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."When he wanted to be Shadespeaker, his spell turned his eyes brown.As Kyaga, they were green.Now you see their real color." The eyes had faded to a dull blue.Iron-wood smiled at the chieftains ranged behind Kyaga."There never was any Shadespeaker.This man announced his own advent among you." The expressions of chagrinon their faces were almost comical."Not only is there no Shadespeaker, there is no Kyaga Strongbow, either!""Then who is he?" demanded the lord, at his wit's end.Ironwood snatched away the veil, revealing a vaguely handsome but rather nondescript face over which fear crept like advancing fog."No one you, or any other here, would know, save for me.His name is Boreas.He is a rogue, a harpist, and an actor.Once, in another land, he was my friend.But he betrayed me and left me for dead.""Hah!" Shellring said excitedly."Granny Toadflower said it was the musician behind all this! 'False eyes,' she said.'There is one,' she said.""When he realized Yalmuk and Guklak were ready to betray him," Ironwood went on, "he decided to murder them in an advantageous fashion.He would make it look like the Tarsians had done it so that his chieftains would be bound closer to him in their desire for vengeance.""Infamous!" said the lord.Ironwood favored him with a humorless smile."He sought further advantage by framing Councilor Melkar for Guklak's killing.He wanted you to hand him your most capable military commander.He knew your kind well, my lord.He knew you would seize the flimsiest excuse to be rid of a potential rival."The councilors gazed upon their lord with little favor, but he ignored them."I am not yet convinced.""For an actor like Boreas, imitating a Tarsian noble was child's play.He met a number of them personally and was helped by the fact that they frequently wear masks in public.He could move freely throughout the city, even through the gates after hours, impersonating one lord or another.That was how he lured Yalmuk to the square before the Hall of Justice.Just another Tarsian noble, ready to sell out his lord or offer a bribe for Yalmuk to do thesame.He got the man passage through oneof the gates— your guards are eminently bribable, my lord—and led him to the square, where the mute slave was waiting on the pedestal of the statue of Abushmulum the Ninth.One or the other of them whipped the noose around Yalmuk's neck, and the two of them hauled him up.That was why all the blood was on the pedestal."He grinned into the man's face."I suppose a wire garotte is a natural weapon for a harpist, eh, Boreas?" He looked up."Find his harp.I'll warrant it's missing a string.""And Guklak?" a nomad chief demanded."Easy," said Ironwood."He probably killed him right here in the camp, then passed through one of the gates as a nobleman on military duty with the corpse wrapped up on a pack animal.Patrols pass through the gates at all hours.The guards had orders to keep out nomads and other strangers, not nobles of their own city.""This man spins lies!" shouted Kyaga.His outburst was greeted with stony silence.Shellring turned to Nistur again."That was how he passed the truth-fiend! 'Shadespeaker didn't kill Yalmuk,' he said.It was true! There never was a Shadespeaker!"Nistur nodded."Let this be a lesson to you.Never trust a man who refers to himself in the third person.""We could not have been gulled so easily by such a rogue!" protested a chieftain."I think I may be able to elucidate," said Stunbog."In fact, here comes one of my colleagues with the proof."The wizened little wizard appeared from a rear compartment of the tent."I found it," he announced, holding up a brass-bound casket.This he handed to Stunbog.The enormous woman in the spangled robe emerged likewise from the rear of the tent."There was no harp," she announced, "but I found this." She held aloft along-necked lute, from which a string was plainly missing."I suppose a harp would have been too awkward to carry about in his travels," Ironwood said."Some years ago," Stunbog announced, "these two men, Ironwood and Boreas, had a fateful encounter with a young black dragon.Ironwood slew it, but was terribly wounded.Boreas, who must have hung back throughout the struggle, removed its heart and fled, leaving his companion to die.Behold the heart of the dragon."He threw back the lid and held the casket high.Even the hardened nomads and the schemers of Tarsis gasped.Revealed within, on a nest of satin, was a grayish-red organ larger than that of a full-grown bull.Though its owner had long been dead, the heart pulsed with an uncanny life-force, throbbing audibly."The heart of a black dragon," Stunbog went on, "properly activated by one who knows the Arts, confers a spell of glamour upon the possessor, bestowing upon him great charisma, making the merely capable seem superb, the merely adequate seem great.Why just be a great actor, Boreas thought, when with this talisman he could act on the world stage?""Ah!" Nistur said."Now I know you!" He walked to Ironwood's side, took a purse from within his tunic, and tossed it at the feet of Boreas."I must return your fee, for I failed in my commission." He addressed the assembly."This man, attired as yet another Tarsian nobleman, hired me to kill my friend here, whom I had not yet met.The one who calls himself by many names has an affinity for underhanded homicide.He even hired a gang of thugs to ambush us in the Old City.""He had more than mere murder on his mind when he commissioned that attack," said Stunbog, "just as he had more than mere conquest in mind when he moved against Tarsis.""What could be more important than conquering Tarsis?" the lord demanded haughtily."Not that I would have permitted such an outrage, of course.""It seems that Boreas devoted much time to studying the lore of black dragons.They are creatures far more complex than their dismal reputation would suggest.He had the heart, but Ironwood took the skin of the dragon.These two items, together with a spell from a very ancient and obscure tome, would make him powerful beyond his wildest dreams.Somewhere beneath the ruins of the Old City of Tarsis lies the great Library of Khrystann; this is widely known among scholars.If that spellbook is to be found anywhere, it is in the old library."Evil men suspect all others of evil intent.When Boreas learned that Ironwood was in Tarsis, he suspected that his old friend was also in search of the spellbook and would soon come to steal the dragon's heart.So Boreas hired Nistur to kill Ironwood, and when that didn't work, he hired the street gang to keep us away from the Old City
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