The stables were just on the other side of a curtain wall, and as soon as he was through the arched gateway he knew he'd chosen correctly. There were bodies lying on the hard packed ground. Soldiers wearing the uniform of the King's household guard. Behind them, a small group of Yinnfarsian soldiers was walking wearily away from the wooden stable buildings, limping and cradling injured arms, one tying a strip of cloth around his bloodstained head.

     Tak's heart fell. They were obviously returning from a heavy battle, and if they were alive then their enemies, the King's defenders, were dead. They stopped, gaping in horror when they saw him and tensed up to run, but Tak cried out for them to stop. "Where is the King?" he demanded. "Have you killed him?"

     One of them glanced back at the stables in terror, and then they were bolting, each running in a different direction. Tak didn't bother with them and ran for the stables, already knowing what he would find.

     Sure enough, the King was there, his body chopped almost out of all recognition as if all his enemies had wanted to dip their blades in royal blood. The last of his household guard was lying around him, massacred where they'd made their last stand. Tak cursed bitterly. If he hadn't been held up by Velzen he might have been in time. He must have missed the end by only a couple of minutes!.

     He clamped down on the feeling of grief and futility that threatened to overwhelm him. The important thing now was to end the fighting before any more lives were lost. It would be a tragedy if more good men were killed now that the cause of it was gone. He left the stables, therefore, and cast a spell that amplified his voice so that it could be heard throughout the castle. "THE KING IS DEAD!" he cried, hearing the words echoing off the walls around him. "LET THE FIGHTING STOP!"

     He heard the clashing of steel faltering hesitantly, and somewhere a cheer went up, causing cries of outraged grief from somewhere else in the keep and a renewed surge of fighting. In most places, though, soldiers were stepping warily away from each other, their swords held ready to defend themselves in case it was a trick. He heard a screech above him and looked up to see Barl on Pyre, leading Tak's steed by the reins as they came in for a landing.

     "Where?" demanded the other Gem Lord as he jumped out of the saddle. "In there?" Tak nodded and Barl ran into the stables, emerging a moment later looking sick and furious. "Damnation!" he swore, punching a stone wall and knocking a great hole in it. "Damn! Damn! Damn! All for nothing!"

     He looked ready to tear the whole castle down in his anger, but Tak had no time to commiserate with him. Essca was still out there, and maybe in danger. At that moment, though, he saw her with Baron Krelldicon, the two of them walking towards them across the bloodstained courtyard. She appeared to be unhurt and relieved it was all over, but the Baron seemed to be in an even worse state of grief and loss than Barl.

     "Is it true?" he demanded. "Was it your great voice we heard just them?"

     "Yes," said Tak to both questions, and the giant ducked into the stables to see for himself. Tak gave Essca a hug and made sure she was unhurt, then looked his steed over. The burns to its flank weren't as bad as he'd feared. It would heal, and the creature didn't seem to be in any great pain. He stroked its great head and tickled it behind the horns.

     "You killed Velzen?" said Essca, making Barl looked up in surprise.

     "He's dead," confirmed Tak. "What about our men? How many did we lose?"

     "The Captain's carrying out a head count right now," replied the other Gem Lord, "but I don't think we lost any. Our enemies run from them, knowing they're backed up by monsters and wizards. This situation wasn't a total loss, maybe. Yinnfarsia and Sholl have learned to fear us once more. They'll think twice before interfering with our plans again. Velzen, one of our most potent enemies, is dead, and we have a new source of information about Sholl." He looked at Essca thoughtfully.

     "How much she chooses to reveal is up to her," warned Tak, though. "I won't ask her to betray her city, and I won't have her interrogated like a captured enemy. She is to be my wife and she is to be treated as such."

     "But as your wife, her loyalty will be to us, and she will want to help us as much as she can," replied Barl. "I'm sure she will volunteer everything she knows."

     "I'll tell you everything I can," promised Essca. "I've got no love for Sholl, and I'm glad Velzen's dead."

     Barl nodded, but Tak glanced between the two of them with some anxiety. The other Gem Lords might accept her as his wife, for the sake of their continued unity, but he thought it would be some time before they truly accepted her as one of them. She would be a source of tension between them for some time to come. Maybe forever. Well, that was their problem. He and Essca were an item now, and they would just have to accept that.

     The moment was growing awkward and he decided to end it before someone said something to make it even worse. "If we're finished here, shall we go home?"

     Barl nodded gratefully. "Yes," he said. "Let's go home, but I'm not looking forward to telling the others what happened here. We had such a simple task to perform, and yet somehow it managed to go horribly wrong. We can salvage a few crumbs of comfort, but the truth is that Yinnfarsia's won here. King Lamont's realm will now become a Yinnfarsian province and Domandropolis is threatened from the south."

     "We'll fortify the Yon hills," said Tak. "Let some steeds be seen overflying the region. I don't think we've got anything to worry about. Not really."

