THIEVES WORLD #1
THIEVES WORLD

Edited by Robert Lynn Asprin

CONTENTS

EDITORS NOTE

INTRODUCTION

SENTENCES OF DEATH			John Brunner
THE FACE OF CHAOS			Lynn Abbey
THE GATE OF THE FLYING KNIVES		Poul Anderson
SHADOWSPAWN				Andrew Offutt
THE PRICE OF DOING BUSINESS		Robert Asprin
BLOOD BROTHERS				Joe Haldeman
MYRTIS					Christine DeWees
THE SECRET OF THE BLUE STAR		Marion Zimmer Bradley

THE MAKING OF THIEVES' WORLD		Robert Asprin

EDITOR'S NOTE

The  perceptive  reader  may  notice  small  inconsistencies  in  the characters
appearing in  these stories.  Their speech  patterns, their  accounts of certain
events, and their  observations on the  town's pecking order  vary from time  to
time.

These are not inconsistencies!

The reader  should consider  the contradictions  again, bearing  three things in
mind.

First; each story is told from  a different viewpoint, and different people  see
and hear  things differently.  Even readily  observable facts  are influenced by
individual perceptions and opinions.  Thus, a minstrel narrating  a conversation
with a magician would give a different account than would a thief witnessing the
same exchange.

Second; the citizens of Sanctuary are by necessity more than a little  paranoid.
They tend to either omit or slightly alter information in conversation. This  is
done more reflexively than out of premeditation, as it is essential for survival
in this community.

Finally, Sanctuary  is a  fiercely competitive  environment. One  does not  gain
employment  by  admitting  to  being 'the  second-best  swordsman  in  town'. In
addition to  exaggerating one's  own status,  it is  commonplace to downgrade or
ignore one's closest  competitors. As a  result, the pecking  order of Sanctuary
will vary depending on who you talk to ... or more importantly, who you believe.

INTRODUCTION

l THE EMPEROR

'But surely Your Excellency can't dispute the facts of the matter!'

The robed figure of the Emperor never slackened its pacing as the new leader  of
the Rankan Empire shook his head in violent disagreement.

'I do not dispute the facts, Kilite,'  he argued, 'But neither will I order  the
death of my brother.'

'Stepbrother,' his chief adviser corrected pointedly.

'The blood of our father flows  in both our veins,' the Emperor  countered, 'and
I'll have no hand in spilling it.'

'But  Your  Excellency,'  Kilite  pleaded,  'Prince  Kadakithis  is  young   and
idealistic ...'

'... and I  am not,' the  Emperor finished. 'You  belabour the obvious,  Kilite.
That idealism is my  protection. He would no  more lead a rebellion  against the
Emperor - against his brother - than •'. I would order his assassination.'

'It is not the Prince we fear.  Your Excellency, it's those who would use  him.'
The adviser was adamant. 'If one of his many false-faced followers succeeded  in
convincing him that your rule was unjust or inhumane, that idealism would compel
him to move against you even though he loves you dearly.'

The  Emperor's  pacing slowed  until  finally he  was  standing motionless,  his
shoulders drooping slightly.

'You're right, Kilile. All my  advisers are right.' There was  weary resignation
in his voice. 'Something  must be done to  remove my brother from  the hotbed of
intrigue here  at the  capital. If  at all  possible, however,  I would hold any
thoughts of assassination as a last resort.'

'If Your Excellency  has an alternative  plan he wishes  to suggest, I  would be
honoured to give it my appraisal,' Kilite offered, wisely hiding his feelings of
triumph.

'I have no immediate plan,' the Emperor admitted. 'Nor will I be able to give it
my full concentration until another matter is settled which weighs heavily on my
mind. Surely the empire is safe from my brother for a few more days?'

'What  is  the other  decision  demanding your  attention?'  the adviser  asked,
ignoring his ruler's attempt at levity.  'If it is something I might  assist you
in resolving...'

'It is  nothing. A  minor decision,  but an  unpleasant one  nonetheless. I must
appoint a new military governor for Sanctuary.'

'Sanctuary?' Kilite frowned.

'A small town at the southern tip of the empire. I had a bit of trouble  finding
it myself - it's been excluded from the more recent maps. Whatever reason  there
was for the town's existence has apparently passed. It is withering and dying, a
refuge for petty criminals  and down-at-the-heels adventurers. Still,  it's part
of the empire.'

'And they need a new military governor,' Kilite murmured softly.

'The old one's retiring.' The Emperor shrugged. 'Which leaves me with a problem.
As a garrisoned empire  town, they are entitled  to a governor of  some stature 
- someone who knows the empire well enough to serve as their representative  and
go-between with the capital.  He should be strong  enough to uphold and  enforce
the law - a function I fear where the old governor was noticeably lax.'

Without realizing it, he began to pace again.

'My problem is that such a man could be better utilized elsewhere in the empire.
It  seems a  shame to  waste someone  on such  an insignificant,  out-of-the-way
assignment.'

'Don't say "out-of-the-way", Your Excellency,' Kilite smiled. 'Say "far from the
hotbed of intrigue".'

The Emperor  looked at  his adviser  for a  long moment.  Then both men began to
laugh.

2 THE TOWN

Hakiem the  Storyteller licked  the dust  from his  lips as  he squinted  at the
morning sun. It was going to be hot again today - a wine day, if he could afford
wine. The little  luxuries, like wine,  that he allowed  himself were harder  to
come by as the caravans became fewer and more infrequent.

His fingers idly seeking a sand-flea which had successfully found its way inside
his rags, he settled himself wearily in his new roost at the edge of the bazaar.
Previously, he had frequented the large wharf until the fishermen drove him off,
accusing him of stealing.  Him! With all the  thieves that abound in  this town,
they chose him for their accusations.

'Hakiem!'

He looked about him and saw a band of six urchins descending on him, their  eyes
bright and eager.

'Good morning, children,'  he  grimaced, exposing  his  yellow teeth.  'What  do
you wish of old Hakiem?'

'Tell us a story,' they chorused, surging around him.

'Be off with you,  sand-fleas!' he moaned, waving  an arm. 'The sun  will be hot
today. I'll not add to the dryness of my throat telling you stories for free.'

'Please, Hakiem?' one whined.

'We'll fetch you water,' promised another.

'I have money.'

The last offer  caught at Hakiem's  attention like a  magnet. His eyes  fastened
hungrily on the copper coin extended in a grubby hand. That coin and four of its
brothers would buy him a bottle of wine.

Where the  boy had  gotten it  mattered not  - he  had probably  stolen it. What
concerned Hakiem  was how  to transfer  the wealth  from the  boy to himself. He
considered taking it by  force, but decided against  it. The bazaar was  rapidly
filling  with  people,  and  open  bullying  of  children  would  doubtless draw
repercussions. Besides, the nimble urchins could outrun him with ease. He  would
just have to earn it honestly. Disgusting, the depths to which he had sunk.

'Very well, Ran-tu,' he smiled extending  his hand. 'Give me the money,  and you
shall have any story you wish.'

'After I hear the story,' the boy announced haughtily. 'You shall have the  coin
... if I feel the story is worth it. It is the custom.'

'So it is.'  Hakiem forced a  smile. 'Come, sit  here beside me  so you can hear
every detail.'

The boy  did as  he was  told, blissfully  unaware that  he was  placing himself
within Hakiem's long, quick reach.

'Now then, Ran-tu, what story do you wish to hear?'

'Tell  us  about the  history  of our  city,'  the boy  chirped,  forgetting his
pretended sophistication for the moment.

Hakiem  grimaced,  but  the  other boys  jumped  and  clapped  their hands  with
enthusiasm. Unlike Hakiem, they never tired of hearing this tale.

'Very well,' Hakiem sighed. 'Make room here!'              '

He shoved roughly at the forest of small legs before him, clearing a small space
in  the  ground which  he  swept smooth  with  his hand.  With  quick, practised
strokes, he outlined  the southern part  of the continent  and formed the  north
-south mountain range.

'The story  begins here,  in what  once was  the kingdom  of Ilsig,  east of the
Queen's Mountains.'

'... which the Rankans call the World's End Mountains ...' supplied an urchin.

'... and the Mountain Men call Gunderpah ...' contributed another.

Hakiem leaned back on his haunches and scratched absently.

'Perhaps,' he  said, 'the  young gentlemen  would like  to tell  the story while
Hakiem listens.'               .'• •

'No they  wouldn't,' insisted  Ran-tu. 'Shut  up, everyone.  It's my  story! Let
Hakiem tell it.'

Hakiem waited  until silence  was restored,  then nodded  loftily to  Ran-tu and
continued.

'Afraid of invasion from the then young Rankan Empire across the mountains, they
formed an alliance with the Mountain Tribes to guard the only known pass through
the mountains.'

He paused to draw a line on his map indicating the pass.

'Lo, it came to  pass that their fears  were realized. The Rankans  turned their
armies towards Ilsig,  and they were  forced to send  their own troops  into the
pass to aid the Mountain Men in the kingdom's defence.'

He looked up hopefully and extended a  palm as a merchant paused to listen,  but
the man shook his head and moved on.

'While the armies were gone,' he continued, scowling, 'there was an uprising  of
slaves in  Ilsig. Body-servants,  galley slaves,  gladiators, all-  united in an
effort to throw off the shackles of bondage. Alas ...'

He paused and threw up his hands dramatically.

'... the armies of Ilsig returned  early from their mountain campaign and  put a
swift end  to the  uprising. The  survivors fled  south ...  here ...  along the
coast.'

He indicated the route with his fingers.

'The kingdom waited for a while, expecting the errant slaves to return of  their
own volition. When they didn't, a troop of cavalry was sent to overtake them and
bring them  back. They  overtook the  slaves here,  forcing them  back into  the
mountains,  and a  mighty battle  ensued. The  slaves were  triumphant, and  the
cavalry was destroyed.'

He indicated, a point in the southern portion of the mountain range.

'Aren't you going to tell about the battle?' Ran-tu interrupted.

'That is a story in itself... requiring separate payment,' Hakiem smiled.

The boy bit his lip and said nothing more.

'In the course of  their battle with the  cavalry, the slaves discovered  a pass
through the mountains, allowing them to  enter this green valley where game  was
plentiful and crops sprang from the ground. They called it Sanctuary.'

'The valley isn't green,' an urchin interrupted pointedly.

'That's  because  the  slaves  were dumb  and  overworked  the  land,' countered
another.

'My dad used to be a farmer, and he didn't overwork the land!' argued a third.

'Then how  is it  you had  to move  into town  when the  sands took  your farm?'
countered the second.

'I want to hear my story!' barked Ran-tu, suddenly towering above them.

The group subsided into silence.

'The young gentleman there  has the facts of  the matter right,' smiled  Hakiem,
pointing a finger at the second urchin. 'But it took time. Oh' my, yes, lots  of
time. As the  slaves exhausted the  land to the  north, they moved  south, until
they reached the  point where the  town stands today.  Here they met  a group of
native fishermen, and  between fishing and  farming managed to  survive in peace
and tranquillity.'

'That didn't last long,' snorted Ran-tu, momentarily forgetting himself.

'No,' agreed Hakiem.  'The gods did  not will it  so. Rumours of  a discovery of
gold and  silver reached  the kingdom  of Ilsig  and brought  intruders into our
tranquility. First adventurers, and finally  a fleet from the kingdom  itself to
capture the town and again bring it under the kingdom's control. The only fly in
the kingdom's victory wine that day was  that most of the fishing fleet was  out
when  they  arrived,  and,  realizing  the fate  of  the  town,  took  refuge on
Scavengers' Island to form the nucleus of the Cape Pirates, who harass ships  to
this day.'

A fisherman's wife passed by and, glancing down, recognized the map in the dust,
smiled, and tossed two copper coins  to Hakiem. He caught them neatly,  elbowing
an urchin who tried to intercept them, and secreted them in his sash.

'Blessings on your house, mistress,' he called after his benefactor.

'What  about  the  empire?'  Ran-tu  prompted,  afraid  of  losing  his   story.
;•

'What? Oh, yes. It  seems that one of  the adventurers pushed north  seeking the
mythical gold, found a pass through  the Civa, and eventually joined the  Rankan
Empire. Later, his grandson, now a  general in the empire, found his  ancestor's
journals. He led a force south  over his grandfather's old route and  recaptured
the town. Using  it as a  base, he launched  a naval attack  around the cape and
finally captured the kingdom of Ilsig, making it a part of the empire for ever.'

'Which is where we are today,' one of the urchins spat bitterly.

'Not quite,' corrected Hakiem, his impatience to be done with the story yielding
to his integrity  as a tale-spinner.  'Though the kingdom  surrendered, for some
reason the Mountain  Men continued to  resist the empire's  attempts to use  the
Great Pass. That was when the caravan routes were established.'

A faraway look came into his eyes.

'Those were the  days of Sanctuary's  greatness. Three or  four caravans a  week
laden with treasures and trade goods. Not the miserable supply caravans you  see
today - great caravans that took half a day just to enter town.'

'What happened?' asked one of the awestruck urchins.

Hakiem's eyes grew dark. He spat in the dust.

'Twenty years ago, the empire succeeded  in putting down the Mountain Men.  With
the Great Pass open,  there was no reason  to risk major caravans  in the bandit
-ridden sands of the desert. Sanctuary has become a mockery of its past glory, a
refuge for the  scum who have  nowhere else to  go. Mark my  words, one day  the
thieves will outnumber the honest citizenry, and then ...'

'One side, old man!'

A sandalled foot came down on the map, obliterating its outlines and  scattering
the urchins.

Hakiem cowered before the shadow of one  of the Hell Hounds, the five new  elite
guards who had accompanied the new governor into town.

'Zaibar! Stop that!'

The unsmiling  giant froze  at the  sound of  the voice  and turned  to face the
golden-haired youth who strode on to the scene.

'We're  supposed  to  be  governing  these  people,  not  bludgeoning  them into
submission.'

It seemed strange, seeing a lad  in his late teens chastizing a  scarred veteran
of many campaigns, but the larger man merely dropped his eyes in discomfort.

'Apologies, Your Highness, but the Emperor  said we were to bring law  and order
to this hell-hole, and it's the only language these blackguards understand.'

'The Emperor - my brother - put me in command of this town to govern it as 1 see
fit, and my orders are that the people are to be treated kindly as long as  they
do not break the laws.'

'Yes, Your Highness.'

The youth turned to Hakiem.

'I hope we did not disturb your story. Here - perhaps this will make up for  our
intrusion.'

He pressed a gold coin into Hakiem's hand.

'Gold!' Hakiem sneered. 'Do you think one miserable coin can make up for scaring
those precious children?'

'What?' roared the Hell Hound.  'Those gutter-rats? Take the Prince's  money and
be thankful I -'

'Zaibar!'

'But Your Highness, this man is only playing on your-'

'If he is, it's mine to give ...'

He pressed a few more coins into Hakiem's outstretched hand.

'Now come along. I want to see the bazaar.'

Hakiem bowed low, ignoring the  Hell Hound's black glare. When  he straightened,
the urchins were clustered about him again.

'Was that the Prince?'

'My dad says he's the best thing for this town.'

'My dad says he's too young to do a good job.'

'Izzat so!'

'The Emperor sent him here to get him out of the way.'

'Sez who?'

'Sez my brother! He's  been bribing guards here  all his life and  never had any
trouble till the Prince came. Him and his whores and his Hell Hounds.'

'They're going to change everything. Ask Hakiem ... Hakiem?'

The urchins turned to  their chosen mentor, but  Hakiem had long since  departed
with his new wealth for the cool depths of a tavern.

