Traitor's Moon

adviser, how to make your people hurry! Time’s running short.”
    Seregil sighed. “Let Alec and I do what we’re best at, my lady.”
    Klia shook her head. “Not yet. The risks are too great. There must be another way.”
    Seregil stared into the depths of his cup, wishing his head was clear enough to think of one.
    The ride to the council chamber was a tense affair. Ignoring Seregil’s muttered warnings, Alec helped him mount and dismount, claiming he looked faint. By the time Seregil was finally seated inhis place just behind Klia, he was pale and sweating, but seemed to recover a little once he’d gotten his wind back.
    Alec scanned the faces around the circle. Reaching the Haman contingent, he stopped, a sudden knot of tension tightening his belly. Emiel í Moranthi was grinning openly at Seregil. Catching Alec’s eye, he gave him a slight, sardonic nod.
    â€œIt was him, wasn’t it?” Alec grated under his breath.
    Seregil merely glanced at him as if he didn’t know what Alec was talking about, then motioned him to silence.
    Alec looked back at Emiel, thinking,
Just let me and a few friends catch you in a dark street some night soon. Or just me alone, come to that
. He hoped the thought showed on his face, whatever the cost.
    Seregil saw the Haman’s appraising leer, but steadfastly ignored him. It was easier to carry on with the pretense that he had recognized no one in the darkness that night.
    And just who are you trying to fool?
    He pushed the thought aside with practiced ease. There were more important things to be dealt with right now.
    Alec had been correct about a shift in the Ra’basi’s stance. Moriel ä Moriel took it upon herself to contest a point being put forth by Elos of Goliníl about certain Skalan shipping practices. Whether it represented full support remained to be seen.
    Satisfied that Seregil was back on his feet, Alec returned to his ramblings through the city the next day. At Klia’s request, he commandeered Nyal and set out to ingratiate himself among the Ra’basi in the hope of gleaning both goodwill and useful information.
    It proved an easy task. Alec soon found himself welcome at a makeshift tavern, known for its ready supply of strong beer and spiced eggs. Not only was it a popular meeting place for people of various clans, but Artis, the brewer who ran the place during the day, was a servant of one of the Ra’basi khirnari’s closest advisers. He’d set up shop on the street level of a deserted house, serving his customers through an open window that overlooked a walled garden. Archery, dice, and wrestling were the sports of choice to pass the time.
    The beer proved passable, the eggs inedible, and the results of Alec’s spying meager. After three days of loitering and drinking, he’d added nearly a dozen shatta to his collection, lost his second-bestdagger to a Datsian woman who outwrestled him, and learned only that the khirnari of Ra’basi had some sort of falling out with the Virésse a week before, though no one seemed to know the details.
    Lounging there with Nyal and Kheeta after a shooting match, Alec decided that he’d probably learned everything there was to be learned among the Ra’basi. He was about to leave when he overheard Artis launch into a tirade against the Khatme. Evidently he’d had a run-in with a member of that clan the night before over a keg of beer he’d sold. Still smarting from his own failure among that strange clan, Alec sauntered over to hear more.
    â€œArrogant bunch of stargazers, that’s what I say,” Artis fumed as he served beer from his window perch. “Think they’re closer to Aura than the rest of us.”
    â€œThey don’t take to outsiders much, I’ve found,” Alec ventured. “Or ya’shel, for that matter.”
    â€œThey’ve always been a strange, standoffish bunch,” the brewer muttered.
    â€œWhat do you know of the Khatme?” a Goliníl woman scoffed.
    â€œAs much as you do,” he drawled, passing out cups of murky new beer. “They keep to themselves and they serve themselves, for all their talk of Aura.”
    â€œI hear they make fine wizards,” Alec put in.
    â€œWizards, seers, rhui’auros,” the brewer allowed grudgingly. “But magic is a gift meant to serve and that’s something the Khatme don’t do willingly. Instead, they