Rulers of the Darkness

"How can I do that?" Bembo asked reasonably as he and Oraste came up to the two men. The other fellow certainly looked like a Forthwegian: a white-haired, white-bearded, rather dissolute-seeming old Forthwegian. "But what else is he likely to be? He's a blowhard, I'll tell you that."

Sure enough, the old man was doing most of the talking, his companion mostly listening and then trying to get a word or two in edgewise. As Bembo and Oraste came up to them, the geezer waved his forefinger in the other man's face and spoke in impassioned Forthwegian. Bembo couldn't understand more than one word in four, but he knew an irate, hectoring tone when he heard one. The fellow the old man was talking to looked as if he wished he were elsewhere.

Oraste rolled his eyes. "Blowhard, nothing. He's a stinking windbag, is what he is."

"Aye, that's the truth." Instead of walking past the windbag, Bembo slowed and cocked his head to one side, frowning and listening hard.

"Are you daft?" Oraste said. "Come on."

"Shut up." Bembo was usually a little afraid of his partner, and wouldn't have dared speak to him like that most of the time. But a moment later he gave a decisive nod. "It is. By the powers above, it is!"

"Is what?" Oraste asked.

Bembo started to point, then thought better of it. "That old Forthwegian- he's not a Forthwegian, or I'll eat my club. Remember that noisy, smartmouthed old Kaunian whoreson we first ran into in Oyngestun? We've bumped into him a few times here in Gromheort, too."

After another couple of paces, Oraste nodded. "Aye, I do. He's the one with the good-looking granddaughter- or he said she was his granddaughter, anyway."

"That's the one. And that's him," Bembo said. "I recognize his voice. Whatever magecraft he's using, it doesn't change that."

Oraste took one more step, then spun on his heel. "Let's snag the son of a whore."

Had Bembo seen two constables bearing down on him, he would have made himself scarce. Maybe the sorcerously disguised Kaunian didn't see him and Oraste; the fellow was still doing his best to talk the other man's ear off. He looked absurdly astonished when the Algarvians laid hold of him. "What is the meaning of this?" he demanded- in good Algarvian.

That made Bembo beam. That smartmouthed Kaunian spoke Algarvian- he was supposed to be some sort of scholar. Bembo said, "You're under arrest on suspicion of being a Kaunian."

"Do I look like a Kaunian?" the old man said.

"Not now," Bembo answered. "We'll take you back, throw you in a cell, and wait and see if the magic wears off. If you still look ugly this same way tomorrow, we'll turn you loose. How much you want to bet we don't have to?"

To his surprise, the other Forthwegian, the genuine Forthwegian, tapped his belt pouch. Coins rang in there. "Gentlemen," he said, also in fluent Algarvian, "I'll make it worth your while if you forget you ever saw this fellow."

"No." Oraste spoke before Bembo could. Bembo, like a lot of Algarvians, didn't mind making some money on the side; his constable's salary didn't go very far. But he nodded now. He didn't want money. No, that wasn't quite true- he wanted money, but he wanted this old Kaunian's head more.

And so he, too, said, "No. We're going to take this fellow in and deal with him."

"You are making a serious mistake," the old man said. "I tell you, I am as much a Forthwegian as Hestan here."

Hestan there didn't say another word. He didn't call the old man who looked like a Forthwegian a liar, but he didn't claim he was telling the truth, either. Oraste started hauling the fellow off toward Gromheort's gaol, which was more crowded now than it had been when Forthweg ruled the city.

"What have we got here?" an Algarvian gaoler asked when the constables frog-marched their prisoner into the building. "You catch him filching somebody's false teeth?" He laughed at his own wit.

Bembo said, "Suspicion of Kaunianity. Lock him up and see if he still looks the same tomorrow. The magic isn't even good for a day at a time, from everything I've heard."

"Aha- one of those." The gaoler brightened. "How'd you catch him? Can't tell much by his hair, I'd say- white's still white."

"I recognized his voice," Bembo said proudly. "I'd run into him before, when he looked like what he really is. He made himself enough of a nuisance that he stuck in my mind."

"I am a Forthwegian," the old man said. "I am not a Kaunian."

"Shut up," the gaoler told him. "We'll find out what you are." He turned to a couple of his assistants, who looked to have been shooting dice before Bembo and Oraste came in with their captive. "Strip him- don't leave him anything he can use to make more magic and make more work for us. Then throw him in a cell. Like the constable says, we'll find out what he is."