3 THE PLAN

'As you already know, you  five men have been chosen  to remain with me here  in
Sanctuary after the balance of the honour guard returns to the capital.'

Prince Kadakithis  paused to  look each  man in  the face  before he  continued.
Zaibar, Bourne, Quag, Razkuli, and Arman. Each of them a seasoned veteran,  they
doubtless knew their  work better than  the Prince knew  his. Kadakithis's royal
upbringing came to  his rescue, helping  him to hide  his nervousness as  he met
their gazes steadily.

'As  soon as  the ceremonies  are completed  tomorrow, I  will be  swamped with
problems in clearing up the backlog of cases in the civil court. Realizing that,
1 thought it best to give you our briefing and assignments now, so that you will
be able to proceed without the delay of waiting for specific instructions.'

He beckoned the men forward, and they gathered around the map of Sanctuary  hung
on the wall.

'Zaibar and  I have  done some  preliminary scouting  of the  town. Though  this
briefing should familiarize you with the basic lay of the land, you should  each
do your own exploring and report any new observations to each other. Zaibar?'

The tallest of the soldiers stepped  forward and swept his hand across  the map.
_          -

'The thieves of Sanctuary drift with wind like the garbage they are,' he began.

'Zaibar!'  the  Prince  admonished.  'Just give  the  report  without  asides or
opinions.'

'Yes, Your Highness.' The man replied bowing his head slightly. 'But there is  a
pattern here which follows the winds from the east.'

'The property values  change because of  the smells,' Kadakithis  reported. 'You
can say that without referring to the people as garbage. They are still citizens
of the empire.'

Zaibar nodded and turned to the map once more.

'The  areas  of least  crime  are here,  along  the eastern  edge  of town,'  he
announced, gesturing. 'These are the richest mansions, inns, and temples,  which
have  their  own  defences  and safeguards.  West  of  them,  the town  consists
predominantly of craftsmen  and skilled workers.  The crime in  this area rarely
exceeds petty theft.'

The man paused to glance at the prince before continuing.

'Once  you  cross the  Processional,  however, things  get  steadily worse.  The
merchants vie  with each  other as  to who  will carry  the widest  selection of
stolen or illicit goods. Much of their merchandise is supplied by smugglers  who
openly use  the wharves  to unload  their ships.  What is  not purchased  by the
merchants is sold directly at the bazaar.'

Zaibar's expression hardened noticeably as he indicated the next area.

'Here is a tangle of streets known simply as the Maze. It is acknowledged by all
to be the  roughest section of  town. Murder and  armed robbery are  commonplace
occurrences day or night in the Maze, and most honest citizens are afraid to set
foot there without an  armed escort. It has  been brought to our  attention that
none of the guardsmen in the local garrison will enter this area, though whether
this is out of fear or if they have been bribed...'

The prince cleared his throat noisily.  Zaibar grimaced and moved on to  another
area.

'Outside the  walls to  the north  of town  is a  cluster of brothels and gaming
houses. There are few  crimes reported in this  area, though we believe  this is
due more to a reluctance on the part of the inhabitants to deal with authorities
than from any lack of criminal activity. To the far west of town is a shantytown
inhabited by beggars and derelicts known as the Downwinders. Of all the citizens
we've encountered so far, they seem the most harmless.'

His report complete, Zaibar returned to his place with the others as the  prince
addressed them once again.

'Your priorities until new orders are issued will be as follows,' he  announced,
eyeing the  men carefully.  'First, you  are to  make a  concentrated effort  to
reduce or eliminate petty crime on the east side of town. Second, you will close
the wharves to  the smuggler traffic.  When that is  done, I will  sign into law
certain regulations enabling you to move against the brothels. By that time,  my
court duties should have eased to a point where we can formulate a specific plan
of action for dealing with the Maze. Any questions?'

'Are you anticipating  any problems with  the local priesthood  over the ordered
construction of new temples to Savankala, Sabellia, and Vashanka?' Bourne asked.

'Yes, I  am,' the  prince acknowledged.  'But the  difficulties will probably be
more  diplomatic  than  criminal  in  nature.  As  such,  I  will  attend  to it
personally, leaving you free to pursue your given assignments.'

There were no further  questions, and the prince  steeled himself for his  final
pronouncement.

'As to how  you are to  conduct yourselves while  carrying out your  orders ...'
Kadakithis paused dramatically while sweeping the assemblage with a hard  glare.
'I know  you men  are all  soldiers and  used to  meeting opposition  with bared
steel. You are certainly permitted to fight to defend yourselves if attacked  or
to defend any citizen  of this town. However,  I will not tolerate  brutality or
needless bloodshed in  the name of  the empire. Whatever  your personal feelings
may be, you are not to draw a  sword on any citizen unless they have proven  - I
repeat, proven - themselves to be criminal. The townsfolk have already taken  to
calling you Hell Hounds. Be sure that title refers only to the vigour with which
you pursue your duties and not to your viciousness. That is all.'

There were mutters and dark glances as the men filed out of the room. While  the
Hell Hounds' loyalty to the empire  was above question, Kadakithis had cause  to
wonder if in their own minds they truly considered him a representative of  that
empire.

SENTENCES OF DEATH
by John Brunner

1

It was a measure of the decline in Sanctuary's fortunes that the scriptorium  of
Master  Melilot  occupied a  prime  location fronting  on  Governor's Walk.  The
nobleman whose grandfather had caused a fine family mansion to be erected on the
site had wasted his substance in gambling, and at last was reduced to eking  out
his days in  genteel drunkenness in  an improvised fourth  storey of wattle  and
daub, laid out across the original roof, while downstairs Melilot installed  his
increasingly  large staff  and went  into the  book -  as well  as the  epistle
business. On hot  days the stench  from the bindery,  where size was  boiled and
leather embossed, bid fair to match the reek around Shambles Cross.

Not all fortunes, be it  understood, were declining. Melilot's was  an instance.
Then  years  earlier  he had  owned  nothing  but his  clothing  and  a scribe's
compendium; then  he worked  in the  open air,  or huddled  under some  tolerant
merchant's awning, and his customers were confined to poor litigants from out of
town who needed a written summary of their case before appearing in the Hall  of
Justice, or suspicious illiterate purchasers of goods from visiting traders  who
wanted written guarantees of quality.

On  a never-to-be-forgotten  day, a  foolish man  instructed him  to write  down
matter  relevant to  a lawsuit  then in  progress, which  would assuredly  have
convinced the judge, had it  been produced without the opposition  being warned.
Melilot realized that, and made an extra copy. He was richly rewarded.

Now, as  well as  carrying on  the scribe's  profession -  by proxy, mostly - he
specialized in forgery, blackmail, and  mistranslation. He was exactly the  sort
of employer Jarveena  of Forgotten Holt  had been hoping  for when she  arrived,
particularly since his condition, which  might be guessed at from  his beardless
face and roly-poly fatness, made him indifferent to the age or appearance of his
employees.

The services offered by  the scriptorium, and the  name of its proprietor,  were
clearly described in half a dozen languages and three distinct modes of  writing
on the stone face of the building, a window and a door of which had been knocked
into one large entry (at some risk to the stability of the upper floors) so that
clients might wait  under cover until  someone who understood  the language they
required was available.

Jarveena read and wrote  her native tongue well:  Yenized. That was why  Melilot
had agreed to hire  her. No competing service  in Sanctuary could offer  so many
languages now. But  two months  might go  by -  indeed, they  had just  done so 
without a single customer's asking for a translation into or from Yenized, which
made her pretty much of a  status symbol. She was industriously struggling  with
Rankene, the courtly version of  the common dialect, because merchants  liked to
let it be thought their goods  were respectable enough for sale to  the nobility
even if  they had  come ashore  by night  from Scavengers'  Island, and  she was
making good headway with the  quotidian street-talk in which the  poorer clients
wanted depositions of  evidence or contracts  of sale made  out. Nonetheless she
was still obliged to take on menial tasks to fill her time.

It was noon, and another such task was due.

Plainly, it was of  little use relying on  inscriptions to reach those  who were
most in need of a scribe's assistance; accordingly Melilot maintained a squad of
small boys with peculiarly  sweet and piercing voices,  who paraded up and  down
the nearby streets advertising his service by shouting, wheedling, and sometimes
begging. It was  a tiring occupation,  and the children  frequently grew hoarse.
Thrice a  day, therefore,  someone was  commanded to  deliver them  a nourishing
snack of bread  and cheese and  a drink made  of honey, water,  a little wine or
strong ale, and assorted spices.  Since her engagement, Jarveena had  been least
often involved in other duties when the time for this one arrived. Hence she was
on the street, distributing Melilot's bounty,  when an officer whom she knew  by
name and sight turned up, acting in a  most peculiar manner. He was Captain Aye
Gophlan, from the guardpost at the corner of Processional Way.

He scarcely noticed her  as he went by,  but that was less  than surprising. She
looked very much  like a  boy herself  - more  so, if  anything, than the chubby
cheeked blond urchin she  was issuing rations to.  When Melilot took her  on she
had been  in rags,  and he  had insisted  on buying  her new  clothes of  which,
inevitably, the price would be docked from her miniscule commission on the  work
she did.  She didn't  care. She  only insisted  in turn  that she  be allowed to
choose  her  garb: a  short-sleeved  leather jerkin  cross-laced  up the  front;
breeches to mid-calf;  boots to tuck  the breeches into,  a baldric on  which to
hang her scribe's compendium with its reed-pens and ink-block and water-pot  and
sharpening  knife  and rolls  of  rough reed-paper;  and  a cloak  to  double as
covering at night. She had a silver pin for it - her only treasure.

Melilot had laughed, thinking he understood.  He owned a pretty girl a  year shy
of the fifteen Jarveena admitted to,  who customarily boxed the ears of  his boy
apprentices when they waylaid her in a dark passageway to steal a kiss, and that
was unusual enough to demand explanation.

But that had nothing to  do with it. No more  did the fact that with  her tanned
skin, thin build, close-cropped black hair, and many visible scars, she scarcely
resembled a girl regardless of her costume. There were plenty of ruffians - some
of noble blood -who were totally  indifferent to the sex of the  youngsters they
raped.

Besides, to Jarveena  such experiences were  survivable; had they  not been, she
would not have reached Sanctuary. So she no longer feared them.

But they made her  deeply - bitterly -  angry. And someday one  who deserved her
anger more than any was going to  pay for one at least of his  countless crimes.
She had sworn so ...  but she had been only  nine then, and with the  passage of
time  the  chance of  vengeance  grew more  and  more remote.  Now  she scarcely
believed in it. Sometimes she dreamed of doing to another what had been done  to
her, and woke  moaning with shame,  and she could  not explain why  to the other
apprentice scribes sharing the dormitory that  once had been the bedroom of  the
noble who  now snored  and vomited  and groaned  and snored  under a shelter fit
rather for hogs than humans the wrong side of his magnificently painted ceiling.

She regretted that. She liked most other companions; some were from  respectable
families, for there were no schools here apart from temple schools whose priests
had the bad habit  of stuffing children's heads  with myth and legend  as though
they were to live in a world of make-believe instead of fending for  themselves.
Without learning to read and write at least their own language they would be  at
risk of cheating by every smart operator in the city. But how could she befriend
those who  had led  soft, secure  lives, who  at the  advanced age of fifteen or
sixteen had never yet had to scrape a living from gutters and garbage piles?

Captain Aye-Gophlan was in mufti. Or thought.he was. He was by no means so  rich
as to  be  able to afford  clothing apart from   his uniforms, of  which it  was
compulsory  for  the  guards to   own several  -  this  one for   the Emperor's
birthday, that  one  for  the feast   of the  regiment's  patron  deity, another
for  day-watch duty,  yet  another for  night-watch  duty, another  for  funeral
drill... The  common soldiers  were luckier.  If they  failed in  their  attire,
the officers were  blamed for stinginess.  But how long  was it since  there had
been enough   caravans through   here for   the guard   to keep   up the  finery
required of them out of bribes? Times indeed were hard when the best disguise an
officer on private business could contrive was a plum-blue overcloak with a hole
in it exactly where his crotch-armour could glint through.

Seeing  him, Jarveena  thought suddenly  about justice.  Or more  nearly, about
getting even. Perhaps there  was no longer any  hope of bringing to  account the
villain who had killed her  parents and sacked their  estate, enslaved the able
bodied, turned loose his half-mad troops  on children to glut the lust  of their
loins amid the smoke and crashing of beams as the village its inhabitants called
Holt vanished from the stage of history.

But there were other things to do  with her life. Hastily she snatched back  the
cup she had already allowed to linger too long in the grasp of this, luckily the
last of Melilot's publicity boys. She  cut short an attempt at complaint  with a
scowl  which  drew her  forehead-skin  down just  far  enough to  reveal  a scar
normally covered by her forelock.  That was a resource she  customarily reserved
until all else failed. It had its desired effect; the boy gulped and surrendered
the cup and went back to work, pausing only to urinate against the wall.

2

Just  as  Jarveena  expected, Aye-Gophlan  marched  stolidly  around the  block,
occasionally glancing back as though feeling insecure without his regular escort
of six tall men, and made for the rear entrance to the scriptorium - the one  in
the crooked alley where the silk-traders were concentrated. Not all of Melilot's
customers cared to be seen walking in off a populous and sunny roadway.

Jarveena thrust the wine jar, dish, and  cup she was carrying into the hands  of
an apprentice too  young to  argue, and  ordered them  returned to  the kitchen 
next to the bindery, with which it shared  a fire. Then she stole up behind  Aye
Gophlan and uttered a discreet cough.

'May I be of assistance, captain?'

'Ah -!' The officer was startled; his hand flew to something stick-shaped  under
his cloak, no doubt a tightly-rolled scroll.  'Ah ... Good-day to you! I have  a
problem concerning which I desire to consult your master.'

'He will be taking his noon meal,' Jarveena said in a suitably humble tone. 'Let
me conduct you to him.'

Melilot never cared  to have either  his meals or  the naps which  followed them
interrupted. But there  was something about  Aye-Gophlan's behaviour which  made
Jarveena certain that this was an exceptional occasion.

She opened the door of Melilot's sanctum, announced the caller rapidly enough to
forestall  her employer's  rage at  being distracted  from the  immense broiled
lobster lying before him on a  silver platter, and wished there were  some means
of eavesdropping on what transpired.

But he was infinitely too cautious to risk that.

At best  Jarveena had  hoped for  a few  coins by  way of bonus if Aye-Gophlan's
business proved profitable. She was much surprised, therefore, to be summoned to
Melilot's room half an hour later.

Aye-Gophlan was still present. The  lobster had grown cold, untouched,  but much
wine had been consumed.

On her entrance, the officer gave her a suspicious glare.

'This is the fledgling you imagine could unravel the mystery?' he demanded.

Jarveena's heart sank. What  devious subterfuge was Melilot  up to now? But  she
waited meekly for clear instructions. They  came at once, in the fat  man's high
and slightly whining voice.

'The captain has a writing to decipher.  Sensibly, he has brought it to us,  who
can translate more foreign tongues than any similar firm! It is possible that it
may be in Yenized, with which you are familiar ... though, alas, I am not.'

Jarveena barely suppressed a giggle. If the document were in any known script or
language, Melilot would certainly recognize it - whether or not he could furnish
a translation.  That implied  - hmm!  A  cipher!  How interesting!   How did  an
officer of the  guard come by  a  message in code he  couldn't read? She  looked
expectant, though not  eager,  and with  much reluctance Aye-Gophlan  handed her
the scroll.

Without appearing to look up, she registered a tiny nod from Melilot. She was to
agree with him.

