The battered lute appeared in his hands as he sat on the edge of the fountain. He could hear the sounds of the party - music, song and laughter mixing with the steady wash of water. A tune began to drift from his fingers, a haunting, Xambrian song written long before the race had burned.

Two new lovers, half naked in the fountain, called out for a livelier tune. Qwill ignored them and let his attention drift over the palace grounds, carried by the song.

Sycophants and bootlickers, merchants and thieves swarmed the lawns, hoping to court favor in a carefully constructed chance meeting.

Metal cutting air, flames in flight and laughter as Zember's routines amazed his audience. The dry desert whispers of two Kasmiran moneylenders weaving a net of fine print over some desperate fool.

A child's laugh. The Forsaken, the child beggars of Zanth raced through the crowds, pulling the bright orange charity purses from the belts of the guests. The forgotten and the feral, taken in by the Serpairans and given to the old blind beggar to train and teach. They lived like urhounds on the city streets, both predators and prey. He had never let it bother him before, they had to learn to live on their own, not to trust, not to love ... the pain around the burnt ruin of his eyes flared at the memory.

He had lost some ... many to the shadows and the scum. Those responsible never got away with it for long, strung up in the market square with their skins magicked inside out.

He told himself it never mattered, but he could still smell the metal tang of blood, the feel of ripped cloth and the tiny weight of the lifeless body. He couldn't remember her name, another child abandoned to the streets, she hadn't been with him long. Her body ripped apart like a rag doll and flung out over Viridia street those so many nights ago. The Bane's second victim.

He tried to tell himself she didn't mattered.

Argot sat on the dungeon's roof and watched as the batranc soared majestically into the night's onyx sky. It reeled on one mighty wing and fell to earth in a shower of red and blue sparks.

The fireworks had started soon after the suns had set. Pyromancers and alchemists filling the air above the Sultan's Palace with dragons, knights and sailing ships. A swarm of windriggers and windships filled with the judges and the rich, circled the display like crystal moths. Visible only as a ring of glittering sparks to those below.

He had fed what remained of Mallen to the violet creeper, its tendrils lovingly wound over the corpse like the thin fingers of a musician.

The glowing pyramid of a trivaran board, fifty stories high exploded over the palace. Every detail in exquisite clarity, each crystal tube reflecting a beam of rainbow of light out over the city. Whatever the Sindarans lacked in originality, they made up for in spectacle.

The rainbow light washed over his face and body, a momentary splash of colour on his gray robes. It slid past and penetrated deep into the garden, over the pale while hand of the corpse under the thick purple leaves. Into the empty grove of bushes under the spice trees.

A quaal, scrambled onto Argot's lap, frightened by the noise. He stroked the soft fur between its eyestalks, staring up into the brilliant night. He watched a thousand crimson sparks and thought of her eyes, once again loose in the shadows of the city.

Qwill is a PC
Argot is from the Worldbook.

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