A simple but elegant desk stood at the centre. Eight thin apertures cut into the stone gave a view of the room below. Hanging from the wall were eleven purple slate tablets, two feet high, each covered by a green velvet cloth embroidered with a bee with wings outspread and the name of a city. The shadow ignored the nearest and glided around the desk in the centre until it reached the cloth that bore the word 'Scree'. It raised a long finger that tapered into a cruel claw and began to trace through the air in front of the covered tablet. A faint scraping broke the quiet.

The shadow finished its writing and looked through a stone slit at the couple slumbering on the enormous bed. 'Come and join the per-formance, my friend. Yours is a starring role,' it murmured as it twitched the cloth slightly askew.

Then the shadow spread its insubstantial fingers like an eagle's talons. As it gave a sharp twist through the air a muted crack echoed around the room. The deed done, the shadow retraced its movements, pausing momentarily at the bed where the two figures still slept, legs fill angled despite the heat. One ethereal finger caressed the man's cheek before pausing over an eyelid that gave a tiny twitch.

'And what if I were to blind you now, o mighty king? Render you unable to behold this nation you love so? But I shall not; there are sights I would have you see before the end.'

The heavy summer silence returned to the room as the shadow slipped towards the door and out into the twilight of the corridor, then laded into nothing.

King Emin scowled at the tablet, pulling his shirt to order and tucking It Into his breeches.

Come back to bed,' purred Queen Oterness from the bed, strok¬ing the slight bump of her belly. One sharp-eyed old countess had noticed it already and there had been a sudden surge of speculation at courtl that an heir to the throne might at last be on the way. The royal couple were keeping quiet for now – the pregnancy was in its early stages and the queen feared her age might cause difficulties – but In the meantime that small swelling had restored her husband's pre-carious, affection.