But -

What in  the world?  Only a  tremendous self-control  prevented her from letting
fall the document. Merely glancing at it made her dizzy, as though her eyes were
crossing against her will. For a second she had seemed to read it clearly, and a
heartbeat later ...

She  took  a firm  grip  on herself.  'I  believe this  to  be Yenized,  as  you
suspected, sir,' she declared.

'Believe?' Aye-Gophlan rasped. 'But Melilot swore you could read it instantly!'

'Modern Yenized I can, captain,' Jarveena amplified. 'I recognize this as a high
and courtly style,  as difficult for  a person like  myself as Imperial  Rankene
would be for a  herdsman accustomed to sleeping  with the swine.' It  was always
politic  to imply  one's own  inferiority when  talking to  someone like  this.
'Luckily, thanks to my master's extensive library, I've gained a wider knowledge
of the subject in recent weeks; and with the help of some of the books he  keeps
I would expect to get at least its gist.'

'How long would it take?' Aye-Gophlan demanded.

'Oh, one might  safely say two  or three days,'  Melilot interpolated in  a tone
that brooked no contradiction. 'Given that it's so unusual an assignment,  there
would naturally be no charge except on production of a satisfactory rendering.'

Jarveena almost dropped  the scroll a  second time. Never  in living memory  had
Melilot accepted a commission without taking  at least half his fee in  advance.
There must be something quite exceptional about this sheet of paper -

And of course there was. It dawned  on her that moment, and she had  to struggle
to prevent her teeth from chattering.

'Wait here,' the fat man said, struggling to his feet. 'I shall return when I've
escorted the captain out.'

The moment the door closed  she threw the scroll down  on the table next to  the
lobster - wishing,  irrelevantly, that it  were not still  intact, so she  might
snatch a morsel  without being detected.  The writing writhed  into new patterns
even as she tried not to notice.

Then Melilot was back, resuming his chair, sipping from his half-full wine cup.

'You're astute, you little  weasel!' he said in  a tone of grudging  admiration.
'Are you quick-witted enough to know precisely why neither he nor I - nor you! 
can read that writing?'

Jarveena swallowed hard. 'There's a spell on it,' she offered after a pause.

'Yes! Yes, there is! Better than any code or cipher. Except for the eyes of  the
intended recipient, it will never read the same way twice.'

'How is it that the captain didn't realize?'-

Melilot chuckled. 'You don't have to read  and write to become a captain of  the
guard,' he said. 'He  can about manage to  tell whether the clerk  who witnesses
his mark on  the watch-report is  holding the page  right side up;  but anything
more complicated and his head starts to swim anyway.'

He seized the lobster,  tore off a claw,  and cracked it between  his teeth; oil
ran down his chin and dripped on  his green robe. Picking out the meat,  he went
on. 'But what's interesting is how he came by it. Make a guess.'

Jarveena shook her head.

'One of the imperial bodyguards from  Ranke, one of the detachment who  escorted
the Prince along the Generals' Road, called to inspect the local guardhouse this
morning at dawn. Apparently he made  himself most unpopular, to the point  that,
when  he let  fall that  scroll without  noticing, Aye-Gophlan  thought more  of
secreting it than  giving it back.  Why he's ready  to believe that  an imperial
officer would  carry a  document in  Old High  Yenized, I  can't guess.  Perhaps
that's part of the magic.'

He thrust gobbets  of succulent flesh  into his mouth  and chomped for  a while.
Jarveena tried not to drool.

To distract herself by the first means  to mind, she said, 'Why did he  tell you
all this ... ? Ah, I'm an idiot. He didn't.'

'Correct.' Melilot looked smug. 'For that you deserve a taste of lobster. Here!'
He tossed over a lump that by  his standards was generous, and a chunk  of bread
also; she caught both in mid-air with stammered thanks and wolfed them down.

'You need to have your strength built up,' the portly scribe went on. 'I have  a
very responsible errand for you to undertake tonight.'

'Errand?'

'Yes. The imperial officer who lost  the scroll is called Commander Nizharu.  He
and his men are billeted in pavilions in the courtyard of the governor's palace;
seemingly he's afraid of contamination if they have to go into barracks with the
local soldiery.

'After dark  this evening  you are  to steal  in and  wait on  him, and  inquire
whether he will pay more  for the return of his  scroll and the name of  the man
who  filched it,  or for  a convincing  but fraudulent  translation which  will
provoke the unlawful possessor into some  rash action. For all I can  guess,' he
concluded sanctimoniously, 'he may have let it fall deliberately. HmV

3

It was  far from  the first  time since  her arrival  that Jarveena had been out
after curfew. It was not  even the first time she  had had to scamper in  shadow
across the broad expanse of Governor's Walk in order to reach and scramble  over
the palace wall, nimble  as a monkey despite  the mass of scar-tissue  where her
right breast would never grow. Much practice enabled her to whip off her  cloak,
roll it into  a cylinder not  much thicker than  a money-belt, fasten  it around
her, and rush up the convenient hand- and toeholds in the outer wall which  were
carefully  not repaired,  and for  a fat  consideration, when  the chief  mason
undertook his annual re-pointing.

But it was definitely the first time she had had to contend with crack  soldiers
from Ranke on the other side. One of them, by ill chance, was relieving  himself
behind a flowering shrub as she descended, and needed to do no more than  thrust
the haft of his pike between her legs. She gasped and went sprawling.

But Melilot had foreseen all this, and  she was prepared with her story and  the
evidence to back it up.

'Don't hurt me, please! I don't mean any harm!' she whimpered, making her  voice
as childish as  possible. There was  a torch guttering  in a sconce  nearby; the
soldier heaved  her to  her feet  by her  right wrist,  his grip  as cruel  as a
trap's, and forced her towards it. A sergeant appeared from the direction of the
pavilions which  since her  last visit  had sprouted  like mushrooms between the
entry to the Hall of Justice and the clustered granaries on the north-west  side
of the grounds.

'What you got?' he rumbled in a threatening bass voice.

'Sir, I mean no harm! I have to do what my mistress tells me, or I'll be  nailed
to the temple door!'

That took both of them aback.  The soldier somewhat relaxed his fingers  and the
sergeant bent close to look her over better in the wan torchlight.

'By that, I take it you serve a priestess of Argash?' he said eventually.

It was a logical  deduction. On the twenty-foot-high  fane of that divinity  his
most devoted followers volunteered,  when life wearied them,  to be hung up  and
fast unto death.

But Jarveena shook her head violently.

'N-no, sir! Dyareela!'  naming a goddess banned these thirty years owing to  the
bloodthirstiness of her votaries.

The sergeant frowned. 'I saw no shrine to'her when we escorted the prince  along
Temple Avenue!'

'N-no, sir! Her temple was destroyed, but-her worshippers endure!'

'Do  they now!'  the sergeant  grunted. 'Hmm!  That sounds  like something  the
commander ought to know!'

'Is that Commander Nizharu?' Jarveena said eagerly.

'What? How do you know his name?'

'My mistress sent me to him! She saw  him early today when he was abroad in  the
city, and she was so taken with his handsome' ness that she resolved at once  to
send a message to him.  But it was all to  be in secret!' Jarveena let  a quaver
enter her voice. 'Now I've let it out, and she'll turn me over to the priests of
Argash, and ... Oh, I'm done for! I might as well be dead right now!' • . 'Dying
can wait,' the  sergeant said, reaching  an abrupt decision.  'But the commander
will definitely want to know about the Dyareelans. I thought only madmen in  the
desert paid attention to that old bitch nowadays ... Hello, what's this at  your
side?' He lifted it into the light. 'A writing-case, is it?'

'Yes, sir. That's what I mainly do for my mistress.'

'If you can write, why deliver messages yourself? That's what I always say.  Oh,
well, I guess you're her confidante, are you?' Jarveena nodded vigorously.

'A  secret shared  is a  secret no  longer, and  here's one  more proof  of the
proverb. Oh, come along!'

By the light of two lamps filled, to judge by their smell, with poor-grade  fish
oil, Nizharu was turning the contents of his pavilion upside-down, with not even
an orderly to help him. He had cleared out two brass-bound wooden chests and was
beginning on a third, while the bedding from his field couch of wood and  canvas
was strewn on the floor, and a  dozen bags and pouches had been emptied  and not
repacked.

He was furious when  the sergeant raised the  tent flap, and roared  that he was
not to be disturbed. But Jarveena took  in the situation ' at a glance  and said
in a clear firm voice, 'I wonder if you're looking for a scroll.'

Nizharu froze, his face turned so that light fell on it. He was as fair a man as
she had ever seen: his hair like washed wool, his eyes like chips of summer sky.
Under a nose keen as a bird's beak, his thin lips framed well-kept teeth  marred
by a  chip off  the right  upper front  molar. He  was lean  and obviously  very
strong, for he was turning over a chest that must weigh a hundred pounds and his
biceps were scarcely bulging.

'Scroll?' he said softly, setting down the chest. 'What scroll?'

It was very hard for  Jarveena to reply. She felt  her heart was going to  stop.
The world wavered. It took all her force to maintain her balance. Distantly  she
heard the sergeant say, 'She didn't mention any scroll to us!'

And, amazingly, she was able to speak for herself again.

'That's true,  commander,' she  said. 'I  had to  lie to  those men to stop them
killing me before I got to  you. I'm sorry.' Meantime she was  silently thanking
the network of informers who kept Melilot so well supplied with information that
the lie had been credible even to these strangers. 'But I think this morning you
mislaid a scroll...?'

Nizharu hesitated a single moment. Then he rapped, 'Out! Leave the boy here!'

Boy! Oh, miracle! If  Jarveena had believed in  a deity, now was  when she would
have resolved  to make  sacrifice for  gratitude. For  i that  implied he hadn't
recognized her.

She waited  while the  puzzled sergeant  and soldier  withdrew, mouth dry, palms
moist, a faint singing in her ears. Nizharu slammed the lid of the chest he  had
been  about  to overturn,  sat  down on  it,  and said,  'Now  explain! And  the
explanation had better be a good one!'

It was. It was excellent. Melilot had devised it with great care and drilled her
through it a dozen times during the afternoon. It was tinged with just enough of
the truth to be convincing.

Aye-Gophlan, notoriously, had accepted bribes. (So had everyone in the guard who
might possibly be useful to anybody wealthier than himself, but that was by-the
by.) It  had consequently  occurred to  Melilot -  a most  loyal and law-abiding
citizen,  who  as all  his  acquaintance would  swear  had loudly  welcomed  the
appointment of  the prince,  the new  governor, and  looked forward  to the city
being reformed - it had  occurred to him that perhaps  this was part of a  plan.
One could scarcely conceive of  a high-ranking imperial officer being  so casual
with what was obviously a top-secret document. Could one?

'Never,' murmured Nizharu, but sweat beaded his lip.

Next came the tricky bit. Everything depended on whether the commander wanted to
keep the mere existence of the scroll a secret. Now he knew Aye-Gophlan had  it,
it was open to him to summon his men and march down to the guardhouse and search
it floor to rooftree, for - according to  what Jarveena said, at any rate -  Aye
Gophlan was  far too  cautious to  leave it  overnight in  the custody of a mere
scribe. He would return on his next duty-free day, the day after tomorrow or the
day after  that, depending  on which  of his  fellow officers  he could exchange
with.

But Melilot had deduced that if  the scroll were so important that  Nizharu kept
it by him even  when undertaking a mundane  tour of inspection, it  must be very
private  indeed.  He  was,  apparently,  correct.  Nizharu  listened  with close
attention, and many nods to the alternative plan of action.

For  a  consideration,  Melilot  was prepared  to  furnish  a  false translation
designed to jar Aye-Gophlan into doing something for which Nizharu could  safely
arrest him, without it ever being known that he had enjoyed temporary possession
of a scroll which by ' rights should have remained in the commander's hands. Let
him only specify the terms, and it would be as good as done.

When she - whom Nizharu still believed a he, for which she was profoundly glad 
finished talking, the commander pondered a while. At length he started to smile,
though  it  never  reached his  eyes,  and  in firm  clear  terms  expressed his
conditions for  entering into  a compact  along the  lines Melilot  proposed. He
capped all by handing over two gold coins, of a type she did not recognize, with
a promise that he would have her (his) hide if they did not both reach  Melilot,
and a large silver token of the kind used at Ilsig for himself.

Then he  instructed a  soldier she  had not  met to  escort her  to the gate and
across Governor's Walk. But she gave the man the slip as soon as they were clear
of the palace grounds and rushed towards the back entry, via Silk Corner.

Melilot being rich, he could afford locks on his doors; he had given her a heavy
bronze key which she had concealed in her writing case. She fumbled it into  the
lock, but before she could turn it  the door swung wide and she stepped  forward
as though impelled by another person's will.

This was the street  - or rather alley.  This was the door  with its overhanging
porch. Outside everything was right.

But inside everything was absolutely, utterly, unqualifiedly wrong.

4

Jarveena wanted to cry  out, but found herself  unable to draw enough  breath. A
vast sluggishness took possession other  muscles, as though she were  descending
into glue.  Taking one  more step,  she knew,  would tire  her to  the point  of
exhaustion; accordingly she concentrated merely on looking about her, and within
seconds was wishing that she hadn't.

A wan,  greyish light  suffused the  place. It  showed her  high stone  walls on
either side, a stone-flagged floor underfoot, but nothing above except  drifting
mist that sometimes took on an eerie pale colour: pinkish, bluish, or the sickly
phosphorescent shade of  dying fish. Before  her was nothing  but a long  table,
immensely and  ridiculously long,  such that  one might  seat a  full company of
soldiers at it.

A shiver tried to crawl down her spine, but failed thanks to the weird paralysis
that  gripped  her.  For  what  she was  seeing  matched  in  every  respect the
descriptions, uttered  in a  whisper, which  she had  heard of  the home of Enas
Yorl. In all the land there were but three Great Wizards, powerful enough not to
care that their true names were noised  abroad: one was at Ranke and served  the
needs of the court; one was at Ilsig and accounted the most skilful; the  third,
by reason of some scandal, made do with the slim pickings at Sanctuary, and that
was Enas Yorl.

But how could he be here? His palace was on - or, more exactly, below - Prytanis
Street, where the city petered out to the south-east of Temple Avenue.

Except...

The thought burgeoned from memory and she fought against it, and failed. Someone
had once explained to her: Except when it is somewhere else.

Abruptly it was  as though the  table shrank, and  from an immense  distance its
farther end drew  close and along  with it a  high-backed, throne-like chair  in
which sat  a curious  personage. He  was arrayed  in an  enormously full,  many
layered cloak of some dull brown stuff, and wore a high-crowned hat whose  broad
brim somehow Contrived  to shadow his  face against even  the directionless grey
light that obtained here.

But within that shadow two red gleams like embers showed, approximately where  a
human's eyes would be.

This individual held in his right  hand a scroll, partly unrolled. and  with his
left he was tapping on the table. The proportions of his fingers were  abnormal,
and one  or two  of them  seemed either  to lack,  or to  be overprovided  with,
joints.  One of  his nails  sparked luridly,  but that  ceased after  a little.
Raising his head, after a fashion, he spoke.

'A girl. Interesting. But one who has ... suffered. Was it punishment?'

It  felt to  Jarveena as  though the  gaze of  those two  dull red  orbs could
penetrate her  flesh as  well as  her clothing.  She could  say nothing, but had
nothing to say.

'No,' pronounced  the wizard  - for  surely it  must be  none other.  He let the
scroll drop on the table, and it  formed itself into a tidy roll at  once, while
he rose and approached  her. A gesture, as  though to sketch her  outline in the
air, freed her from the lassitude that  had hampered her limbs. But she had  too
much sense to break and run.

