Now they were toward the end of their second rest, Ammas and Vos deep into a game of Whistling Jack, neither making much headway. Ahead of them the passage continued past a vast wall of blank stone, its ceiling so low that Vos, Ammas, and Barthim would have to crouch for any sort of comfort. To their left stood a monumental series of stacked arches, a sunken aqueduct dating from the time of the Sultan's first conquest. It reached up at least fifteen stories before it met the rocky ceiling.

Vos didn't like looking at it. Beyond those dozens of arches lay nothing but an empty blackness, and it was too easy to imagine those apertures opening onto unspeakable, ghastly vistas; or to imagine the things which might be staring at them from the darkness. Ammas, who was used to seeing far more awful doorways, was not especially disturbed by them.

They were camped closer to this structure than they were to the opposite wall, a rough-hewn piece of construction pierced by a tall iron gate. The handles of the gate were bound with a rotting length of rope, an old Munazyri token dangling from it. Across the rusted metal was painted a rude skull, its eyesockets daubed with yellow.

Some minutes before this gate came into view, Carala wrapped a slender hand around Ammas's forearm and hissed softly up to him: "I smell it. The sulfur scent. What is it, Ammas?"

"It should be faint to you. I myself can smell nothing. It's not something to worry about, not yet." When they passed in sight of the gate, Ammas called them to a halt. "That is the symbol the Argent Council placed on areas that are tainted by the presence of the Yellow Death. The rope is a seal. Not a magical one, but a notice from the Council that it is dangerous to proceed beyond that portal. As long as we stay on this side of it, we should be safe."

Ammas knew both marks well, for he had placed many of them as a boy. There had been some apprehension about camping in sight of such a thing, but Vos had suggested that he would rather bunk down with a danger like that visible than have it lurking behind them. Ammas, who knew that the most dangerous things down here were the things that couldn't be seen, agreed wholeheartedly.

"Whistle past the grave," Vos murmured. Ammas scowled and threw his cards down, tossing what few coppers he had won back into the pot.

"This is much less diverting without wine."

"And without the whores prancing by, no doubt."

"I never saw them much unless I had reason to go inside. I saw a good deal more of Barthim."

Vos chuckled. "Not exactly diverting, then, I should think."

Ammas glanced fondly at the sleeping Barthim, whose snores threatened to rattle the aqueduct above them to rubble. "The man has his good points. Besides, I never indulged."

"I don't blame you. If I lived next to a brothel, I'd find a different one to patronize too."

"A good policy." Ammas didn't offer that he never indulged at any brothel. "Vos, I hope you understand you have nothing to fear from me as long as I am allowed to pursue Carala's treatment."

Vos stared at his cards, frowning. An unlit cigar jutted from the corner of his mouth. "I know that, Ammas."

"You have worked with cursewrights before, though. I assure you that I haven't gone mad in the last twenty years -- well, perhaps I have, but not so as to be dangerous."

Vos smiled thinly. "I know that too."

"Then what has you so nervous? I know it's not just the wolves."

Vos said nothing for several minutes, taking up Ammas's discards and shuffling the deck. "I don't know if it's something I want to speak of just yet. Not until I know you better, I think. And certainly not while we're down here in this pit."

Ammas nodded thoughtfully. Whatever else he might be, the man didn't speak like an assassin. The mistrust would be better hidden, as would the fear. He had the impression that if Vos decided to act the role of an assassin, he'd be a decidedly skillful one.

Vos's smile was a little wider now, though. "You know, this isn't the first time we've met."

Ammas tilted his head, genuinely surprised. "It isn't?"

"No. You were only a boy, though, and I was only sixteen."

"When in the world was this?"

"I stood trial before your father. Maybe I exaggerate; we didn't precisely meet. But we saw each other. You were on the High Bench beside him."

Ammas was dumbfounded. Before he had been sent to Sailor's Crown to study an arcane trade, he had indeed spent many days at his father's elbow in the Grand Curia, especially if the day's trials and hearings were not too unsuitable for a child's ears. But he couldn't remember Vos at all. Then again, they had both been much younger: what Vos was describing must have taken place over thirty years ago, even before the Yellow Death had struck Munazyr. Senrich had considered it to be part of his education, and often quizzed him on what had happened in court when they lunched in his chambers afterward. "Dare I ask what you were on trial for?"

"Nothing that kept me out of the military, I assure you." Vos lit up his cigar, grinning at Ammas a trifle shamefacedly as he enjoyed a long draw.

"No offense, Vos, but I find that hard to believe. My father rarely judged petty crimes."

