Service in the Royal Palace was an accepted part of growing up for all the sprigs of the nobility in Fer-agor-am'h.

It was never without its dangers, and never without its opportunities. Through the vicissitudes of daily life and a whole network of circumstance, the children evolved a whole hierarchy of their own, which operated entirely independently of that of the adult world, for all that it was circumscribed by it. A faithful mirror of the larger, its inhabitants ran the spectrum of intelligence and integrity, from Hoeb who (although he was the son of the oo'oacu's vizier) was hardly bright enough to find his own backside with his hand, to Aguf who, despite being the son of an illiterate officer in the Moons Division, had taught himself to read better than the average lord who had to rely on scribes to carry out their correspondence.

Gef's father Egefa was notable for his family rather than any achievements of his own. Other boys whose fathers had gone on campaign for the oo'oacu or who had performed some equally praiseworthy deed worthy to be engraved on the Walls of Remembering tended to look down on both of them; to work quietly every day in the Halls of Justice hearing cases too unimportant to be brought before the High Court or even the oo'oacu himself was hardly the stuff of glory. Nevertheless, the family's loyal service to the Crown was generations old. If the administering of justice to the lower levels of society was not the stuff of legend, still it could be said that 'Someone's got to do it'; and Gef's father was the Someone, which earned Gef a place among the boys who ran errands for their elders and betters until it was time for them to begin their schooling in preparation for taking their own place in the shark-tank that was the oo'oacu's palace.

The almost unceasing demands of his father's duties meant that the times were very rare when Egefa was able to speak to his son; usually by the time he returned home, the children were in bed. But now and again Gef would wake to find his father sitting on the edge of the cot, his thin face tired in the wavering lamplight.

"What is the most important thing in the world, my son?" Egefa would ask, when Gef had thrown back the blanket and wrapped his arms around him.

"Justice, Father." When he was little he hadn't even understood what the word meant, but he knew saying it made his father happy. As he grew older he learned that it meant a lot of different things to different people, but Father thought it meant being fair to everybody. And especially it meant not just accepting when something was wrong, but doing what you could to put it right.

For some time he'd believed that there was something wrong with the eyesight of important people that made them unable to see children. Eventually he'd realized that it was just because they didn't think children were important enough to take any notice of, and while this was a bit irritating it was also useful because it meant that children got to see and hear all sorts of interesting things. Naturally it wasn't safe to talk about them, but still, it was interesting, and he was bright enough to add up a lot of the things and work out a great deal about the world that one day he would enter; and he already knew more than a lot of the children his age did.

The queen liked 'personable' children to wait on her, and apparently he was considered 'personable' (whatever that meant, exactly), so he was quite accustomed to being among those selected to take in the meals she took in her private rooms. At first he'd been very much overawed but he'd got used to it, mostly because nobody in there ever acted as though he existed at all, so as long as he was quiet and careful and did what he was supposed to do he could get out without any trouble. Which was mostly what children were supposed to do.

Then – today – the yamyne had seen him. And not just seen him, but spoken to him, even though he talked in some strange language that apparently nobody could understand. And not even just spoken to him, but given him something – food that was baked specially for the Queen's table, that not even nobles were supposed to have a taste of. And it had tasted absolutely wonderful, even if in the scramble afterwards he'd had one piece stolen from him and had to make do with a rather smaller piece that nobody grabbed before he got it into his mouth.

He'd seen the yamyne before, of course. Some of the older boys called him nasty things when they were sure grown-ups couldn't hear; used bad words, though Gef often got the impression that they were secretly a bit envious of him for some reason. But though never before had the exotic-looking dark-skinned man taken any more notice of him than any other adult did, today had been different. And more importantly than the notice, more than the speech, even more than the cakes, he had smiled. A smile that said 'I like you!', and which lit up his whole face so that Gef had wanted to burst with joy just looking at it.

So when, much later, he'd gone into the store-room to fetch the dried fruit for the baker and found the yamyne bound hand and foot there, he'd felt as though the great shining bubble of delight inside him had collapsed, leaving him shocked and dismayed and certain that some terrible mistake must have been made. How could the queen's servant be tied up and hidden away? What could he possibly have done wrong? Had the queen been upset about the cakes?

Duty was duty; Gef had delivered the fruit to the bakery and pretended that he had some other important errand to run away for before the baker could think of anything else he needed. But as he scampered away his mind was full of the picture of the yamyne helpless on the store-room floor, and he hid himself away in a quiet corner to sit and think what might have happened, and what could possibly be done to mend matters.