Whither?

'Do you know me?'

'I...' She licked dry lips. 'I think you may be Enas Yorl.'

'Fame at last,' the wizard said wryly. 'Do you know why you're here?'

'You ... Well, I guess you set a trap for me. I don't know why, unless it has to
do with that scroll.'

'Hmm! A perceptive  child!' Had he  possessed eyebrows, one  might have imagined
the wizard raising them. And then at  once: 'Forgive me. I should not have  said
"child". You are old in  the ways of the world,  if not in years. But  after the
first century, such patronizing remarks come easy to the tongue ...' He  resumed
his chair, inviting Jarveena with a gesture to come closer. She was reluctant.

For when  he rose  to inspect  her, he  had been  squat. Under  the cloak he was
obviously thick-set,  stocky, with  a paunch.  But by  the time  he regained his
seat,  it  was equally  definite  that he  was  thin, light-boned,  and  had one
shoulder higher than the other.

'You have noticed,' he  said. His voice too  had altered; it had  been baritone,
while  now  it  was  at   the  most  flattering  a  countertenor.   'Victims  of
circumstance, you and I both.  It was not I who  set a trap for you.  The scroll
did.'

'For me? But why?'

'I speak with imprecision. The trap was set not for you qua you. It was set  for
someone to whom it meant the death of another. I judge that you qualify, whether
or not you know it. Do you? Make a guess. Trust your imagination. Have you,  for
example, recognized anybody who came to the city recently?'

Jarveena felt the blood drain from her cheeks. She folded her hands into fists.

'Sir, you are a  great magician. I recognized  someone tonight. Someone I  never
dreamed of meeting again. Someone whose death I would gladly accomplish,  except
that death is much too good for him.'

'Explain!' Enas Yorl leaned  an elbow on the  table, and rested his  chin on his
fist  ... except  that neither  the elbow,  nor the  chin, let  alone the  fist,
properly corresponded to such appellations.

She hesitated a second. Then she cast  aside her cloak, tore loose the bow  that
held the cross-lacing of her jerkin at her throat, and unthreaded it so that the
garment fell wide to  reveal the cicatrices, brown  on brown, which would  never
fade, and the great  foul keloid like a  turd where her right  breast might have
been.

'Why try to hide anything from  a wizard?' she said bitterly. 'He  commanded the
men who did this to  me, and far far worse  to many others. I thought  they were
bandits! I came to  Sanctuary hoping that here  if anywhere I might  get wind of
them - how  could bandits gain  access to Ranke  or the conquered  cities? But I
never dreamed they would present themselves in the guise of imperial guards!'

'They ...?' Enas Yorl probed.

'Ah ... No. I confess: it's only one that I can swear to.'

'How old were you?'

'I was nine.  And six grown  men took pleasure  of me, before  they beat me with
wire whips and left me for dead.'

'I see.' He  retrieved the scroll  and with its  end tapped the  table absently.
'Can you now  divine what is  in this message?  Bear in mind  that it forced  me
hither.'

'Forced? But I'd have thought -'

'I found  myself here  by choice?  Oh, the  contrary!' A  bitter laugh rang out,
acid-shrill.  'I said  we're both  victims. Long  ago when  I was  young I  was
extremely foolish. I  tried to seduce  away the bride  of someone more  powerful
than  me. When  he found  out, I  was able  to defend  myself, but  ... Do  you
understand what a spell is?'

She shook her head.

'It's ... activity. As much activity as a rock is passivity, which is  conscious
of being a rock  but of nothing else.  A worm is a  little more aware; a  dog or
horse, much  more; a  human being,  vastly more  - but  not infinitely  more. In
wildfire, storms, stars, can be  found processes which with no  consciousness of
what they are act upon the outside world. A spell is such a process, created  by
an act of will, having neither aim nor purpose save what its creator lends.  And
to me my rival bequeathed ... But no matter. I begin' to sound as though I  pity
myself, and I know my fate is just. Shall we despise justice? This scroll can be
an instrument of it. Written on it are two sentences.

'Of death.'

While he spoke, there  had been further changes  under his concealing garb.  His
voice was now mellow and rich,  and his hands, although very slender,  possessed
the ordinary number of joints. However, the redness still glowed.

'If one sentence is  upon Commander Nizharu,' Jarveena  said firmly, 'may it  be
executed soon.'

'That  could be  arranged.' A  sardonic inflection  coloured the  words. 'At  a
price.'

'The scroll doesn't refer to him? I imagined -'

'You imagined it spelt his  doom, and that was why  he was so anxious about  its
loss? In a way  that's correct. In a  way ... And I  can make certain that  that
shall be the outcome. At a price.'

'What - price?' Her voice quavered against her will.

He rose slowly from  his chair, shaking his  cloak out to its  fullest; it swept
the floor with a faint rustling sound.

'Need you ask, of one who so plainly is obsessed by lust for women? That was the
reason for my downfall. I explained.'

Ice seemed to form around her heart. Her mouth was desert on the instant.

'Oh,  why be  so timid?'  purred Enas,  Yorl, taking  her hand  in his.  'You've
endured many worse bedfellows. I promise.'

It was  true enough  that the  only means  she had  found to  cross ,  the weary
leagues between Forgotten Holt  and Sanctuary had been  | to yield her  body: to
merchants, mercenaries, grooms, guards-' men ...

'Tell me first,' she said with a final flare of spirit, 'whose deaths are  cited
in the document.'

'Fair,' said the wizard. 'Know, then, that  one is an unnamed man, who is  to be
falsely convicted of the murder of another. And that other is the new  governor,
the prince.' Thereupon the light faded, and he embraced her unresisting.

5

She woke late,  at least half  an hour past  dawn. She was  in her own  bed; the
dormitory  was otherwise  empty. All  her limbs  were pervaded  by a  delicious
languor. Enas Yorl had kept his promise. If he had been equally skilled when  he
was younger, small wonder his rival's bride had preferred him to her husband!

Reluctantly opening her  eyes, she saw  something on the  rough pillow. Puzzled,
she looked again, reached out, touched: green, iridescent, powdery -

Scales!

With a cry she  leapt from the bed,  just as Melilot marched  in, red-faced with
fury.

'So there you- are, you little slut! Where were you all night? I watched until I
could stay awake no longer! By now I was sure you'd been taken by the guard  and
thrown in jail! What did Nizharu say?'

Naked, bewildered, for a long moment Jarveena  was at a loss. Then her eye  fell
on something  infinitely reassuring.  On the  wooden peg  over her  bed hung her
cloak, jerkin and breeches, and  also her precious writing-case, just  as though
she herself had replaced them on retiring.

Seizing the  case, she  opened the  compartment where  she hid  such things, and
triumphantly produced the gold she had accepted from the commander - but not the
silver he had allotted to herself.

'He paid this for a false rendering of the scroll,' she said. 'But you're not to
make one.'

'What?' Snatching the coins, Melilot made to bite them, but checked.

'How would you like to be scribe by appointment to the governor's household?'

'Are you crazed?' The fat man's eyes bulbed.

'Not in the least.' Heedless of his presence, Jarveena reached under the bed for
her chamberpot and  put it to  its appropriate use.  Meantime she explained  the
plot she had hatched.

'But this means you're claiming to have read the scroll,' Melilot said slowly as
he tried to digest her proposals. 'It's enchanted! How could you?'

'Not I, but Enas Yorl.'

Melilot's mouth  worked and  all his  colour drained  away. 'But  his palace  is
guarded by basilisks!' he exclaimed at last. 'You'd have been struck to stone!'

'It  doesn't quite  work like  that,' Jarveena  said, pulling  on her  breeches,
giving silent thanks that she could do so briskly. That dreadful paralysis would
haunt her dreams for years. 'To settle the argument, though, why don't you bring
the scroll? I mean, why don't we go and take another look at it?'

They were in his sanctum a couple of minutes later.

'It's perfectly  clear,' Melilot  said slowly  when he  had perused the document
twice. 'It's very stilted - formal Rankene - and I don't know anybody here or in
the conquered cities who would use it for a letter. But it says exactly what you
said it would.'

A tremor of awe made his rolls of fat wobble.

'You're satisfied it's the same scroll? There's been no substitution?'  Jarveena
pressed.

'Yes! It's been all night in a  locked chest! Only magic can account for  what's
happened to it!'

'Then,' she said with satisfaction, 'let's get on with the job.'

Each noon, in the grounds of the Governor's Palace before the Halls of  Justice,
the guard was inspected and rotated. This  ceremony was open to the public -  to
everybody, in principle, but in practice only to those who could afford to bribe
the gate guards. Hence most of the  spectators were of the upper class,  hangers
on of the nobility, or making an appearance at the law courts. Not a few bore  a
general resemblance, in figure or clothing and in their retinue, to Melilot, who
was in any case a frequent visitor when transcripts of evidence were in demand.

Therefore his presence and Jarveena's  were unremarkable. Moreover word had  got
about that today was the last  day when the crack imperial guards  would perform
the ceremonial drill before  fifteen of them were  ordered back to Ranke.  There
was a much larger throng than usual awaiting the appearance of the governor, one
of whose customary chores this was whenever he was in residence.

It  was  a warm,  dry,  dusty day.  The  sun cast  strong  dark shadows.  Tents,
pavilions,  stone walls  seemed all  of a  substance. So  in a  way did  people,
especially those  in armour.  Under closed  visors, any  soldier might have been
mistaken for any other of like stature.

Strictly it  was not  the turn  of a  guard detachment  from the  watch-house on
Processional Way  to take  over from  the Hell  Hounds. But  a few bribes, and a
sharp order from Aye-Gophlan, and the problem had been sorted out.

Jarveena composed her features and did her best to look as though she were  just
another casual passer-by  impressed by the  standard of marching  of troops from
the capital, rather than a person whose dearest ambition for revenge bid fair to
be fulfilled.

But her mouth kept wanting to snarl open like a wolf's.

The relieving guard marched in from the direction of Governor's Walk,  exchanged
salutes and passwords with the imperial  troops, and formed up in the  centre of
the  courtyard.  Attended by  two  armed orderlies.  Commander  Nizharu formally
recognized  his  successor and  took  station at  his  side for  the  governor's
inspection. As soon as it was over, the departing troops would retire by  squads
" and march away with flying colours-Less than ten minutes later, amid a  ripple
of applause at the  precision drill of the  Hell Hounds, the prince  was leaving
the parade ground arm-in-arm with Nizharu.  The latter was being posted back  to
the capital, but  five of his  comrades were to  establish a bodyguard  of local
soldiers for the governor, trained to imperial standards.

So rumour said. Rumour had been known to lie.

With some  care arid  ingenuity, Melilot  had smiled  and shoved  his way to the
front of the crowd, and as the two approached and all were bowing, he said  very
loudly and clearly, 'Why, commander! What good luck! Now is my chance to  return
the scroll you dropped yesterday morning!'

Nizharu had raised his visor because of the heat. It could clearly be seen  that
his face grew pasty-pale. 'I  I know  nothing of any scroll!' he barked as  soon
as he could gather his wits.

'No? Oh, in  that case, if  it isn't yours,  I'm sure the  prince will accept it
from me with a view to tracing its rightful owner!'

Fat though he was, Melilot could act briskly when he must. He whipped the scroll
from under his robe and thrust it into Jarveena's eager hand. A heartbeat later,
she was  on her  bended knee  before the  prince, gazing  up into  his handsome,
youthful, and somewhat vacuous face.

'Read, Your Highness!' she insisted fiercely, and almost forced him to take hold
of it.

The instant the  prince caught its  tenor, he froze.  Nizharu did the  opposite.
Spinning on his heel, he shouted for his men and broke into a run.

The knife which Jarveena carried in her writing-case served other purposes  than
the sharpening  of reed-pens.  She withdrew  it with  a practised  flick, aimed,
threw.

And, howling,  Nizharu measured  his length  on the  ground, pierced  behind the
right knee where there was only leather, not metal, to protect him.

The crowd shouted in  alarm and seemed on  the brink of panic,  but the incoming
guard had been warned. Throwing back his visor, Captain Aye-Gophlan ordered  his
men to  surround and  arrest Nizharu,  and in  a fine  towering rage  the prince
bellowed at the onlookers to explain why.

'This message is from a traitor  at the imperial court! It instructs  Nizharu to
assign one of his guards  to murder me as soon  as he has found someone  on whom
the charge can be falsely pinned! And it says that the writer is enchanting  the
message to prevent the wrong person's reading it - but there's no difficulty  in
reading this! It's the court writing I was first taught as a child!'

'We - ah - arranged for the  magic to be eliminated,' hinted Melilot. And  added
quickly, 'Your Highness!'

'How came you by it?'

'It was dropped  by Nizharu  when he  inspected our  guardhouse.' That  was Aye
Gophlan, marching smartly  forward. 'Thinking it  important, I consulted  Master
Melilot, whom I've long known to be loyal and discreet.'

'And as for me ...' Melilot gave a deprecating shrug. 'I have certain  contacts,
let us say. It put me to no trouble to counteract the spell.'

True, thought Jarveena, and marvelled at how cleverly he lied.

'You shall be  well rewarded,' declared  the prince. 'And,  after due trial,  so
shall he be!  Attempting the life  of one of  the imperial blood  - why, it's as
heinous a crime  as anyone might  name! It was  a miracle that  he let fall  the
scroll. Surely the gods are on  my side!' Raising his voice again.  'Tonight let
all make sacrifice and  give thanks! Under divine  protection I have survived  a
dastardly assassin!'

If all gods, Jarveena thought, are no better than Melilot, I'm content to be  an
unbeliever. But I do look forward to watching Nizharu fry.

6

'In view of how you must be  feeling, Jarveena,' said a soft voice at  her side,
'I compliment you on the way you are concealing your emotions.'

'It's not  difficult,' she  answered with  bitterness. The  crowd was dispersing
around  them, heading  away from  the execution  block where,  according to  the
strict form, traitor Nizharu had paid  for his many crimes by beating,  hanging,
and lastly burning.

And  then  she  started.  The  person  who  had  addressed  her  was  nobody she
recognized: tall, stooped, elderly, with wisps  of grey hair, carrying a  market
basket...

Where eyes should be, a glint of red.

'Enas Yorl?' she whispered.

'That same.' With a dry chuckle.  'Inasmuch as I can ever make  the statement...
Are you content?'

'I - I guess I'm not.' Jarveena turned away and began to follow the drift of the
crowd. 'I ought to be! I  begged the privilege of writing the  authorization for
his execution  in my  own hand,  and I  thought I  might include  mention of  my
parents, my  friends, the  villagers he  slaughtered or  enslaved, but my formal
Rankene isn't good enough, so I had to make do copying a draft by Melilot!'  She
tossed her head. 'And I hoped to stand  up in open court, swear to what he  did,
watch the faces of the people change as they realized what a filthy villain came
hither disguised as an imperial officer ... They said there was no need for  any
other evidence after Aye-Gophlan's and Melilot's and the prince's.'

'To speak after princes  is a dangerous habit,'  opined the wizard. 'But  at all
events, it appears  to have dawned  on you that  revenge is never  what you hope
for. Take my own case.  He who did to me  what you know of was  so determined to
wreak his vengeance that he created one spell more than he could handle. To each
he was obliged to cede a certain portion of his will; for as I told you,  spells
have no aim  or purpose of  their own. He  thereby deprived himself  of ordinary
sense, and to his death sat blubbering and moaning like an infant.'

'Why do you tell me this?' cried Jarveena. 'I want to make the most of my moment
of satisfaction, even if it can't be as rich and memorable as I dreamed.'

