"Now, go," the tyrant concluded and pointed toward the chamber doors.

Tentinok mumbled his appreciation and escaped. Cauvin wished he could have followed, but Anzak had already caught his eye and motioned him-or, more properly, his froggm' memories-into confidence range. Like Tentinok, Cauvin dropped to one knee beside the cushioned chair. Raith joined them-he had the itch for governing a city-and so-the gods all be froggm' damned-did the reeking Zarzakhan.

"It has gone as you predicted," Anzak confided once his circle had drawn close around him.

He fished among the cushions and withdrew a parchment coil with a broken seal that he handed to Cauvin who unrolled it. Only a few froggm' months earlier and Cauvin wouldn't have known which end of the scroll was top and which was bottom, much less that it was written in the elegant hand of an Ilsigi court scribe. Reading-even reading languages he couldn't froggm' speak or understand-was another of the Torch's froggm' legacies.

But read Cauvin could and read he did, while Anzak explained to his brother and Raith.

"The Ilsigi king hears his rival, the Rankan emperor, has sent a tournament to Sanctuary-to honor our role in his recent victories. The Ilsigi king suspects his rival has other reasons. He does not say so, of course, but he has sent us the emissary who brought this, a golden statue of a horse my grandmother would not stoop to ride, and eight fighters to-what?-'uphold our ancestors' glory'?"

Cauvin nodded: Those were the words and the gist of the letter King Sephens IV had signed and sealed himself.

"So," Anzak continued, "now we have them both in Sanctuary, suspecting each other while they pry after our secrets. What are our secrets, my friend?" The tyrant scowled down at Cauvin. "Why are they here?"

"War," Cauvin replied with his own wits. He'd had enough time with the Torch's memories to learn some things for himself. "The Nis in the north are finished. Garonne is in revolt and devouring itself. There's nothing to keep Sepheris and Jamasharem"-the Ran-kan emperor-"from each other's throats."