Cudgel his mind as he would, however, he could imagine no way in which he could find out what the yamyne had done, or any way to help him. The thought that the man might be left there to die was so appalling that tears presently started to leak down his face, although he tried valiantly to scrub them away.

He was so preoccupied with his grief and fear that he didn't notice that someone had stopped a few feet away and was watching him silently. When at last he did become aware that he was not alone, and realized the identity of the watcher, he shrank into his corner with a croak of terror.

All of the boys (and probably the girls, only worse, because girls were scared of everything) were terrified of the zarhs. They walked with the gods. When you ran errands that brought you near them, you made sure you were swift and silent, and when your task was done you fled. Sometimes a boy was chosen for service with them, and when that happened all the other boys went silent or offered rough sympathy, as though the luckless one were already doomed to be cast into the eternal darkness of Karoh where scorpions tormented the souls of the dead. Only last year, Mur had been chosen to serve the Zarh Hezafer, and on the rare occasions afterwards that he had been seen by those who had once been his fellows, his eyes had been empty, as though no-one at all had been inside him looking out.

Mur had not been seen for many moon-turns. Nobody asked what had become of him. Nobody wanted to know.

But if the Zarh Hezafer was terrifying, the Zarh J'zakthi was worse. He served the Dead God, and sometimes it seemed that the dead walked with him. Even nobles dreaded him. And yet he was quiet and calm, never raising his voice or his hand; he never needed to.

And now he had not merely seen Gef, he had noticed him. And was watching him, with those dark eyes that stared into the face of the Dead God and saw the Dead God staring back.

The slight motion with one hand was an order that Gef would not have dreamed of disobeying, however terrified he was. The boy scrambled to his feet, frantically trying to wipe his face clean and expecting at any moment an order for him to be taken to the uppermost point of the Palace walls and thrown from it.

It would be absolutely inappropriate for him to speak unless spoken to. So he stood in front of the zarh and waited, staring mutely ahead of him; a position which enabled him to get an excellent view of the way that tiny flakes had been chipped off the long, leaf-shaped obsidian blade to give it a perfect cutting edge from every side. He could imagine it slipping between his ribs and the scorpions coming for his soul because he had offended the zarh who had the right to stand upright before the oo'oacu himself. He was too paralyzed with fear to stop noticing the way the light shifted on the glassy surface in time to the rise and fall of the chest beneath it.

After a pause during which it felt as though the sun had been able to journey to the Underworld and back again several times, the zarh turned away silently. The hand gestured. Swallowing, Gef followed obediently, biting his lip to try to stop himself from starting to cry again, this time with fear as he was being taken away to be fed to the scorpions, and his little sister Mire would not have anyone to tell her stories at bedtime. Maybe even his mother and father would never know what had become of him.

His years of service around the Palace had taught him well enough where the Great Ones resided. He recognized the zarh's personal rooms, and a different and more sinister fear seized him. Sometimes the older children deigned to pass on snippets of their worldly knowledge to their juniors, and although he'd had some trouble in absorbing some of the concepts, he'd eventually managed to fit most of it into his world-view. True, if that was the zarh's intention, it would be better than being thrown from the walls or fed to scorpions; but maybe that was what Mur had thought, and Gef couldn't help but feel that even being thrown from the walls would be better than having things done to his body that would leave him walking around with no-one left inside it to look out….

His legs were so wobbly by now that it was all he could do to follow the zarh inside. As the door closed behind him he bit his lip harder than ever and tried to feel brave, but he couldn't do a very good job of it because after all, he was only eight, and although he told anyone who asked that he was 'nearly nine', the 'nearly' part didn't seem to be making much of a difference.

He would have been less surprised if the room had been filled with ravening demons ready to pounce on him at a word, but in actual fact it was one of the simplest he had ever been in. There was a table, and a cabinet against the wall that was filled with scrolls, and a couch against the far wall that he blinked at a little apprehensively, but apart from that it was empty. Even the whitewashed walls were bare of ornament, save for the niches where the fine wax lamps had been lit.

His darkest fears seemed only confirmed, however, when the zarh pointed to the couch. "Sit."

He had no option. He got himself across to the couch and sat on the very edge of it, trying to stop his knees from trembling.

The zarh walked to the table. There was a fine glass flask on it filled with wine, and he poured some into a cup and drank a single mouthful of it before bringing it across to the couch. "Drink."