'Because,'  said  the wizard,  taking  her arm  by  fingers whose  touch  evoked
extraordinary thrills all over  her, 'you paid a  fair and honest price  for the
service I  undertook. I  shall not  forget you.  Scarred and  branded you may be
without; within you are beautiful.'

'Me?' said Jarveena with genuine  astonishment. 'As well call a  toad beautiful,
or a mud wall!'

'As you like,' Enas  Yorl answered with a  shrug. The movement revealed  that he
was no longer quite what he had been earlier. 'At all events, there is a  second
reason.'

'What?'

'You read the writing on the scroll,  and previously I had described it to  you.
Nonetheless you're acting as though you have forgotten something.'

For a brief moment she failed to take his point. Then her hand flew to her  open
mouth.

'Two deaths,' she whispered.

'Yes, indeed. And I scarcely need to tell you to whom a traitor in the  imperial
court would apply for a spell powerful enough  to drag me into the matter willy
nilly. I could  make the paper  legible. I could  not evade the  consequences of
undoing a colleague's work.'

'Whose death? Mine?

'It  would  be  politic  to  minimize the  danger,  as  for  instance  by taking
employment with a  seafarer. Many merchant-captains  would be glad  of a skilful
clerk, and after your apprenticeship with Melilot you're well equipped for  such
a post. Moreover, your present master is inclined to jealousy. You are half  his
age, yet already he regards you as a rival.'

'He dissembles  well,' muttered  Jarveena, 'but  now and  then he's  acted in  a
fashion that makes me believe you.'

'He might regard you more kindly were you to become a sort of foreign agent  for
him. I'm sure you could  contrive - for a reasonable  .fee - to supply him  with
commercially  valuable information.  He would  scarcely object  to adding  other
strings to his bow: trading in spices, for instance.'

For a while Jarveena  had seemed enlivened by  his discourse. Now she  fell back
into gloom.

'Why should I want to make myself rich, let alone him? Ever since I can remember
I've had a purpose  in life. Ifs gone  - carried to the  sky with the stench  of
Nizharu!'

'It takes a very rich person to commission a spell.'

'What would I want with magic?' she said contemptuously.

A second later, and it was as  though fire coursed all over her body,  outlining
every mark that defaced her, every whiplash, every burn, every cut and  scratch.
She had forgotten until now,  but sometime during that extraordinary  night when
she had lain with him, he had taken the trouble to trace her whole violent life
story from the map of her skin.

Now  she also  remembered thinking  that it  must be  for some  private magical
reason. Could she have been wrong? Could it have been simpler than that -  could
it just have been that he sympathized with one whom life had scarred in  another
way?

'You might wish,' he was saying calmly,  'to cleanse your body of the past  as I
think you have now begun to cleanse your mind.'

'Even ...?' She could not complete the question save by raising her hand to  the
right side of her chest.

'In  time. You  are young.  Nothing is  impossible. But  one thing  is much  too
possible. We've spoken of it. Now, act!'

They were almost at the gate,  and the crowd was pressing and'  jostling; people
were setting their hands to their money-belts and pouches, for these were  prime
conditions for theft.

'I take it you'd not  have spoken up unless you  had a new employer in  mind for
me?' Jarveena said at length.

'You're most perceptive.'

'And if there were not some long-term advantage in it for yourself?'

Enas Yorl sighed.  'There is a  long-term purpose to  everything. If there  were
not, spells would be impossible.'

'So there was a purpose behind Nizharu's dropping of the scroll?'

'Dropping ... ?'

'Oh! Why didn't I think of that?'

'In time, I'm sure you would have  done. But you came to Sanctuary so  recently,
you could  scarcely be  expected to  know that  in his  boyhood Aye-Gophlan  was
counted among the smartest dips and cutpurses in the city. How else do you think
he managed to buy himself a commission in the guards? Does he talk as though  he
came from a wealthy background?'

They were at  the gate, and  being squeezed through.  Clutching her writing-case
tightly  with one  hand, keeping  the other  folded over  the silver  pin which
fastened her cloak in a roll around her waist, Jarveena thought long and long.

And came to a decision.

Even though her main purpose in life up to now had vanished, there was no reason
why she  should not  find another  and maybe  better ambition.  If that were so,
there were good reasons to try and prolong her life by quitting Sanctuary.

Although ...

She glanced around  in alarm for  the magician, thinking  them separated in  the
throng, and with relief was able to catch him by the arm.

'Will distance make  any difference? I  mean, if the  doom is on  me, can I flee
from it?'

'Oh, it's not on you. It's merely  that there were two deaths in the  charm, and
only one has happened. Any day of  any year, scores of hundreds die in  any city
of this size. It's  probable that the spell  will work itself out  locally; when
there's a thunderstorm, the lightning strikes beneath it, not a hundred  leagues
away. Not inconceivably the other death may be that of someone who was as guilty
as Nizharu in the sack of Forgotten Holt. He had soldiers with him, did he not?'

'Yes, they were all  soldiers, whom I long  mistook for bandits ...!  Oh, what a
pass this land has come to! You're quite right! I'm going away, as far as I can,
whether or not it means I can outrun my death!'

She caught his hand, gave it a squeeze, and leaned close. 'Name the ship that  I
must look for!'

The day the ship sailed  it was unsafe for Enas  Yorl to venture on the  street;
occasionally the changes working in him cycled into forms that nobody, not  with
the kindest will in the world, could mistake for human. He was therefore obliged
to watch the tiring way, making use of a scrying-glass, but he was determined to
make certain that nothing had gone wrong with his scheme.

All turned out well. He tracked the ship, with Jarveena at her stern, until sea
mists obscured her, and then leaned back in what, for the time being, could  not
exactly be a chair as most people thought of chairs.

'And with you no longer around to attract it,' he murmured to the air,  'perhaps
luck may lead that second death-sentence to be passed on one who wearies  beyond
measure of mad  existence, sport of  a hundred mindless  spells, this miserable,
this pitiable Enas Yorl.'

Yet some  hope glimmered,  like the  red pits  he had  to wear  for eyes, in the
knowledge that at least one person in the world thought more kindly of him  than
he did himself. At length, with  a snorting laugh, he covered the  scrying-glass
and settled down resignedly to wait out the implacable transformation, a  little
comforted by knowing that so far he had never been the same shape twice.

THE FACE OF CHAOS
by Lynn Abbey

The cards lay  face down in  a wide crescent  on the black-velvet-covered  table
Illyra used for her fortune-telling. Closing her eyes, she touched one at random
with her index finger,  then overturned it. The  face of Chaos, portrait  of man
and woman seen in a broken mirror.  She had done a card-reading for herself;  an
attempt  to  penetrate the  atmosphere  of foreboding  that  had hung  over  the
ramshackle  cloth-and-wood structure  she and  Dubro, the  bazaar smith,  called
home. Instead it had only brought more anxiety.

She went to another small table to apply a thick coating of kohl to her eyelids.
No one would visit  a young, pretty S'danzo  to have their fortune  told, and no
stranger could enter her  home for any other  reason. The kohl and  the formless
S'danzo costume  concealed her  age in  the dimly  lit room,  but if  some love
deluded soldier or merchant  moved too close, there  was always Dubro under  the
canopy a few steps away. One sight of the brawny, sweating giant with his  heavy
mallet ended any crisis.

'Sweetmeats!  Sweetmeats! Always  the best  in the  bazaar. Always  the best  in
Sanctuary!'

The voice of Haakon, the vendor, reached through the cloth-hung doorway.  Illyra
finished her toilette quickly. Dark masses  of curly hair were secured with  one
pin under a purple silk scarf which contrasted garishly with each of the skirts,
the shawl, and the blouse she wore. She reached deep within those skirts for her
purse and removed a copper coin.

It was still early enough in the day that she might venture outside their  home.
Everyone in the bazaar knew she was scarce more than a girl, and there would  be
no city-folk wandering about for another hour, at least.

'Haakon! Over here!' She called from under theCanopy where Dubro kept his tools.
'Two ... no, three, please.'

He lifted three of the sticky treats on  to a shell that she held out for  them,
accepting her copper  coin with a  smile. In an  hour's time, Haakon  would want
five of the same coin for such a purchase, but the bazaar-folk sold the best  to
each other for less.

She ate one, but offered the other two to Dubro. She would have kissed him,  but
the smith shrank back from  public affection, preferring privacy for  all things
which pass between a man and woman. He smiled and accepted them wordlessly.  The
big man seldom spoke; words came slowly to him. He mended the metal wares of the
bazaar-folk, improving many as  he did so. He  had protected Illyra since  she'd
been an orphaned child  wandering the stalls, turned  out by her own  people for
the irredeemable crime of being a half-caste. Bright-eyed, quick-tongued  Illyra
spoke for him  now whenever anything  needed to be  said, and in  turn, he still
took care of her.

The sweetmeats gone, Dubro returned to the fire, lifting up a barrel hoop he had
left there to heat.  Illyra watched with never-sated  interest as he laid  it on
the anvil to pound  it back into a  true circle for Jofan,  the wine-seller. The
mallet fell, but instead  of the clear, ringing  sound of metal on  metal, there
was a hollow clang. The horn of the anvil fell into the dirt.

Even Haakon was wide-eyed  with silent surprise. Dubro's  anvil had been in  the
bazaar since ... since Dubro's grandfather for certain, and perhaps longer -  no
one could remember before that. The  smith's face darkened to the colour  of the
cooling iron. Illyra placed her hands over his.

'We'll get it fixed. We'll take it up to the Court of Anns this afternoon.  I'll
borrow Moonflower's ass-and-cart ...'

'No!' Dubro exploded with one tortured  word, shook loose her hands, and  stared
at the broken piece of his livelihood.

'Can't fix an  anvil that's broken  like that one,'  Haakon explained softly  to
her. 'It'll only be as strong as the seam.'

'Then we'll get a new one,' she responded, mindful of Dubro's bleak face and her
own certain knowledge that no one else in the bazaar possessed an anvil to sell.

'There hasn't been a new anvil  in Sanctuary since before Ranke closed  down the
sea-trade with Ilsig. You'd need four  camels and a year to get  a mountain-cast
anvil like that one into the bazaar - if you had the gold.'

A single  tear smeared  through the  kohl. She  and Dubro  were well  off by the
standards of the bazaar. They had ample copper coins for Haakon's sweetmeats and
fresh fish three times a week, but a pitifully small hoard of gold with which to
convince the caravan merchants to bring an anvil from distant Ranke.

'We've got to have an anvil!' She exclaimed to the unlistening gods, since Dubro
and Haakon were already aware of the problem.

Dubro kicked dirt over his fire and strode away from the small forge.

'Watch him for me, Haakon. He's never been like this.'

'I'll watch him - but it will be your problem tonight when he comes home.'

A few of the city-folk were already milling in the aisles of the bazaar; it  was
high time to  hide in her  room. Never before  in her five  years of working the
S'danzo trade within the bazaar had she faced a day when Dubro did not lend  his
calm presence to the  stream of patrons. He  controlled their coming and  going.
Without him, she did not know who was waiting, or how to discourage a patron who
had questions - but no money. She sat in the incense-heavy darkness waiting  and
brooding.

Moonflower. She  would go  to Moonflower,  not for  the old  woman's broken-down
cart, but  for advice.  The old  woman had  never shunned  her the way the other
S'danzo had. But  Moonflower wouldn't know  about fixing anvils,  and what could
she  add to  the message  so clearly  conveyed by  the Face  of Chaos?  Besides,
Moonflower's  richest  patrons  arrived  early in  the  day  to  catch her  best
'vibrations'. The old woman would not  appreciate a poor relation taking up  her
patrons' valuable time.

No patrons of her own yet, either. Perhaps the weather had turned bad.  Perhaps,
seeing the  forge empty,  they assumed  that the  inner chamber  was empty also.
Illyra dared not step outside to find out.

She shuffled and handled the deck of fortune-telling cards, acquiring a  measure
of self-control from their worn  surfaces. Palming the bottom card,  Illyra laid
it face-up on the black velvet.

'Five of Ships,' she whispered.

The card was  a stylized scene  of five small  fishing boats, each  with its net
cast into the water. Tradition said that  the answer to her question was in  the
card. Her gift would let her find  it -if she could sort out the  many questions
floating in her thoughts.

'Illyra, the fortune-teller?'

Illyra's reverie was  interrupted by her  first patron before  she had gained  a
satisfactory focus  in the  card. This  first woman  had problems  with her many
lovers, but her reading was spoiled by another patron stepping through the  door
at the wrong time. This second patron's reading was disrupted by the fish-smoker
looking for Dubro. The day was everything the Face of Chaos had promised.

The few readings which  were not disrupted reflected  her own despair more  than
the patron's. Dubro had not returned, and she was startled by any sound from the
outside canopy. Her patrons sensed  the confusion and were unsatisfied  with her
performance, Some refused to pay. An older, more experienced S'danzo would  know
how to handle these things, but Illyra only shrank back in frustration. She tied
a frayed  rope across  the entrance  to her  fortune-telling room  to discourage
anyone from seeking her advice.

'Madame Illyra?'

An unfamiliar woman's voice called from outside, undaunted by the rope.

'I'm not seeing anyone this afternoon. Come back tomorrow.'

'I can't wait until tomorrow.'

They all say that, Illyra thought. Everyone else always knows that they are  the
most important person I see and  that their questions are the most  complex. But
they are all very much the same. Let the woman come back.

The stranger could be heard hesitating  beyond the rope. Illyra heard the  sound
of rustling cloth - possibly silk - as the woman finally turned away. The  sound
jarred the S'danzo to alertness. Silken  skirts meant wealth. A flash of  vision
illuminated Illyra's mind - this was a patron she could not let go elsewhere.

'If you can't wait, I'll see you now,' she yelled.

'You will?'

Illyra untied the rope and lifted the hanging cloth to let the woman enter.  She
had surrounded herself with  a shapeless, plain shawl;  her face was veiled  and
shadowed  by a  corner of  the shawl  wound around  her head.  The stranger  was
certainly not someone who came to the S'danzo of the bazaar often. Illyra retied
the rope after seating her patron on one side of the velvet-covered table.

A woman of means who wishes to be mysterious. That shawl might be plain, but  it
is too good for someone  as poor as she pretends  to be. She wears silk  beneath
it, and smells of roses, though she  has tried to remove perfumes. No doubt  she
has gold, not silver or copper.

'Would you  not be  more comfortable  removing your  shawl? It  is quite warm in
here,' Illyra said, after studying the woman.

'I'd prefer not to.'

A difficult one, Illyra thought.

The woman's hand emerged from the shawl to drop three old Ilsig gold coins on to
the velvet. The hand was white, smooth, and youthful. The Ilsig coins were  rare
now that  the Rankan  empire controlled  Sanctuary. The  woman and her questions
were a welcome relief from Illyra's own thoughts.

'Well, then, what is your name?'

'I'd prefer not to say.'

'I must have some  information if I'm to  help you,' Illyra said  as she scooped
the coins into a worn  piece of silk, taking care  not to let her fingers  touch
the gold.

'My ser ... There are  those who tell me that  you alone of the S'danzo  can see
the near future. I must know what will happen to me tomorrow night.'

The question did not  fulfil Illyra's curiosity or  the promise of mystery,  but
she reached for her deck of cards.

'You are familiar with these?' she asked the woman.

'Somewhat.'

'Then divide them  into three piles  and choose one  card from each  pile - that
will show me your future.'

'For tomorrow night?'

'Assuredly. The answer is contained within the moment of the question. Take  the
cards.'

The veiled woman handled the cards fearfully. Her hands shook so badly that  the
three piles  were simply  unsquared heaps.  The woman  was visibly  reluctant to
touch the cards again and gingerly  overturned the top card of each  rather than
handle them again.

