill and panicky, and at this last he yanked a cleaver from his butcher block and waved it threateningly in Denisius's direction. His eyes were bulging from his crimson face and he looked utterly mad.

"I -- all right, sir -- just -- "

Before Vos could salvage the situation (which meant merely that he got his master out of the King's Faithful Hound with his skull unsplit), the barman shrieked and started hurling raw potatoes at Denisius. Most of them bounced off his upper body painlessly (well, mostly painlessly), but one caught him directly on the bridge of his nose, knocking him on his heels and making his eyes water. Vos dragged him out of the tavern by the waist, growling at the barman to back away.

"With your permission, milord," Vos said in the next tavern, all the way in the adjacent quarter, "I think I ought to handle the questioning for now." A whey-faced, thoroughly humiliated Denisius agreed without protest.

"Do I really have a pig face?" he asked Vos sheepishly as his manservant inspected his forehead to make sure it wouldn't be bruising too badly.

"Not at all, milord. More like a groundhog's," Vos replied soothingly.

The next day Vos took him to the Foreign Quarter, guiding him to a clothier where he could purchase less conspicuous garb. After that, Denisius merely observed, adding information when Vos asked him for it. But they received information no more intriguing than tavern fire tales of a being called the Hangman of the Harbor, a spectral figure said to hunt solitary souls after dark and strangle them to death, letting them dangle from rotting rafters in abandoned attics. One plump and pretty barmaid assured them that the Hangman was none other than a cursewright's ghost. Denisius's curiosity had been roused, but Vos had been unimpressed.

"There have been stories of the Hangman since before the Emperor was even born," he told his master when the barmaid went back to serving drinks, giving Vos a coquettish wink as she did. "What he is changes from year to year. It's a cursewright's ghost now because people fear anything to do with the lost Academies. I bet elsewhere in this city it's an astrologer's ghost, or a seer-magistrate's. And twenty years ago it was a pirate ghost. And twenty years before that, the ghost of some disgraced Prefect who was hanged for treason. I wouldn't worry about it, milord. They still hang hundreds of men a year over Hangman's Harbor, so the fucking thing might even be real. But it's nothing to do with us. And since there aren't any cursewrights around anymore to deal with such a creature, it's nothing to do with them, either."

After that they turned their attention to Swiftfoot Carting, hoping to find some trace of Tacen and a trail that might lead to the cursewright he had mentioned to Carala. But that proved fruitless as well. The offices were under guard of the Prefect's soldiers. Their Sergeant bowed respectfully at seeing the Emperor's letter and allowed them access, but the rooms were empty and forlorn, already a little dusty from standing empty for weeks. They found nothing more interesting than a few ledgers, bills of lading, and reams of dull correspondence with customers and trade officials. Tacen's name was in a payment ledger, but even that showed nothing more interesting than that Swiftfoot was profitable enough to pay their guards well.

"Could we speak to the men the Prefect arrested? They're being held in the Curia jails, I would think." Vos nodded with no small relief at this more sensible tack of questioning.

"I'm afraid not," the Sergeant shook his head. "All those men are on their way to Talinara. You missed them by a few days. Whatever this caravan did, it's caught the attention of the Chalcedony Palace. I'm surprised you weren't here when they were shipped off in the gaol cart."

"We're -- ah -- handling a different branch of the investigation. Might we be able to speak to the Prefect himself?"

At that the Sergeant had looked uncomfortable, even pained. "I suppose you could. That letter would get you into Bluestead House. But I'd advise against it. A fever took his son only last week. Our Prefect is in mourning, and hasn't had much time for city affairs. The lad was just about to take a position with Prince Perseun's embassy to Q'Sivaris. And it's only a few weeks since his younger brother died the same way. A damned shame."

"Ah," Denisius stammered, trying to remember if he'd ever met the Prefect's sons. "Please give the Prefect our condolences. We won't add to his troubles with this."

The Sergeant had nodded and wished them well. "Now what?" Denisius had asked Vos. "The warehouse?"

Vos hadn't thought it much use. "It'll be full of crates and wagons and feed and maybe some smuggled wares. No business operating out of Gallowsport is completely legitimate. But what this has to do with Tacen or the princess, I can't see. A caravan guard has a lot of access, though. Nobles' houses, Imperial storage buildings, even military outposts. One who's not being watched could make a lot of mischief, even if he's not a werewolf. What outfit he works for is only important in so far as how much the nobility trust it. And since that -- what was that woman's name -- "

"Lady Greythorne," Denisius provided.

"Right, Lady Greythorne, Rial's widow -- since she trusted Swiftfoot enough to hire them, maybe that's all that matters. It got him where he wanted to be, where he could find Carala."

After that there hadn't been much point to staying, so they had traded in their horses for sturdier beasts better fit for the long road to Munazyr. And this very morning they had passed through the Peddlers' Gate.

"Do you think he's out there?" Denisius murmured, gazing down at the vast city.

"Ammas Mourthia was famous and his father was even more famous, and someone the Emperor despised in the bargain," Vos replied. His cigar was down nearly to a stub. "If he'd ever been caught they'd have hung his head from the highest balcony of the Chalcedony Palace. But the Emperor has kept his hands off Munazyr ever since the Yellow Death, same as the Sultan. If a cursewright, even Ammas, can practice anywhere, it's here." Vos grinned at Denisius. "Which means you can start questioning the barmen again. They won't be superstitious here."

Denisius blushed but felt little chagrin. Somehow it felt different than a similar jest from Lorith would have. "So what do we do? Who would know?"

"If he's actually working as a cursewright? Almost anyone. If there's one thing the cursewrights were absolutely worthless at, it was discretion. If we put our minds to it we could probably find him by dawn." Vos plucked his cigar stub from his mouth and flicked it into the streets below. "I say we give it no more than a fortnight. If we can't find him, or any trace of Carala, we make for Summervale."

Denisius was about to suggest that if it were so easy, then they absolutely ought to ask someone at the Four Winds this very night -- he imagined Demelza the tiger-dancer would be most forthcoming on any topic he asked her about -- but at that moment his manservant stiffened, one hand going to the hilt of his sword, despite the peacebonding they had accepted at the tavern's entrance. From experience the young Lord Marhollow knew never to ignore it when Vos sensed trouble, and so his hand went to his own blade, frowning as he followed Vos's gaze to the street below.

A single rider was pelting up the street at a full gallop, pounding from some deeper ward of Munazyr toward the Marble Quarter, where most of the city administrative centers stood. As the rider came closer, Denisius could make out the silver livery of the Munazyr city guard, whose barracks he knew was not far from here. He also heard the rider's thundering cry, echoing off the streets and buildings and illuminated courtyards.

"Werewolf attack! Werewolf attack on the Old Godsway! Hie and gather, take up your blades, guards of the Argent Brand! Werewolf attack, werewolf attack on the Old Godsway!"

Vos and Denisius stared at each other.

"This isn't a coincidence, is it?" Denisius whispered.

"You always were smarter than your brothers," Vos growled. "Come on. If we hurry, we can follow them."

They turned and jogged into the Four Winds, heading for the tavern's stable with all haste.