Gef looked from him to the cup and back again. He had never touched a cup of such beautiful workmanship before, and only on special occasions had he been permitted a very little wine, well watered down, with his family meal. He was afraid he would drop the cup and break it, or that the wine would make him say something he ought not, because he knew that it did that to adults sometimes.

Nevertheless, he knew that he couldn't disobey the zarh. So he took the cup, holding it very carefully in both hands, and sipped at the contents. The liquid was dark red, like blood, and for a moment he actually thought it might be blood, which wouldn't really have surprised him, but it wasn't, and although he didn't really like the taste he swallowed it obediently. And after a moment he felt a bit better, even if his heart was still pounding in his chest so hard that he was afraid the zarh would hear it and know how scared he was.

He wanted to say 'Thank you', because Father had taught him that manners were important, but he was too frightened to say anything, and that made him even more frightened because the zarh was so very powerful and he might think that Father hadn't taught his son the proper way to behave. And if the zarh thought that, there was no saying what he might cause to have done to Father and even to the whole family.

That thought finally loosened his tongue. "His servant thanks the zarh," he whispered, handing back the cup.

The zarh took it from him and seemed about to speak, but then turned around and took it back to the table. It was set back beside the flask with the lightest of clicks, and then the zarh turned around and came back to the couch.

Gef's heart seemed about to burst out of his throat. Now it would happen….

But instead of pouncing on him, the zarh squatted down in front of him and began staring at him. And he couldn't stop himself from staring back into those mesmerizing eyes.

It was like looking into a deep well. At first there was light, but soon the darkness intensified and began drawing him in, faster and faster and deeper and deeper, until he couldn't have got out if he'd tried. And when the voice spoke, in a way he'd never experienced before and couldn't understand, he had no choice but to answer, though it felt as though he was talking in his sleep.

What did you see?

"The yamyne." A sob rose in his throat. "He was tied up. They tied him up and left him in a store-room."

Who did?

"I don't know." But a memory surfaced, of the guard outside the room: he'd had a white sash. "I think – I think–"

You must tell me everything.

Even in this pass, he couldn't say the name. "I think it was the – the other zarh."

Why would he do such a thing?

"I don't know! – I don't know! The Queen – he gave us cake – maybe she was angry and told someone–"

Why did the yamyne give you food?

Gef almost wailed. "I don't know! He looked at me – and he smiled – and then he gave me the cake. I didn't eat much of it. I didn't know it was wrong…"

If you were given it, you were right to eat it. Do not be afraid. You cannot think when you are afraid.

It was easier to say than to achieve. And as for being able to think, that was almost out of the question.

Did you see the hieth'a?

He shook his head vigorously. "No. There was no-one else."

Had the yamyne been hurt?

The child considered. "I – I think he might have been. He was pretending to be asleep when I went in. He only opened his eyes when the guard couldn't see him."

Did he speak to you?

"No." That, at least, he could say firmly. "I don't think he wanted the guard to know he was awake."

But you saw no injuries.

"There wasn't any blood." A little doubtfully. "Not that I saw. But I couldn't look at him very much, of course. The guard wouldn't have liked it."

Tell me what else.

"I – I'm sorry?"

There is something else. You know and do not know that you know.

"No, I–"

Tell me what you saw.

"There wasn't anything–"

Tell me about the hieth'a.

"The – the hieth'a?" He gulped. "Well – she was in the Queen's rooms, and – and we took the food in, and –the girls went to anoint her feet, and – and she didn't like it. Well, she did. Sort of. She laughed a lot."

She did not like having her feet anointed?

Gef swallowed. He wasn't at all sure that using the word 'ticklish' in the same sentence as 'hieth'a' wasn't heresy. "It made her laugh and, and wriggle about a lot, like my little sister does when I play with her toes."

There was a silence. In the midst of it, Gef found himself floating back to the surface, almost as though he had indeed been under the water of the well and only now found himself released to return to the light and air. Suddenly he came completely back to himself and keeled over backwards with a gasp, his lungs inflating as though they'd been deprived of breath and suddenly he could breathe again.

The zarh was still kneeling in front of him, but now the dark eyes were not staring at him but through him, and beneath the black paint on his forehead there was a frown.

"Something is wrong," he said softly, with certainty, and now he was speaking with his normal voice. "The zarh must find the hieth'a and make her tell him the truth."

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