Lance of Flames.

The Archway.

Five of Ships, reversed.

Illyra drew her  hands back from  the velvet in  alarm. The Five  of Ships - the
card  had  been in  her  own hands  not  moments before.  She  did not  remember
replacing it in the  deck. With a quivering foreknowledge  that she would see  a
part of her own fate in the cards, Illyra opened her mind to receive the answer.
And closed it almost at once.

Falling stones, curses, murder, a journey without return. None of the cards  was
particularly auspicious, but together they created an image of malice and  death
that was normally hidden from the living. The S'danzo never foretold death  when
they saw it, and  though she was but  half-S'darizo and shunned by  them, Illyra
abided by their codes and superstitions.

'It would be best to remain at home, especially tomorrow night. Stand back  from
walls which might have loose stones in them. Safety lies within yourself. Do not
seek other advice - especially from the priests of the temples.'

Her visitor's reserve crumbled. She gasped, sobbed, and shook with  unmistakable
terror. But  before Illyra  could speak  the words  to calm  her, the black-clad
woman dashed away, pulling the frayed rope from its anchorage.

'Come back!' Illyra called.

The woman turned while still under the  canopy. Her shawl fell back to reveal  a
fair-skinned blonde  woman of  a youthful  and delicate  beauty. A  victim of  a
spurned lover? Or a jealous wife?

'If you  had already  seen your  fate -  then you  should have asked a different
question, such as  whether it can  be changed,' she  chided softly, guiding  the
woman back into the incense-filled chamber.

'I thought if you saw differently ... But Molin Torchholder will

have his way. Even you have seen it.'

Molin Torchholder.  Illyra  recognized the  name.  He was  the  priestly temple
builder within the Rankan prince's entourage. She had another friend and  patron
living within his household.  Was this the woman  of Cappen Varra's idylls?  Had
the minstrel finally overstepped himself?

'Why would the Rankan have his way with you?' she asked, prying gently.

'They have sought to build a temple for their gods.'

'But you  are not  a goddess,  nor even  Rankan. Such  things should not concern
you.'

Illyra spoke lightly, but she knew, from the cards, that the priests sought  her
as part of some ritual - not in personal interest.

'My father is rich - proud and powerful among those of Sanctuary who have  never
accepted the fall of the Ilsig  kingdom and will never accept the  empire. Molin
has singled my  father out. He  has demanded our  lands for his  temple. When we
refused, he forced the weaker men not to trade with us. But my father would  not
give in. He believes the gods of Ilsig are stronger, but Molin has vowed revenge
rather than admit failure.'

'Perhaps your family will have to leave Sanctuary to escape this foreign priest,
and your home be torn down to build their temple. But though the city may be all
you know, the world is large, and this place but a poor part of it.'

Illyra spoke  with far  more authority  than she  actually commanded.  Since the
death of her mother, she had left the bazaar itself only a handful of times  and
had never left the city. The  words were part of the S'danzo  oratory Moonflower
had taught her.

'My father  and the  others must  leave, but  not me.  I'm to  be part  of Molin
Torchholder's  revenge. His  men came  once to  my father's  house. The  Rankan
offered  us  my full  bride-price,  though he  is  married. Father  refused  the
"honour".  Molin's men  beat him  senseless and  carried me  screaming from  the
house.

'I fought with him when he came to me that night. He will not want another woman
for some time. But my father could  not believe I had not been dishonoured.  And
Molin said that if I would not yield to him, then no living man should have me.'

'Such are ever the words of scorned men,' Illyra added gently.

'No. It was  a curse, /know  this for certain.  Their gods are  strong enough to
answer when they call.

'Last night two of their Hell Hounds  appeared at our estate to offer new  terms
to my father. A  fair price for our  land, safe conduct to  Ilsig - but I  am to
remain behind. Tomorrow night they will consecrate the cornerstone of their  new
temple with a virgin's death. I am to be under that stone when they lay it.'

Though Illyra was not specifically a truth-seer, the tale tied all the  horrific
visions into a whole. It  would take the gods to  save this woman from the  fate
Molin Torchholder had waiting for her.  It was no secret that the  empire sought
to conquer  the Ilsig  gods as  they had  conquered their  armies. If the Rankan
priest could  curse a  woman with  unbreachable virginity,  Illyra didn't  think
there was much she could do.

The woman was still  sobbing. There was no  future in her patronage,  but Illyra
felt sorry for her. She opened a little cabinet and shook a good-sized pinch  of
white powder into a small liquid-filled vial.

'Tonight, before you retire, take this with a glass of wine.'

The woman clutched it tightly, though the fear did fade from her eyes.

'Do I owe you more for this?' she asked.

'No, it is the least I could do for you.'

There was enough of the cylantha powder to keep the woman asleep for three days.
Perhaps Molin Torchholder would  not want a sleeping  virgin in his rite.  If he
did not mind, the woman would not awaken to find out.

'I can give you much gold. I could bring you to Ilsig.'

Illyra shook her head.

'There  is but  one thing  I wish  - and  you do  not have  it,' she  whispered,
surprised  by  the sudden  impulsiveness  of her  words.  'Nor all  the  gold in
Sanctuary will find another anvil for Dubro.'

'I do not know this Dubro, but there is an anvil in my father's stables. It will
not return to Ilsig. It can be yours, if I'm alive to tell my father to give  it
to you.'

The impulsiveness cleared from Illyra's  mind. There were reasons now  to soothe
the young woman's fears.

'It is a generous offer,' she replied.  'I shall see you then, three days  hence
at your father's home - if you will tell me where it is.'

And if you do, she added to herself,  then it will not matter if you survive  or
not.

'It is the estate called "Land's End", behind the temple of Ils, Himself.'

'Whom shall I ask for?'

'Manila.'

They stared at each other for a few moments, then the blonde woman made her  way
into the afternoon-crowded bazaar. Illyra  knotted the rope across the  entrance
to her chambers with distracted intensity.

How many years - five at least  - she had been answering the banal  questions of
city-folk who could not  see anything for themselves.  Never, in all that  time,
had she asked a question  of a patron, or seen  such a death, or one  of her own
cards in a reading. And in all the years of memory within the S'danzo  community
within the bazaar, never had any of them crossed fates with the gods.

No, I have nothing to  do with gods. I do  not notice them, and they  do not see
me. My  gift is  S'danzo. I  am S'danzo.  We live  by fate.  We do not touch the
affairs of gods.

But Illyra could not convince herself. The thought circled in her mind that  she
had wandered beyond the realms of her  people and gifts. She lit the incense  of
gentle-forgetting, inhaling it deeply, but  the sound of Dubro's anvil  breaking
and the  images of  the three  cards remained  ungentle in  her thoughts. As the
afternoon waned, she convinced herself again to approach Moonflower for advice.

The obese  S'danzo woman's  three children  squalled at  each other  in the dust
while her dark-eyed husband sat in the shade holding his hands over his eyes and
ears. It was  not an auspicious  moment to seek  the older woman's  counsel. The
throngs of people were leaving the  bazaar, making it safe for Illyra  to wander
among the stalls looking for Dubro.

'Illyra!'

She had  expected Dubro's  voice, but  this one  was familiar  also. She  looked
closely into the crowd at the wine-seller's.

'Cappen Varra?'

'The same.' He  answered, greeting her  with a smile.  'There was a  rope across
your gate today, and Dubro  was not busy at his  fire - otherwise I should  have
stopped to see you.'

'You have a question?'

'No, my life could not be better. I have a song for you.'

'Today is not a day for songs. Have you seen Dubro?'

'No. I'm here to get wine for a special dinner tomorrow night. Thanks to you,  I
know where the best wine in Sanctuary is still to be found.'

'A new love?'

'The same.  She grows  more radiant  with each  day. Tomorrow  the master of the
house will be busy with his priestly functions. The household will be quiet.'

'The household of Molin Torchholder must agree  with you then. It is good to  be
in the grace of the conquerors of Ilsig.'

'I'm discreet. So is Molin.  It is a trait which  seems to have been lost  among
the natives  of Sanctuary  - S'danzo  excepted, of  course. I'm most comfortable
within his house.'

The  seller  handed him  two  freshly washed  bottles  of wine,  and  with brief
farewells, Illyra saw him on his way. The wine-seller had seen Dubro earlier  in
the day. He offered that the smith was visiting every wine-seller in the  bazaar
and not a few of the taverns  outside it. Similar stories waited for her  at the
other wine-sellers. She returned to the forge-home in the gathering twilight and
fog.

Ten candles and the  oil stove could not  cut through the dark  emptiness in the
chamber. Illyra  pulled her  shawls tightly  around her  and tried  to nap until
Dubro returned. She would not let herself think that he would not return.

'You have been waiting for me.'

Illyra jumped at  the sound. Only  two of the  candles remained lit;  she had no
idea how long she had slept, only that her home quivered with shadows and a man,
as tall as Dubro but of cadaverous thinness, stood within the knotted rope.

'Who are you? What do you want?' She flattened against the back of the chair.

'Since you do not recognize me, then say, I have been looking for you.'

The  man gestured.  The candles  and stove  rekindled and  Illyra found  herself
staring at the blue-starred face of the magician Lythande.

'I have done nothing to cross you,' she said, rising slowly from her chair.

'And I did not say that you had. I thought you were seeking me. Many of us  Have
heard you calling today.'

He held up the three cards Marilla had overturned and the Face of Chaos.

'I - I had not known my problems could disturb your studies.'

'I was reflecting on  the legend of the  Five Ships - it  was comparatively easy
for you to touch me. I have taken it to myself to learn things for you.

'The girl Marilla appealed first to her own gods. They sent her to you since for
them to act on her fate would rouse the ire of Sabellia and Savankala. They have
tied your fates together.  You will not solve  your own troubles unless  you can
relieve hers.'

'She is a dead woman, Lythande. If the gods of Ilsig wish to help her, they will
need all their strength - and if that isn't enough, then there is nothing I  can
do for her.'

'That is not a wise position to take, Illyra,' the magician said with a smile.

'That is what I saw. S'danzo do not cross fates with the gods.'

'And you, Illyra, are not S'danzo.'

She gripped the back of the chair, angered by the reminder but unable to counter
it.

'They have passed the obligation to you,' he said.

'I do not know how to break through Manila's fate,' Illyra said simply. 'I  see,
they must change.'

Lythande  laughed. 'Perhaps  there is  no way,  child. Maybe  it will  take  two
sacrifices to consecrate the temple Molin Torch-holder builds. You had best hope
there is a way  through Manila's fate; A  cold breeze accompanied his  laughter.
The candles flickered a moment, and  the magician was gone. Illyra stared at the
undisturbed rope.

Let Lythande  and the  others help  her if  it's so  important. I  want only the
anvil, and that I can have regardless of her fate.

The cold air clung  to the room. Already  her imagination was embroidering  upon
the consequences of enraging any of the powerful deities of Sanctuary. She  left
to search for Dubro in the fog-shrouded bazaar.

Fog tendrils obscured the  familiar stalls and shacks  of the daytime bazaar.  A
few fires could be  glimpsed through cracked doorways,  but the area itself  had
gone to sleep early, leaving Illyra to roam through the moist night alone.

Nearing the main entrance she saw the bobbing torch of a running man. The  torch
and runner fell with an aborted  shout. She heard lighter footsteps running  off
into the unlit fog. Cautiously, fearfully, Illyra crept towards the fallen man.

It was not Dubro, but a shorter man wearing a blue hawk-mask. A dagger protruded
from the side of his neck. Illyra felt no sorrow at the death of one of  Jubal's
bully-boys, only relief  that it had  not been Dubro.  Jubal was worse  than the
Rankans. Perhaps the  crimes of the  man behind the  mask had finally  caught up
with him. More likely  someone had risked  venting a grudge  against the seldom
seen  former  gladiator. Anyone  who  dealt with  Jubal  had more  enemies  than
friends.

As if in silent response to her  thoughts, another group of men appeared out  of
the fog.  Illyra hid  among the  crates and  boxes while  five men without masks
studied the dead man. Then, without  warning, one of them threw aside  his torch
and fell on the warm corpse, striking it again and again with his knife. When he
had had his fill of death, the others took their turns.

The bloody hawk-mask rolled to within a hand-span of Illyra's foot. She held her
breath and did not move, her  eyes riveted in horror on the  unrecognizable body
in front of her.  She wandered away from  the scene blind to  everything but her
own disbelieving shock. The atrocity  seemed to be the final,  senseless gesture
of the Face of Chaos in a day which had unravelled her existence.

She  leaned  against  a  canopy-post  fighting  waves  of  nausea,  but Haakon's
sweetmeats had been the only food she had eaten all day. The dry heaving of  her
stomach brought no relief.

'Lyra!'

A familiar voice  roared behind her  and an arm  thrown protectively around  her
shoulder broke the spell. She clung to Dubro with clenched fingers, burying  her
convulsive sobs in his  leather vest. He reeked  of wine and the  salty fog. She
savoured every breath of him.

'Lyra, what are you doing out here?' He paused, but she did not reply. 'Did  you
begin to think I'd not come back to you?'

He held her tightly, swaying  restlessly back and forth.  The story of the  hawk
masked man's death fell from her in racked gasps. It took Dubro only a moment to
decide that  his beloved  Illyra had  suffered too  much in  his absence  and to
repent that he had gotten drunk or sought work outside the bazaar. He lifted her
gently and carried  her back to  their home, muttering  softly to himself  as he
walked.

Not even Dubro's comforting arms could protect Illyra from the nightmare visions
that stalked her sleep  once they had returned  to their home. He  shook off his
drunkenness to watch over her as she tossed and fretted on the sleeping  linens.
Each time he thought she had settled  into a calm sleep, the dreams would  start
again. Illyra  would awaken  sweating and  incoherent from  fear. She  would not
describe her dreams  to him when  he asked. He  began to suspect  that something
worse than the murder had taken  place in his absence, though their  home showed
no sign of attack or struggle.

Illyra did  try to  voice her  fears to  him at  each waking  interlude, but the
mixture of visions  and emotions found  no expression in  her voice. Within  her
mind, each re-dreaming  of the nightmare  brought her closer  to a single  image
which both  collected her  problems and  eliminated them.  The first  rays of  a
feeble  dawn  had  broken through  the  fog  when she  had  the  final synthetic
experience of the dream.

She saw herself at  a place the dream-spirit  said was the estate  called Land's
End.  The estate  had been  long abandoned,  with only  an anvil  chained to  a
pedestal  in  the  centre of  a  starlit  courtyard to  show  that  it had  been
inhabited. Illyra broke the chain easily and lifted the anvil as if it had  been
paper. Clouds  rushed in  as she  walked away  and a  moaning wind began to blow
dust-devils around her. She hurried  towards the doorway where Dubro  waited for
his gift.

The steel  cracked before  she had  travelled half  the distance,  and the anvil
crumbled completely as she  transferred it to him.  Rain began to fall,  washing
away Dubro's face to reveal Lythande's cruel, mocking smile. The magician struck
her with the  card marked with  the Face of  Chaos. And she  died, only to  find
herself captive within  her body which  was being carried  by unseen hands  to a
vast pit.  The dissonant  music of  priestly chants  and cymbals surrounded her.
Within the  dream, Illyra  opened her  dead eyes  to see  a large block of stone
descending into the pit over her.

'I'm already  dead!' She  screamed, struggling  to free  her arms  and legs from
invisible bindings. 'I can't be sacrificed - I'm already dead!'         -

Her arms  came free.  She nailed  wildly. The  walls of  the pit were glassy and
without hand-holds. The lowered stone touched her head. She shrieked as the life
left her body for a second time.  Her body released her spirit, and she  rose up
through the stone, waking as she did.

