Enchanter's End Game

difficulty in modulating his voice. "You wouldn't dare ship me off like some peasant conscript."
    "I wonder if the High Priest of Belar might like to make a small wager on that," Torvik said with deceptive mildness. He set the butt of his spear on the floor, took a stone from the pouch at his belt and began to hone the already razor-sharp blade. The steely sound had an obviously chilling effect on Grodeg.
    "You will go to the harbor now, Grodeg," Islena told him, "and you will get on that ship. If you do not, you will go to the dungeon, where you will keep the rats company until my husband returns. Those are your choices; join Anheg or join the rats. Decide quickly. You're starting to bore me, and quite frankly, I'm sick of the sight of you."
    Queen Porenn of Drasnia was in the nursery, ostensibly feeding her infant son. Out of respect for the queen's person, she was unspied upon while she was nursing. Porenn, however, was not alone. Javelin, the bone-thin chief of Drasnian intelligence, was with her. For the sake of appearance, Javelin was dressed in a serving maid's gown and cap, and he looked surprisingly feminine in the disguise he wore with no apparent trace of self consciousness.
    "Are there really that many cultists in the intelligence service?" the queen asked, a little dismayed.
    Javelin sat with his back politely turned. "I'm afraid so, your Highness. We should have been more alert, but we had other things on our minds."
    Porenn thought about it for a moment, unconsciously rocking her suckling baby. "Islena's moving already, isn't she?" she asked.
    "That's the word I received this morning," Javelin replied. "Grodeg's on his way to the mouth of the Aldur River already, and the queen's men are moving out into the countryside, rounding up every member of the cult as they go."
    "Will it in any way hamper our operations to jerk that many people out of Boktor?"
    "We can manage, your Highness," Javelin assured her. "We might have to speed up the graduation of the current class at the academy and finish their training on the job, but we'll manage."
    "Very well then, Javelin," Porenn decided. "Ship them all out. Get every cult member out of Boktor, and separate them. I want them sent to the most miserable duty posts you can devise, and I don't want any of them within fifty leagues of any other one. There will be no excuses, no sudden illnesses, and no resignations. Give each of them something to do, and then make him do it. I want every Bear-cultist who's crept into the intelligence service out of Boktor by nightfall."
    "It will be my pleasure, Porenn," Javelin said. "Oh, incidentally, that Nadrak merchant, Yarblek is back from Yar Nadrak, and he wants to talk to you about the salmon runs again. He seems to have this obsessive interest in fish."

Chapter Twelve
    THE RAISING OF the Cherek fleet to the top of the eastern escarpment took a full two weeks, and King Rhodar chafed visibly at the pace of the operation.
    "You knew this was going to take time, Rhodar," Ce'Nedra said to him as he fumed and sweated, pacing back and forth with frequent dark looks at the towering cliff face. "Why are you so upset?"
    "Because the ships are right out in the open, Ce'Nedra," he replied testily. "There's no way to hide them or disguise them while they're being raised. Those ships are the key to our whole campaign, and if somebody on the other side starts putting a few things together, we might have to meet all of Angarak instead of just the Thulls."
    "You worry too much," she told him. "Cho-Hag and Korodullin are burning everything in sight up there. 'Zakath and Taur Urgas have other things to think about beside what we're hauling up the cliff."
    "It must be wonderful to be so unconcerned about things," he said sarcastically.
    "Be nice, Rhodar," she said.
    General Varana, still scrupulously dressed in his Tolnedran mantle, limped toward them with that studiously diffident expression that indicated he was about to make another suggestion.
    "Varana," King Rhodar burst out irritably, "why don't you put on your uniform?"
    "Because I'm not really officially here, your Majesty," the general replied calmly. "Tolnedra is neutral in this affair, you'll recall."
    "That's a fiction, and we all know it."
    "A necessary one, however. The Emperor is still holding diplomatic channels open to Taur Urgas and 'Zakath. Those discussions would deteriorate if someone saw a Tolnedran general swaggering around in full uniform." He paused briefly. "Would a