Once I had disentangled myself from the chains, the guards unlocked the rings on my feet, using a key as big as my thumb. They left the manacles on my wrists but released the chain that attached them to the waist ring. Then they hauled me to my feet and out of the cell. The magus looked me up and down and wrinkled his nose, probably at the smell.

He wanted to know my name.

I said, “Gen.” He wasn’t interested in the rest.

“Bring him along,” he said as he turned his back on me and walked away. All of my own impulses to balance and move seemed to conflict with those of the guards, and I was jerked and jostled down the portico, just as graceful as a sick cat. We crossed through the guardroom to a door that led through the outer wall of the prison to a flight of stone steps and a courtyard that lay between the prison and the south wing of the king’s megaron. The megaron’s walls rose four stories over our heads on three sides. The king’s tiny stronghold had become a palace under the supervision of the invaders and an even larger palace since then. We crossed the courtyard, following a guard carrying a lantern, to a shorter flight of steps that led up to a door in the wall of the megaron.

On the other side of the door the white walls of a passageway reflected the light of so many lamps that it seemed as bright as day inside. I threw my head sideways and dragged one arm away from a guard in order to cover my eyes. The light felt solid, like spears that went through my head. Both guards stopped, and the one tried to grab my arm back, but I dragged it away again. The magus stopped to see what the noise was.

“Give him a moment to let his eyes adjust,” he said.

It was going to take longer, but the minute helped. I blinked some of the tears out of my eyes, and we started down the passageway again. I kept my head down and my eyes nearly closed and didn’t see much of the passageways at first. They had marble floors. The baseboards were painted with an occasional patch of lilies and a tortoise or resting bird. We went up a staircase where a painted pack of hunting dogs chased a lion around a corner to a door, where we stopped.

The magus knocked and went in. The guards, with some difficulty, navigated themselves and me through the narrow doorway. I looked around to see who had watched my clumsy entrance, but the room was empty.

I was excited. My blood rushed around like wine sloshing in a jar, but I was also deadly tired. The walk up the stairs had felt like a hike up a mountain. My knees wobbled, and I was glad to have the guards, graceless as they were, holding me at the elbows. When they let go, I was off-balance and had to swing my arms to keep from falling. My chains clanked.

“You can go,” the magus said to the guards. “Come take him back in half an hour.”

Half an hour? My hopes, which had been rising, fell a little. As the guards left, I looked around the room. It was small, with a desk and several comfortable chairs scattered around it. The magus stood next to the desk. The windows behind him should have looked out on the megaron’s greater courtyard, but the tiny panes of glass only reflected the light of lamps burning inside. I looked again at the chairs. I picked the nicest one and sat in it. The magus stiffened. His eyebrows snapped down into a single line across the top of his face. They were dark, though most of his hair had gone to gray.

“Get up,” he commanded.

I leaned farther into the feather pillows on the seat and back of the chair. It was almost as good as clean clothes, and I couldn’t have gotten up if I had tried. My knees were weak, and my stomach was considering tossing up the little I had recently eaten. The chair back came to just behind my ears, so I rested my head back and looked up my nose at the magus, still standing by his desk.

The magus gave me a few moments to consider my position before he stepped over to the chair. He leaned down until his nose was just a few inches from mine. I hadn’t seen his face before from this close. He had the high-bridged nose of most of the people in the city, but his eyes were a very light gray instead of brown. His forehead was covered by wrinkles brought on by a lot of sun and too much frowning. I was thinking that he must have done some sort of outdoor work before he started reading books when he spoke. I stopped thinking about his complexion and shifted my gaze back to his eyes.

“We might someday attain a relationship of mutual respect,” he said softly. First, I thought, I will see gods walking the earth. He went on. “For now I will have your obedience.”

His ability to convey a world of threat in so few words was remarkable. I swallowed, and my hands shook a little where they lay on the arms of the chair. One link of chain clinked against another, but I still didn’t try to get up. My legs wouldn’t have lifted me. He must have realized this, and known also that he had made his point, because he stepped back to lean against the desk, and waved one hand in disgust.

“Never mind. Stay there for now. The seat will have to be cleaned.”

I felt my face getting redder. It wasn’t my fault that I stank. He should spend some months in the king’s prison and then we’d see if he still smelled like old books and scented soap. He looked me over for several moments more and didn’t seem impressed.

“I saw you at your trial,” he said finally.

I didn’t say that I’d noticed him there as well.

“You’re thinner.”

I shrugged.

“Tell me,” said the magus, “have you found yourself reluctant to leave our hospitality? You said at your trial that not even the king’s prison could hold you, and I rather expected you to be gone by now.” He was enjoying himself.

I crossed my legs and settled deeper into the chair. He winced.

I said, “Some things take time.”

“How true,” said the magus. “How much time do you think it’s going to take?”

Another half an hour, I thought, but I didn’t say that either.

“I think it’s going to take a long time,” said the magus. “I think it could take the rest of your life. After all,” he joked, “when you’re dead, you certainly won’t be in the king’s prison, will you?”

“I suppose not.” I didn’t think he was funny.

“You boasted about a lot of things at your trial. Idle boasts, I suppose.”

“I can steal anything.”

“So you claimed. It was a wager to that effect that landed you in prison.” He picked a pen nib off the desk beside him and turned it in his hands for a moment. “It is too bad for you that intelligence does not always attend gifts such as yours, and fortunate for me that it is not your intelligence I am interested in, but your skill. If you are as good as you say you are.”

I repeated myself. “I can steal anything.”

“Except yourself out of the king’s prison?” the magus asked, lifting only one eyebrow this time.

I shrugged. I could do that, too, but it would take time. It might take a long time, and I wanted the king’s magus to offer a faster way.

“Well, you’ve learned how to keep your mouth shut at least,” said the magus. He pulled himself away from his desk and walked across the room. While his back was turned, I pushed the hair away from my eyes and took another quick look around the room. It was his study, but I already knew that. There were books and old scrolls in piles on the shelves. There was a scarred bench piled with amphoras and other clay containers. There were glass bottles as well. At the end of the room was a curtained alcove, and barely visible under the curtain was a pair of feet in leather boots. I turned back around in my chair with my stomach jumping.