     "I hope you're right," said Barl, and nothing more was said as they climbed aboard their steeds and took to the air.

☆☆☆

     Thomas sighed as he stood, pouring himself a glass of water to wet his dry mouth.

     "The Lamont incident was the only real attempt by the Gem Lords to extend their influence beyond the realm of Domandropolis," he said. "After that, they concentrated mainly on protecting what they had and on their own individual projects. Tak was happy. He spent years more perfecting the gem steeds, eventually succeeding in breeding a strain of higher intelligence that could breed.

     "In the fullness of time they bred hundreds of them. A whole aerial cavalry that would have given them a decisive military advantage over the rest of the continent if neighbouring cities hadn't managed to steal some of the creatures and breed them for themselves. It hadn't occurred to Tak that the ability to breed outside the laboratory would actually be a disadvantage. His only thought was for the bettering of the creatures themselves. He didn't have the kind of mind that calculated the consequences of every action, and after that the others were careful to keep him under control. They kept a close eye on everything he did and stopped him from doing anything they thought was dangerous."

     Thomas sighed again. "Tak was a kindly soul, for the most part, but there was a kind of arrogance about him as well. Not the usual kind of arrogance of a braggart shoving his way through crowds of ordinary people whom he deems his inferiors. Not an aggressive sort of arrogance. He simply considered the worldly matters of politics and economics to be beneath him. He was engaged in more important work. Projects that would benefit all mankind. Teleportation arches to link opposite sides of impassable deserts or marshes. Water pumps that sterilised the water they delivered, freeing the city from the curse of cholera. That kind of thing.

     "Because of him, their corner of the world became almost a worldly paradise, but Tak became so proud of all he'd accomplished that he became disdainful of day to day matters, leaving them to the others who endured this treatment only because they wanted what he continued to deliver. As the years passed and he became more and more conscious of his power he lost his timidity and became quite outspoken, and not always in a nice way. There were even occasions in which I believe he became quite insufferable, although it's hard to be sure with only his memories of the incidents. I'm only seeing it from one side, you see."

     Lirenna nodded. "Power corrupts," she said. "We've heard the story so many times. No wonder the University goes to such lengths to armour us against it, and with such little success."

     "I wouldn't say he was corrupted," said Thomas, though. "He just lost contact with the everyday world. He saw the mundanes as wretches to be rescued from the miseries of their existence rather than as people in their own right. It was a kindly sort of arrogance, if there is such a thing."

     "Did they grow to resent his attitude towards them?" asked the demi shae.

     "No," said Thomas, shaking his head emphatically. "They didn't dare! You have to remember the relationship that existed between wizards and mundanes in those days. The wizards were almost gods. They had complete power of life and death over the citizens they ruled over. Even in a regime as benevolent as that of the Gem Lords the citizens understood their place and knew the dire consequences awaiting anyone who strayed from it. The citizens had no choice but to accept the wizards they had, and the people of Domandropolis were grateful that they were spared the horrors being suffered by the people of other cities, with whom they had trading links and whose stories they heard. The stories went both ways, of course, and when people heard how great life was in Domandropolis they flocked to move in, so that by the time the reign of the Gem Lords came to an end the city had three times the population it had had when Khalkedon died."

     "Did they die?" asked Lirenna, searching her husband's face carefully. "Do you remember Tak's death?"

     Thomas frowned. "I, I don't know. I remember Tak's old age, accelerated by the tremendous amounts of magic force pouring through his body. By the time he was fifty he looked and felt more like seventy, and so did the others. Their powers faded, as do the powers of all wizards as their bodies grow feeble, and their apprentices took over as the rulers and defenders of the city. The Gem Lords became a circle of old men and women, sucking their gums as they talked endlessly about the old days. They all thought they'd come to the end of their days, but..."

     "But what?" prompted Lirenna impatiently after several moments of silence. "It wasn't their end? What happened? Did they become raks, or discover the secret of renewed youth?"

     "I don't remember!" cried Thomas, holding his head in his hands, "but it's something big. Something important. They, they did something, or, no. Something happened to them, but what?"

     Lirenna willed him to remember, almost exploding with frustration, but in the end she put a hand on his and squeezed gently. "It'll come to you," she said. "Give it time."

     "It's so close!" cried Thomas miserably. "I can feel it there, so close, and I can sense that if I can remember that, I'll remember everything. I've been remembering in bits and pieces, but all the rest of his memories are in one big lump. They'll all come together, and when they do I'll know it all."

     He paced up and down in an attempt to burn off the excess energy coursing through him, making his whole body tremble and vibrate. Lirenna took him by the arm and gently guided him back to the bed where she sat beside him, one of his hands in both of hers. Presently they began to talk about other things, the mission they were on and what was likely to be going on back home, but the mystery of Tak's end remained in both their minds and it was a long time before they were finally able to let it go, for the time being at least.