'It was a dream,' Illyra said before Dubro could ask.

The solution was safe in  her mind now. The dream  would not return. But it  was
like a reading with the cards. In order to understand what the dream-spirit  had
given her, she would have to meditate upon it.

'You said  something of  death and  sacrifice,' Dubro  said, un-mollified by her
suddenly calmed face.

'It was a dream.'

'What sort of dream? Are you afraid that I will leave you or the bazaar now that
I have no work to do?'

'No,' she said quickly, masking the fresh anxiety his words produced.  'Besides,
I have found an anvil for us.'

'In your dream with the death and sacrifice?'

'Death and sacrifice are keys the dream-spirit gave me. Now I must take the time
to understand them.'

Dubro stepped back from her. He was not S'danzo, and though bazaar-folk, he  was
not comfortable  around their  traditions or  their gifts.  When Illyra spoke of
'seeing' Or 'knowing', he would draw away from her. He sat, quiet and sullen, in
a chair pulled into the corner most distant from her S'danzo paraphernalia.

She stared at the black-velvet covering other table until well past the dawn and
the start of a gentle rain. Dubro  placed a shell with a sweetmeat in  it before
her. She nodded,  smiled, and ate  it, but did  not say anything.  The smith had
already turned away two patrons when Illyra finished her meditation.

'Are  you finished,  now, Lyra?'  he asked,  his distrust  of S'danzo  ways not
overshadowing his concern for her.

'I think so.'

'No more death and sacrifice?'

She nodded  and began  to relate  the tale  of the  previous day's events. Dubro
listened quietly until she reached the part about Lythande.

'In my home? Within these walls?' he demanded.

'I saw him, but I don't know how he got in here. The rope was untouched.'

'No!' Dubro exclaimed, beginning to pace  like a caged animal. 'No, I  want none
of this. I will not have magicians and sorcerers in my home!'

'You weren't here, and I did not  invite him in.' Illyra's dark eyes flashed  at
him as she spoke. 'And he'll come back again if I don't do these things, so hear
me out.'

'No, just tell me what we must do to keep him away.'

Illyra dug her fingernails into the palm of one hand hidden in the folds of  her
skirts.

'We will have to - to stop the consecration of the cornerstone of the new temple
for the Rankan gods.'

'"Gods", Lyra, you would not meddle with the gods? Is this the meaning you found
in "death and sacrifice"?'

'It is also the reason Lythande was here last night.'

'But, Lyra ...'

She shook her head, and he was quiet.

'He won't ask me what I plan to do', she thought as he tied the rope across  the
door and followed her  towards the city. 'As  long as everything is  in my head,
I'm certain everything is possible and that I will succeed. But if I spoke of it
to anyone - even  him - I would  hear how little hope  I have of stopping  Molin
Torch-holder or of changing Marilla's fate.'

In the dream, her already dead body had been offered to Sabellia and  Savankala.
Her morning's introspection had convinced her that she was to introduce a corpse
into Molin Torchholder's  ceremonies. They passed  the scene of  the murder, but
Jubal's men had reclaimed their comrade.  The only other source of dead  men she
knew  of  was the  governor's  palace where  executions  were becoming  a  daily
occurrence under the tightening grip of the Hell Hounds.

They passed by  the huge charnel-house  just beyond the  bazaar gates. The  rain
held the death  smells close by  the half-timbered building.  Could Sabellia and
Savankala  be  appeased with  the  mangled bones  and  fat of  a  butchered cow?
Hesitantly she mounted the raised wooden walk over the red-brown effluvia of the
building.

'What do the Rankan gods want from this place?' Dubro asked before setting  foot
on the walkway.

'A substitute for the one already chosen.'

A man emerged from  a side door pushing  a sloshing barrel which  he dumped into
the slow-moving stream. Shapeless red lumps flowed under the walkway between the
two bazaar-folk. Illyra swayed on her feet.

'Even the gods of Ranke would not  be fooled by these.' Dubro lowered his-  head
towards the now-ebbing stream. 'At least  offer them the death of an  honest man
ofllsig.'

He held out a hand to steady her as she stepped back on the street, then led the
way past the Serpentine to the governor's palace. Three men hung limply from the
gallows in the rain,  their crimes and names  inscribed on placards tied  around
their  necks. Neither  Illyra nor  Dubro had  mastered the  arcane mysteries  of
script.

'Which one is most like the one you need?' Dubro asked.

'She should be my size, but  blonde.' Illyra explained while looking at  the two
strapping men and one grandfatherly figure hanging in front of them.

Dubro shrugged and approached the  stern-faced Hell Hound standing guard  at the
foot of the gallows.

'Father,' he grunted, pointing at the elderly corpse.

'It's the law - to be hung by  the neck until sundown. You'll have to come  back
then.'

'Long walk home. He's dead now - why wait?'

'There is law in Sanctuary now,  peon, Rankan law. It will be  respected without
exception.'

Dubro stared at the ground, fumbling with his hands in evident distress.

'In the rain I cannot see the sun - how shall I know when to return?'

Guard and smith stared at the  steely-grey sky, both knowing it would  not clear
before nightfall. Then, with  a loud sigh, the  Hell Hound walked to  the ropes,
selected and untied one, which dropped Dubro's 'father' into the mud.

'Take him and begone!'

Dubro shouldered the dead man, walking to  Illyra who waited at the edge of  the
execution grounds.

'He's - he's -' she gasped in growing hysteria.

'Dead since sunrise.'

'He's covered with filth. He reeks. His face ...'

'You wanted another for the sacrifice.'

'But not like that!'

'It is the way of men who have been hung.'

They walked  back towards  the charnel-house  where Sanctuary's  undertakers and
embalmers held sway. There, for five  copper coins, they found a man  to prepare
the body. For another  coin he would have  rented them a cart  and his son as  a
digger to take the unfortunate ex-thief to the common field outside the Gate  of
Triumph for proper burial. Illyra and Dubro made a great show of grief, however,
and insisted that they would bury their father with their own hands. Wrapped  in
a nearly clean shroud, the old  man was bound to a  plank. Illyra held the foot
end, Dubro the other. They made their way back to the bazaar.

'Do we take the body  to the temple for the  exchange?' he asked as they  pushed
aside their chairs to make room for the plank.

Illyra stared at him, not realizing at first that his faith in her had made  the
question sincere.

'During the night the  Rankan priests will leave  the governor's palace for  the
estate called Land's End. They will bear Marilla with them. We will have to stop
them and replace Marilla with our corpse, without their knowledge.'

The smith's eyes widened with disillusion. 'Lyra, it is not the same as stealing
fruit from Blind Jakob! The girl will  be alive. He is dead. Surely the  priests
will see.'

She  shook  her  head  clinging  desperately  to  the  image  she  had  found in
meditation. 'It rains. There will be  no moonlight, and their torches will  give
more smoke than light. I gave the girl cylantha. They will have to carry her  as
if she were dead.'

'Will she take the drug?'

'Yes!'

But  Illyra  wasn't sure  -  couldn't be  sure  - until  they  actually saw  the
procession. So many questions: if Marilla had taken the drug, if the  procession
were small, unguarded and  slowed by their burden,  if the ritual were  like the
one in her  dream. The cold  panic she had  felt as the  stone descended on  her
returned. The Face of Chaos loomed, laughing, in her mind's eye.

'Yes! She took  the drug last  night,' she said  firmly, dispelling the  Face by
force of will.

'How do you know this?' Dubro asked incredulously. 'I know.'

There was no more discussion as  Illyra threw herself into the preparation  of a
macabre feast that they ate on a  table spread over their dead guest. The  vague
point of sundown passed, leaving Sanctuary in a dark rainy night, as Illyra  had
foreseen. The  continuing rain  bolstered her  confidence as  they moved  slowly
through the bazaar and out of the Common Gate.

They faced  a long,  but not  difficult, walk  beyond the  walls of the city. As
Dubro pointed out, the demoiselles of  the Street of Red Lanterns had  to follow
their path each night on their way to the Promise of Heaven. The ladies  giggled
behind their  shawls at  the sight  of the  two bearing  what was so obviously a
corpse. But they did nothing  to hinder them, and it  was far too early for  the
more raucous traffic returning from the Promise.

Huge piles of stone in a sea of muddy craters marked the site of the new temple.
A water-laden canopy covered sputtering braziers and torches; otherwise the area
was quiet and deserted.

It is the night  of the Ten-Slaying. Cappen  Varra told me the  priests would be
busy. Rain will not stop the dedication. Gods do not feel rain! Illyra  thought,
but again did not know and sat with her back to Dubro quivering more from  doubt
and fear than from the cold water dripping down her back.

While she sat, the rain slowed to  a misty drizzle and gave promise of  stopping
altogether. She left the inadequate shelter  of the rock pile to venture  nearer
the canopy and braziers. A platform had been built above the mud at the edge  of
a pit with ropes dangling  on one side that might  be used to lower a  body into
the pit.  A great  stone was  poised on  logs opposite,  ready to crush anything
below. At least they  were not too late  - no sacrifice had  taken place. Before
IHyra had returned  to Dubro's side,  six torches appeared  in the mist-obscured
distance.

'They are coming,' Dubro whispered as she neared him.

'I see them. We have only a few moments now.'

From around her waist she unwound two coils of rope taken from the bazaar forge.
She had devised  her own  plan for  the actual  exchange, as  neither the  dream
spirit nor her meditations had offered solid insight or inspiration.

'They will most likely  follow the same path  we did, since they  are carrying a
body also,' she  explained as she  laid the ropes  across the mud,  burying them
slightly. 'We will trip them here.'

'And I will switch our corpse for the girl?'

'Yes.'

They said nothing more as each crouched in a mud-hole waiting, hoping, that  the
procession would pass between them.

The luck promised in her dream held. Molin Torchholder led the small procession,
bearing a large  brass and wood  torch from Sabellia's  temple in Ranke  itself.
Behind him were  three chanting acolytes  bearing both incense  and torches. The
last two torches  were affixed to  a bier carried  on the shoulders  of the last
pair of priests.  Torchholder and the  other three trod  over the ropes  without
noticing them. When  the first pallbearer  was between the  ropes Illyra snapped
them taut.

The burdened priests heard the smack as the ropes lifted from the mud, but  were
tripped before they could react. Marilla and the torches fell towards Dubro, the
priests towards Illyra.  In the dark  commotion, Illyra got  safely to a  nearby
pile of building stones, but without being able to see if Dubro had accomplished
the exchange.

'What's wrong?' Torchholder demanded, hurrying back with his torch to light  the
scene.

'The  damned workmen  left the  hauling ropes  strewn about,'  a mud-splattered
priest exclaimed as he scrambled out of the knee-deep mud-hole.

'And the girl?' Molin continued.

'Thrown over there, from the look of it.'

Lifting his robes in one hand, Molin Torchholder led the acolytes and priests to
the indicated mud-pit. Illyra heard sounds she prayed were Dubro making his  own
way to the safe shadows.

'A hand here.'

'Damned Ilsig mud. She weighs ten times as much now.'

'Easy. A little more mud, a little  sooner won't affect the temple, but it's  an
ill thought to rouse the Others.' Torchholder's calm voice quieted the others.

The torches were re-lit. From her hideout, Illyra could see a mud-covered shroud
on the bier.  Dubro had succeeded  somehow: she did  not allow herself  to think
anything else.

The procession continued on towards the canopy. The rain had stopped completely.
A sliver of moonlight showed  through the dispersing clouds. Torchholder  loudly
hailed  the  break in  the  clouds as  an  omen of  the  forgiving, sanctifying,
presence of  Vashanka and  began the  ritual. In  due time  the acolytes emptied
braziers of  oil on  to the  shroud, setting  it and  the corpse  on fire.  They
lowered the naming bier  into the pit. The  acolytes threw symbolic armloads  of
stone after it. Then they cut the  ropes that held the cornerstone in its  place
at the edge. It slid from sight with a loud, sucking sound.

Almost at once, Torchholder and the other two priests left the platform to  head
back towards the palace, leaving only the acolytes to perform a night-long vigil
over the new grave. When the priests were out of sight Illyra scrambled back  to
the mud-holes and whispered Dubro's name.

'Here,' he hissed back.

She needed only one glance at his moon-shadowed face to know something had  gone
wrong.

'What  happened?'  she asked  quickly,  unmindful of  the  sound of  her  voice.
'Marilla? Did they bury Marilla?'

There were tears in Dubro's eyes as  he shook his head. 'Look at her!'  he said,
his voice barely under control.

A  mud-covered shroud  lay some  paces away.  Dubro would  neither face  it nor
venture near it. Illyra approached warily.

Dubro had left the face covered. Holding her breath, Illyra reached down to peel
back the damp, dirty linen.

For a heartbeat, she saw Marilla's sleeping face. Then it became her own.  After
a second of self-recognition, the face underwent a bewildering series of changes
to portraits of people from her childhood and others whom she did not recognize.
It froze for  a moment in  the shattered image  of the Face  of Chaos, then  was
still with pearly-white skin where there should have been eyes, nose, and mouth.

Illyra's fingers stiffened. She  opened her mouth to  scream, but her lungs  and
throat were paralysed with fright. The linen fell from her unfeeling hands,  but
did not cover the hideous thing that lay before her.

Get away! Get away from this place!

The primitive imperative rose in her mind and would not be appeased by  anything
less than headlong flight. She pushed Dubro aside. The acolytes heard her as she
blundered through the mud,  but she ignored  them. There were  buildings ahead 
solid stone buildings outlined in the moonlight.

It was a  manor house of  an estate long  since abandoned. Illyra  recognized it
from her dream, but her panic and terror had been sated in the headlong run from
the faceless corpse.  An interior door  hung open on  rusty hinges that  creaked
when she pushed the door. She was unsurprised to see an anvil sitting on a plain
wooden box  in the  centre of  a courtyard  that her  instincts told her was not
entirely deserted.

'I'm only prolonging it now. The anvil, and the rest; they are there for me.'

She stepped into the  courtyard. Nothing happened. The  anvil was solid and  far
too heavy for her to lift.

'You've come to collect your reward?' a voice called.

'Lythande?' she whispered, waiting for the cadaverous magician to appear.

'Lythande is elsewhere.'

A hooded man stepped into the moonlight.

'What has happened? Where is Marilla? Her family?'

The  man  gestured  to his  right.  Illyra  followed his  movement  and  saw the
tumbledown headstones of an old graveyard.

'But...?'

'The priests of Ils  seek to provoke the  new gods. They created  the homunculus,
disguising it to appear as a young  woman to an untrained observer. Had it  been
interred in the foundation of the new temple, it would have created a disruptive
weakness. The  anger of  Savankala and  Sabellia would  reach across the desert.
That is, of course, exactly what the priests of Ils wanted.

'We magicians - and even you gifted S'danzo - do not welcome the meddling  feuds
of gods and their priests. They  tamper with the delicate balances of  fate. Our
work is more important than the appeasement of deities, so this time, as in  the
past, we have intervened.'

'But the temple? They should have buried a virgin, then?'

'A forged person would arouse the Rankan gods, but not an imperfect virgin. When
the temple   of Ils   was erected,   the old   priests sought   a royal  soul to
inter beneath  the altar.  They wanted  the youngest,  and most  loved, of   the
royal princes. The queen was a  sorceress  of some skill herself. She  disguised
an old slave, and his bones still rest beneath the altar.'

'So the gods of Ilsig and Ranke are equal?'

