The Prince of Shadow by Curt Benjamin Page B

truthfully any question the overseer asked of him.
    Master Markko was at his desk, as usual, with Bixei standing at attention while the overseer sprinkled sand on his writing and tapped it clean. He rolled and sealed it, and handed it to Bixei, who left them with a last cold glare at Llesho. Llesho ignored the animosity of the other boy; Markko was looking up at him with false concern oiling his frown.
    â€œLet me see it, boy.” Markko held out his hand. “You had a message from Master Den for the witch. I want to see it.”
    In a cold sweat, Llesho wondered if he could withhold the parchment roll. Kwan-ti was lost to him, but perhaps he could save Master Den from the stake if he took responsibility for his actions. “It was my fault,” he said, “I wanted to see Kwan-ti. Master Den tried to persuade me not to go, but I persisted, and so he made it possible for me to visit the longhouse.”
    â€œAnd did you see the witch?”
    â€œI have never seen a witch,” Llesho answered with precise honesty. No one had ever identified themselves to him as a witch. If required, he might have guessed the woman who had watched him that first afternoon in the weapons room practiced the evil arts. He would have offered his own life, however, as surety that Kwan-ti had no evil in her.
    â€œI see.” Master Markko considered him thoughtfully. “But I would still like to see the message Master Den gave you for the woman.”
    â€œYes, Master.” Shivering, though the day was warm, Llesho held out the parchment. He paled when Markko took a small knife and carefully lifted the seal. Unrolled, the parchment revealed only a request for a simple poultice. Markko frowned at it, then he lit the candle on his desk and held the parchment over it. The edges began to curl and smoke, but still no words appeared on the parchment. Flicking the false message at Llesho, he asked, “What do you make of this?”
    â€œI don’t understand.” Which was true, except that Llesho thought he might be figuring it out, though he wished he had Lleck at his side to guide him through the twists of what began to take on the outlines of a game of Go played by masters. He knew he wasn’t up to the mettle of the players, but he suspected it would prove no easier to be a stone.
    The overseer carefully brushed the burned edges off the parchment and rolled it again. Markko picked up the seal, which he had lifted whole with his knife, and held it over the candle.
    â€œIf you feel ill again, come to me,” Markko said as he watched the wax of the seal soften. “You are too valuable to our lord—as a gladiator in training, you understand?—to rely on superstitious old women for your care.”
    A scent like illness, but with more of death in it, clung to the air in the overseer’s cottage. It tickled a warning at the back of his nose, and Llesho determined he would have to remain very healthy from now on. He nodded, willing to agree to anything if it would get him out of the cottage.
    â€œJust so we understand each other.” The overseer pressed the seal back into place over the ribbon on the roll of parchment and handed it back to Llesho. “You never stopped here,” he instructed, “and I never saw this.”
    Shaking, Llesho took the scroll. “But, honored sir, Bixei has seen me. Won’t he tell the others?”
    â€œYou needn’t worry about Bixei. At least,” Markko added with a sly smile, “in the matter of my secrets.” Dismissed, Llesho bowed and made his escape to the practice yard. With a deep breath to settle the trembling that had started in his whole body, he tried to set his mind to the promise he had made to the ghost of Thebin’s minister, Lleck.
    As the youngest prince of Thebin, Llesho knew he’d been born a stone in a game whose board spanned whole kingdoms. He’d been swept from the board once already, and he