The assassin checked the dagger in his pocket and then brought his hands back in front of him, where guards would see them and not wonder what he was concealing. He was in the second rank of the excited crowd, behind two small women who could easily be shoved out of his way. The procession was passing before him on its way from the palace to the harbor. Always the same procession, always the same route – it was as if this Viscount of the Western Shore wanted to be killed. If he had any regard for his safety he would change his movements, but he never did. Today he would die for his carelessness.

  First came a hundred dancing children, flowers in their hair, waving red and yellow streamers and jangling tambourines. People cheered and clapped for them, parents beamed at their offspring, and old widows remembered the long-ago days when they danced down this very street with flowers in their own hair. Time had changed these women beyond recognition, but the stones remained, and the rites, and the gods.

  Behind the children came carts drawn by flower-crowned oxen, the carts full of newly harvested wheat and young women who brandished handfuls of grain as they sang songs in praise of the earth. The assassin approved of the songs, which were ancient, dating back to before the mage lords came with their blaspheming powers to turn people away from the divine path.

  Now came the guildsmen, with the shipwrights in the lead carrying their tools. The assassin knew the order, since he had been made to memorize it. First the builders of the ships that were Calyxia’s wealth: the shipwrights, the ropemakers, and the sailmakers. Then the merchant drapers and the workers in cloth – the fullers, the weavers, the tailors – and after them the leather workers. The purveyors of food were led by the importers, followed by the bakers and the butchers. Then the builders: carpenters, masons, plasterers, roofers. The smiths could be heard from far off as they beat their hammers on pots, chanting an old lay of Volkanos their god. A miscellany brought up the rear: coopers, glass-blowers, chandlers, and last of all a lone fool who walked for all the entertainers and other such trash.

  A storm of emotion raged in the assassin, and he struggled to keep it under control. He was afraid. He was afraid of pain and death, afraid of failing, afraid of capture and humiliation. He knew this was natural, and he was used to fear. He had been raised in it and trained to endure it. He had survived a hundred trials that might have killed him, and did kill some of his brothers. But this was his hour, when he would kill for the Gods and then most likely meet them, so it was no surprise that he felt afraid. His task was to strike anyway.

  He also felt a rising excitement. He had longed for this, longed to strike a real blow against the Dark God’s enemies, to see one of the blasphemers laid low by his own hand. His name would be chanted in the Great Temple like the other heroes, and perhaps the Master himself would praise him in his next sermon. It was all he had ever wished for, and it was close, so close.

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  He also felt a numbness, as if the world around him had receded to a great distance and he could hardly hear or feel it. The people around him, the people who marched before him, were nothing. All that mattered was to serve the Gods as the Master taught. For they were angry. In their wrath they had burned with fire and lightning the City of the Blasphemers and plunged it into the sea. Yet foolish men took no heed, men like the Viscount who would not turn their backs on what the Gods had condemned. They still honored the Blasphemers and sought to recreate their ungodly power, sought even to wear their rings and wield their staffs. He felt no pity for them, for they had been warned as clearly as the sun shone in the sky. If they would not heed the divine command, they would pay the price. The Dark God had come forward to punish these sins. The world must be made clean, if necessary by scrubbing away humanity itself.

  Now came the temple priests. They angered the assassin with their show of false piety. In groups of six or eight they bore heavy images of their gods, but their shoulders were padded so they did not suffer as they should for their faith. He read in their faces their indifference, their desire that it would all be over so they could drink the night away and forget the Great Ones whose statues they had carried down this street to the sea.

  And now the Viscount and his men approached. First two captains on fine tall horses, red and yellow streamers on their lances, then two more. Then the aging Admiral, splendid in ornate robes, his long white hair flashing against crimson cloth. Then the Procurator all in black, and after him the lesser officials of the palace: the Aedile, the two Jurists, and the Chancellor. Then the Viscount’s mother and sister on silver palfreys, waving to those in the crowd who cheered them. Then the Viscount himself, riding a black horse, dressed in the red and yellow colors of the day, on his head a yellow hat with a red feather. He was young and tall and stood straight in his saddle, his face like a marble statue of hero, but his eyes like a hunting hawk’s. The assassin considered this lordling, this petty teenage prince who did not even rule half the County his title claimed, and would soon rule nothing. His vanity had earned this fate. As he rode down the street he neither waved nor spoke, but his handsome face shone with a radiant smile. Behind him walked two guards with swords drawn, and behind them two more on horseback.

  When the Viscount reached him the assassin began the series of carefully planned movements he had practiced a hundred times. He slipped between the women in front of him and took a long step into the street. His hand went into his pocket and came up striking – no hesitation, just one rapid movement, sending the poisoned dagger flashing toward the Viscount’s leg.

  But fast as the blow came it was not fast enough. Somehow, though it took only the blink of an eye, the young Viscount was faster. He started his horse turning and without drawing a weapon simply struck down with his gloved hand, knocking the dagger away. The assassin drew back and struck again, but before he knew if he had hit his target he was dying, a sword in the back of his head. His body fell to the pavement and the dagger clattered from his hand. Someone gasped.