“The reign of Eddis supposedly arose out of one of the stories in which Hephestia rewarded a king named Hamiathes with a stone dipped in the water of immortality. The stone freed its bearer from death, but at the end of his natural life span the king passed the stone to his son and died. The son eventually passed it to his son, and the possession of it became synonymous with the right to rule the country. When a usurper stole the stone and soon thereafter died, it was understood that the power of the stone was lost unless it was given to the bearer, and so a tradition grew up that allowed the throne of Eddis to change hands peacefully when another country might have had a civil war. One person stole the stone and then gave it to his chosen candidate for the throne, in that way making him rightful king.”

“But this is just myth,” protested Ambiades. I silently agreed with him.

“It’s hard to say what is myth and what is real,” said the magus. “There may have been a king called Hamiathes, and he may have initiated this tradition. We do know that there was a stone called Hamiathes’s Gift and that at the time of the invaders people still believed in its power and its authority. So much so that the invaders attacked Eddis to gain control of the country by gaining control of the stone, which was additionally rumored to be some sort of fabulous gem. When the Gift disappeared, the invaders were thrown back off the mountain and returned their attention to Sounis and Attolia, which were more easily administered countries.”

“What had happened to the stone?” asked Sophos.

“It had been hidden by the king of Eddis, and he died without passing it to his son and without revealing its hiding place. It has remained hidden ever since.”

“Do you think it could ever be found?” Sophos asked.

The magus nodded. There was a short silence.

“You think you can find it?” asked Ambiades, his face pinched with eagerness and probably greed, I thought.

The magus nodded.

“Do you mean,” I squawked, “that we are out here in the dark looking for something from a fairy tale?”

The magus looked at me. I think he’d forgotten that I was there listening to him lecture his apprentices. “Reliable documents did survive from the time before the invaders, Gen. They mention the stone.”

“And you really think you know where it is?” Ambiades persisted.

“Yes.”

“Where?” he asked, while I shook my head in disbelief.

“If it really exists, why,” I asked, “after hundreds of years are you the first one to locate it?”

“I’m not.” The magus’s answer surprised me. “According to the records I’ve found, a number of other people have gone to look for the stone, but those who came closest to where I think it is hidden never came back. This makes me think that in one way at least they were poorly equipped.” He smiled benignly at me across the fire. “Traditionally it took an exceptionally talented thief to bring away the stone, and that’s why you’ve been invited to grace our party.”

“Would those records you found be the ones you think survived since before the invaders?” Things that old I’d have to see before I believed in them.

“Yes,” said the magus, hooking his linked hands over one knee and rocking back and forth in self-congratulation, “although they survive no more. Once I elicited the information I needed, they were destroyed to prevent anyone else from following the same trail.”

I winced. It would have been better if the records hadn’t been discovered at all. Ambiades asked again where we were going.

“You’ll see when we get there,” said his master.

“And why are we going?” I asked derisively. “So that you can be king of Eddis? A hopelessly backward country full of woodcutters?” It was the most charitable description of Eddisians that I had heard in the city.

“I will give the stone to Sounis of course. He will be king. I will be the King’s Thief.”

This pricked my professional pride. I was going to do the stealing, and he was going to take the credit. His name would be carved in stone on a stele outside the basilica, and mine would be written in the dust. I reminded him that it was my place to be King’s Thief. “Or do you expect me to hand you Hamiathes’s Gift and then get knifed in the back? Is that why you brought Pol?”

He didn’t rise to my bait, and Pol didn’t so much as shift his weight on the far side of the fire. A little chill ran up my spine.

“That won’t be necessary,” said the magus coolly. “No one would mistake you for anything but a tool, Gen. If a sword is well made, does the credit go to the blacksmith or to his hammer? How much smarter than a hammer can you be if you flaunt the proof of your crimes in a wineshop?” I flushed, and he laughed. If I hadn’t already been angry, it might not have seemed unkind laughter.

“What would you do if you were King’s Thief, Gen? Chew with your mouth open in the royal presence? Chat with the court ladies, dropping the h’s at the beginning of your words and garbling the ends of most of them? Everything about you reveals your low birth. You’d never be comfortable at the court.”

“I’d be famous.”

“Oh, you’re that already, Gen,” he said pityingly.

I’d have been amused myself if Ambiades’s snicker hadn’t rubbed me on the raw. I changed ground.

“And Sounis trusts you to bring the stone back to him?”

“Of course,” the magus snapped. I’d hit a sore point. He’d made sure that Sounis had to trust him, destroying all the records so that no one else could locate the stone.

“Are you sure?” I needled him. “Maybe that’s why Pol is along. Maybe you’re the one to be knifed in the back.” His eyebrows flattened over his nose. He was angry at last.

“Don’t be stupid,” he said.

“And why should Sounis be king of Eddis as well? He already has one country,” I said. “And all they have up there”—I waved to the mountain behind me—“is trees. A lot of trees. Does he want to build boats?”

“No,” the magus explained, remembering that I was hardly worth being angry at, “he wants the queen.”

I dropped my mouth open in patent disbelief. “We’re doing this so that he can get—”

“—married,” said the magus. “Eddis has refused him so far, but she won’t be able to if he can show that he is the rightful ruler of her country. We’ve warned her that at his next proposal he will be the bearer of Hamiathes’s Gift.” And that’s why we were all out in the dark fetching what he had already promised to deliver.

“What if no one believes in your silly Hamiathes’s Gift anymore?” I asked. “What if we find it and everyone says, ‘So what?’”

“She is not so secure on her throne that she can risk offending her people’s gods. No woman could be.”

I looked into the fire. For a while there was quiet around the campfire. “He doesn’t want the queen,” I said at last, the truth forcing its way out. “He doesn’t even want the country. He wants the pass through the mountains so that he can invade Attolia.”

Pol and Ambiades nodded their heads on the other side of the fire. To anyone who knew Sounis, this explanation made more sense than the one the magus offered.