"He did on Festival days. Or I should say in the aftermath of Festival days."

Ammas nodded slowly. That was perfectly true; Gallowsport Festival days were rarely peaceful. Both the Grand Curia and its lesser cousin courts were usually busy for weeks afterward, and all the seer-magistrates available ruled over every imaginable magnitude of offenses.

"This I can't wait to hear." Denisius's voice was thick with sleep, and his reddish hair was corkscrewed up, but his eyes glittered with humor as he propped himself up on one elbow. Carala was stirring as well, having been dozing at Lord Marhollow's side. Even Barthim's snoring had stopped. Only Casimir remained sound asleep, curled in a bedroll beside Ammas.

Vos eyed his lord with a grin, and Ammas realized that the old soldier had changed the subject specifically because he had heard Denisius stirring from sleep. The cursewright felt a distinct admiration for his wiliness. "This was right at the start of high summer, the festival of the Hethmar Blades. I was a contestant, the first time I had ever competed in the tourneys, but not the last. Blunted blade, quarterstaff, and hand-to-hand. I left the archery contests to the women."

"Of course. They would have beaten you handily," Carala said with a mock air of contempt.

Vos chuckled. "Undoubtedly."

"Hand-to-hand, I am sure you were losing, good Vos." Barthim still hadn't sat up.

"I did. Not because some Dread Titan like you was there, though." Vos dragged deeply on the cigar. In his eyes there still burned an old shame, though it had been tempered by humor and even nostalgia. "The warrior-priest was crooked. He ruled one of my holds to be forbidden and I was disqualified in the semifinal match."

"Just because you cheated is no reason for you to be calling a Blade of the Hethmar crooked, good Vos." Something mildly dangerous lurked in Barthim's voice.

"Well, since the match before mine had been won with an identical move, I was fairly sure he was crooked, Barthim. But I had better proof than that. I followed him back to the Hethraeum, where I saw the man who'd beaten me pass him a pouch of coins."

Barthim swore floridly in Siraneshi.

"What did you do?" Denisius looked fascinated.

"What else? I got drunk. Wine and spirits flow as freely during a Hethmar festival as at any of them, and I was furious. Add rum to that and you get the sort of righteous rage only an insulted sixteen year old boy can feel. So at the blessing ceremony that night -- "

Recognition dawned in Ammas's eyes and he began to laugh. "Merciful gods, that was you? You were the one who -- "

Vos nodded with a grin. "Who pissed on the warrior-priest of the Hethmar in full view of a thousand people in his own temple."

A shocked silence followed this admission, which dissolved into laughter. All of them were completely stricken, except for Vos, who merely puffed serenely on his cigar; and Casimir, who began to stir from sleep, glaring at his apparently maddened traveling companions.

"What -- what did Ammas's father sentence you to?" Carala wiped away a tear, still struggling with the laughter in her throat.

"A week in the stocks, wasn't it?"

"No. He only gave me three days. I think he was trying not to laugh."

Ammas, who vividly remembered Senrich pinching his nose and gazing down at his lap to keep most injudicious laughter trapped in his chest, nodded. "That's right. Because after you stated your defense he called a recess -- sent out a few of his clerks and the city guard to see what they could find out -- "

Vos nodded, smirking and wreathed in a cloud of rieldo fumes. "And it turned out that priest had been taking bribes through the whole festival."

"It is good you were uncovering him, then. I think I will call you Vos the Inquisitor, which I am thinking suits better than Vos Weakbladder."

But Ammas was nodding, smiling reminiscently. "I remember. You were charged with, what was it -- right, public relief of bodily function and offending the dignity of a clergyman. And when he handed down the sentence, you were found guilty of one but not the other, because -- "

"'A Hethmar Blade who rigs a contest of strength has no dignity to offend,' was how he put it."

"Ammas's father was very wise," Barthim smiled.

"He was," Ammas said, so softly no one but Carala heard it.

"Did they ever punish the priest?" Denisius asked.

Barthim shook his head. "Unless things were being very different then, they would have left that up to the Hethmar themselves."

Ammas nodded. "They did. But they also sentenced some of the people who had bribed him."

"And what was your father's sentence for them?" Vos asked, grinning because he already knew the answer.

Ammas grinned right back. "Three weeks in the stocks." Vos nodded, chuckling deeply.

Barthim clapped. "Yes! And then some fine Blade of the Hethmar was skinning them, or at least breaking their noses and fingers?"

"As to that," Ammas said, "I have no idea. I only saw the secular side of the law."

Barthim tried not to look too disappointed.