The hooded man laughed. 'We have seen  to it that all gods within Sanctuary  are
equally handicapped, my child.'

'And what of me? Lythande warned me not to fail.'

'Did  I not  just say  that our  purpose -  and therefore  your purpose  - was
accomplished? You did not fail, and we repay, as Marilla promised, with a black
steel anvil. It is yours.'

He laid a hand on the anvil and disappeared in a wisp of smoke.

'Lyra, are you all right? I heard you speaking with someone. I buried that  girl
before I came looking for you.'

'Here is the anvil.'

'I do not want such an ill-gotten  thing.' Dubro took her arm and  tried to lead
her out of the courtyard.

'I have  paid too  much already!'  she shouted  at him,  wresting away  from his
grasp. 'Take it back to the bazaar - then we will forget all this ever happened.
Never speak of it to anyone. But  don't leave the anvil here, or it's  all worth
nothing!'

'I can never forget your face on that dead girl... thing.'

Illyra remained silently  staring at the  still-muddy ground. Dubro  went to the
anvil and brushed the water and dirt from its surface.

'Someone has carved a symbol in it. It reminds me of one of your cards. Tell  me
what it means before I take it back to the bazaar with us.'

She stood by his side. A smiling Face of Chaos had been freshly etched into  the
worn surface of the metal.

'It is an old S'danzo sign of good luck.'

Dubro did not seem to hear the  note of bitterness and deceit in her  voice. His
faith  in Illyra  had been  tried but  not shattered.  The anvil  was heavy,  an
ungainly bundle in his arms. |   'Well,  it won't get home by itself, will  it?'
He stared at her as she started walking.

She touched the pedestal and thought briefly of the questions still whirling  in
her head. Dubro called  again from outside the  courtyard. The entire length  of
Sanctuary lay between them and the bazaar, and it was not yet midnight.  Without
glancing back, she followed him out of the courtyard.

THE GATE OF THE FLYING KNIVES
by Poul Anderson

Again penniless, houseless, and ladyless,  Cappen Varra made a brave  sight just
the same as he wove his way amidst the bazaar throng. After all, until today  he
had for some weeks been in, if not quite of, the household of Molin Torchholder,
as much as he  could contrive. Besides the  dear presence of ancilla  Danlis, he
had received generous reward from the priest-engineer whenever he sang a song or
composed a poem. That situation had  changed with suddenness and terror, but  he
still wore  a bright  green tunic,  scarlet cloak,  canary hose, soft half-boots
trimmed in  stiver, and  plumed beret.  Though naturally  heartsick at  what had
happened, full of dread for his darling, he saw no reason to sell the garb  yet.
He could raise  enough money in  various ways to  live on while  he searched for
her. If need be, as  often before, he could pawn  the harp that a goldsmith  was
presently redecorating.

If his quest had not succeeded by the time he was reduced to rags, then he would
have to suppose Danlis and the Lady Rosanda were forever lost. But he had  never
been one to grieve over future sorrows.

Beneath a westering sun, the  bazaar surged and clamoured. Merchants,  artisans,
porters,  servants, slaves,  wives, nomads,  courtesans, entertainers,  beggars,
thieves,  gamblers,  magicians,  acolytes,  soldiers,  and  who  knew  what else
mingled, chattered, chaffered, quarrelled,  plotted, sang, played games,  drank,
ate, and who knew what else. Horsemen, camel-drivers, waggoners pushed  through,
raising waves  of curses.  Music tinkled  and tweedled  from wine-shops. Vendors
proclaimed the wonders  of their wares  from booths, neighbours  shouted at each
other, and  devotees chanted  from flat  rooftops. Smells  thickened the air, of
flesh, sweat, roast meat and nuts, aromatic drinks, leather, wool, dung,  smoke,
oils, cheap perfume.

Ordinarily, Cappen Varra enjoyed this shabby-colourful spectacle. Now he single
mindedly hunted through it. He kept full awareness, of course, as everybody must
in Sanctuary. When light fingers brushed him, he knew. But whereas aforetime  he
would have chuckled and told the  pickpurse, 'I'm sorry, friend; I was  hoping I
might  lift  somewhat off  you,'  at this  hour  he clapped  his  sword in  such
forbidding wise that the fellow recoiled against a fat woman and made her drop a
brass tray full of flowers. She  screamed and started beating him over  the head
with it.

Cappen didn't stay to watch.

On the  eastern edge  of the  market-place he  found what  he wanted.  Once more
Illyra was in  the bad graces  of her colleagues  and had moved  her trade to  a
stall available elsewhere. Black curtains  framed it, against a mud-brick  wall.
Reek from a nearby tannery well-nigh drowned the incense she burned in a curious
holder, and would  surely overwhelm any  of her herbs.  She herself also  lacked
awesomeness, such  as most  seeresses, mages,  conjurers, scryers,  and the like
affected.  She  was too  young;  she would  have  looked almost  wistful  in her
flowing, gaudy S'danzo garments, had she not been so beautiful.

Cappen gave her a bow in  the manner of Caronne. 'Good-day, Illyra  the lovely,'
he said.

She smiled from the  cushion whereon she sat.  'Good-day to you, Cappen  Varra.'
They  had had  a number  of talks,  usually in  jest, and  he had  sung for  her
entertainment.. He had hankered to do more than that, but she seemed to keep all
men at a certain distance, and a  hulk of a blacksmith who evidently adored  her
saw to it that they respected her wish.

'Nobody  in these  parts has  met you  for a  fair while,'  she remarked.  'What
fortune was great enough to make you forget old friends?'

'My fortune was mingled, inasmuch as it  left me without time to come down  here
and behold you, my sweet,' he answered out of habit.

Lightness departed  from Illyra.  In the  olive countenance,  under the chestnut
mane, large eyes focused hard on her visitor. 'You find time when you need  help
in disaster,' she said.

He had not patronized her before, or indeed any fortune-teller of thaumaturge in
Sanctuary. In Caronne, where he grew up, most folk had no use for magic. In  his
later wanderings he had encountered sufficient strangeness to temper his  native
scepticism. As shaken as he already was, he felt a chill go along his spine. 'Do
you read my fate without even casting a spell?'

She smiled afresh,  but bleakly. 'Oh,  no. It's simple  reason. Word did  filter
back to the Maze that you were residing in the Jewellers' Quarter and a frequent
guest at the mansion of Molin Torchholder. When you appear on the heels of a new
word -  that last  night his  wife was  reaved from  him -  plain to see is that
you've been affected yourself.'

He nodded. 'Yes, and sore afflicted. I have lost -' He hesitated, unsure whether
it would be quite wise to say 'my love' to this girl whose charms he had  rather
extravagantly praised.

'- your position and income,' Illyra snapped. 'The high priest cannot be in  any
mood for minstrelsy. I'd  guess his wife favoured  you most, anyhow. I  need not
guess you  spent your  earnings as  fast as  they fell  to you,  or faster, were
behind in your rent, and were accordingly kicked out of your choice apartment as
soon as rumour reached the landlord. You've returned to the Maze because  you've
no place else to  go, and to me  in hopes you can  wheedle me into giving  you a
clue  - for  if you're  instrumental in  recovering the  lady, you'll  likewise
recover your fortune, and more.'

'No, no, no,' he protested. 'You wrong me.'

'The high priest  will appeal only  to his Rankan  gods,' Illyra said,  her tone
changing from exasperated to thoughtful.  She stroked her chin. 'He,  kinsman of
the Emperor, here to direct the building of a temple which will overtop that  of
Us, can  hardly beg  aid from  the old  gods of  Sanctuary, let  alone from  our
wizards, witches, and seers. But you, who  belong to no part of the empire,  who
drifted hither from  a kingdom far  in the West  ... you may  seek anywhere. The
idea is your own;  else he would furtively  have slipped you some  gold, and you
have engaged a"diviner with more reputation than is mine.'

Cappen spread his hands. 'You reason eerily well, dear lass,' he conceded. 'Only
about the  motives are  you mistaken.  Oh, yes,  I'd be  glad to  stand high  in
Molin's esteem, be richly  rewarded, and so forth.  Yet I feel for  him; beneath
that sternness of his, he's not a bad sort, and he bleeds. Still more do I  feel
for his  lady, who  was indeed  kind to  me and  who's been  snatched away to an
unknown place. But before all else  -' He grew quite earnest. 'The  Lady Rosanda
was not seized by herself. Her  ancilla has also vanished, Danlis. And  - Danlis
is she whom I love, Illyra, she whom I meant to wed.'

The maiden's  look probed  him further.  She saw  a young  man of medium height,
slender but tough and agile.  (That was due to the  life he had had to  lead; by
nature he was indolent, except in bed.) His features were thin and regular on  a
long skull, cleanshaven, eyes bright blue, black hair banged and falling to  the
shoulders. His  voice gave  the language  a melodious  accent, as  if to bespeak
white  cities, green  fields and  woods, quicksilver  lakes, blue  sea, of  the
homeland he left in search of his fortune.

'Well, you have charm,  Cappen Varra,' she murmured,  'and how you do  know it.'
Alert: 'But coin you lack. How do you propose to pay me?'

'I fear you must work  on speculation, as I do  myself,' he said. 'If our  joint
efforts lead to  a rescue, why,  then we'll share  whatever material reward  may
come. Your part might buy you a home on the Path of Money.' She frowned. 'True,'
he went  on, 'I'll  get more  than my  share of  the immediate bounty that Molin
bestows. I  will have  my beloved  back. I'll  also regain  the priest's favour,
which is  moderately lucrative.  Yet consider.  You need  but practise your art.
Thereafter any effort and risk will be mine.'

'What makes you suppose a humble fortune-teller  can learn more than the Prince
Governor's investigator guardsmen?' she demanded.

'The matter does not seem to lie within their jurisdiction,' he replied.

She leaned forward,  tense beneath the  layers of clothing.  Cappen bent towards
her. It  was as  if the  babble of  the market-place  receded, leaving these two
alone with their wariness.

'I was  not there,'  he said  low, 'but  I arrived  early this morning after the
thing had happened. What's gone through  the city has been rumour, leakage  that
cannot  be caulked,  household servants  blabbing to  friends outside  and they
blabbing onward. Molin's locked away most of the facts till he can discover what
they mean, if  ever he can.  I, however, I  came on the  scene while chaos still
prevailed. Nobody kept me from talking  to folk, before the lord himself  saw me
and told me to begone. Thus I  know about as much as anyone, little  though that
be.'

'And -?' she prompted.

'And it doesn't seem to have been  a worldly sort of capture, for a  worldly end
like ransom. See you, the mansion's well guarded, and neither Molin nor his wife
have ever gone from  it without escort. His  mission here is less  than popular,
you recall. Those troopers are from  Ranke and not subornable. The house  stands
in a garden, inside a high wall whose top is patrolled. Three leopards run loose
in the grounds after dark.

'Molin had  business with  his kinsman  the Prince,  and spent  the night at the
palace. His wife,  the Lady Rosanda,  stayed home, retired,  later came out  and
complained she could not sleep. She  therefore had Danlis wakened. Danlis is  no
chambermaid; there are plenty  of those. She's amanuensis,  adviser, confidante,
collector of information, ofttimes guide or interpreter - oh, she earns her pay,
does my Danlis. Despite she and I  having a dawntide engagement, which is why  I
arrived then, she must now out of  bed at Rosanda's whim, to hold milady's  hand
or take dictation of milady's  letters or read to  milady from a soothing  book 
but I'm a  spendthrift of words.  Suffice to say  that they two  sought an upper
chamber which is furnished as both solarium and office. A single staircase leads
thither, and it is the single room at the top. There is a balcony, yes; and, the
night being  warm, the  door to  it stood  open, as  well as  the windows. But I
inspected the facade beneath. That's sheer marble, undecorated save for  varying
colours, devoid of ivy or of anything  that any climber might cling to, save  he
were a fly.

'Nevertheless ... just before the east grew pale, shrieks were heard, the  watch
pelted to the stair and  up it. They must break  down the inner door, which  was
bolted. I suppose that was  merely against chance interruptions, for  nobody had
felt threatened.  The solarium  was in  disarray; vases  and things were broken;
shreds torn off  a robe and  slight traces of  blood lay about.  Aye, Danlis, at
least, would have resisted. But she and her mistress were gone.

'A couple of  sentries on the  garden wall reported  hearing a loud  sound as of
wings. The night was cloudy-dark and they saw nothing for certain. Perhaps  they
imagined the noise.  Suggestive is that  the leopards were  found cowering in  a
corner and welcomed their keeper when he would take them back to their cages.

'And this is the whole of anyone's knowledge, Illyra,' Cappen ended. 'Help me. I
pray you, help me get back my love!'

She was long quiet. Finally  she said, in a near  whisper, 'It could be a  worse
matter than I'd care to peer into,  let alone enter.'

'Or it could not,'  Cappen urged.

She gave him a quasi-defiant stare. 'My mother's people reckon it unlucky to  do
any service for a  Shavakh - a person  not of their tribe  - without recompense.
Pledges don't count.'

Cappen scowled. 'Well, I could go to a pawnshop and - But no, time may be  worth
more than rubies. From the depths  of unhappiness, his grin broke forth.  'Poems
also are valuable, right? You S'danzo have your ballads and love ditties. Let me
indite a  poem, Illyra,  that shall  be yours  alone.' Her expression quickened.
'Truly?'

'Truly. Let  me think  ... Aye,  we'll begin  thus.' And,  venturing to take her
hands in his, Cappen murmured:

		'My lady comes to me like break of day.
		 I dream in darkness if it chance she tarries,
		 Until the banner other brightness harries
		 The hosts of Shadowland from off the way-'

She jerked free and cried, 'No! You scoundrel, that has to be something you  did
for Danlis - or for some earlier woman you wanted in your bed -'

'But it isn't finished,' he argued. 'I'll complete it for you, Illyra.'

Anger left her. She shook her head, clicked her tongue, and sighed. 'No  matter.
You're incurably  yourself. And  I ...  am only  halfS'danzo. I'll  attempt your
spell.'

'By every  love goddess  I ever  heard of,'  he promised  unsteadily, 'you shall
indeed have your own poem after this is over.'

'Be still,' she ordered. 'Fend off anybody who comes near.'

He faced about and drew his  sword. The slim, straight blade was  hardly needed,
for no other enterprise  had site within several  yards of hei-s, and  as wide a
stretch of paving lay between him and the fringes of the crowd. Still, to  grasp
the hilt gave him a sense of  finally making progress. He had felt helpless  for
the first' hours,  hopeless, as if  his dear had  actually died instead  of - of
what? Behind him he heard cards riffled, dice cast, words softly wailed.

All at once Illyra  strangled a shriek. He  whirled about and saw  how the blood
had  left  her  olive  countenance, turning  it  grey.  She  hugged herself  and
shuddered.

'What's wrong?' he blurted in fresh terror.

She did not look at him. 'Go away,'  she said in a thin voice. 'Forget you  ever
knew that woman.'

'But - but what -'

'Go away, I told you! Leave me alone!'

Then somehow she relented enough to let  forth: 'I don't know. I dare not  know.
I'm just a little  half-breed girl who has  a few cantrips and  a tricksy second
sight, and - and I saw that this business goes outside of space and time, and  a
power beyond any magic is there -  Enas Yorl could tell more, but he  himself -'
Her courage broke. 'Go  away!' she screamed. 'Before  I shout for Dubro  and his
hammer!'

'I beg your pardon,' Cappen Varra said, and made haste to obey.

He retreated into the  twisting streets of the  Maze. They were narrow;  most of
the mean buildings around  him were high; gloom  already filled the quarter.  It
was as if he had stumbled into the same night where Danlis had gone ...  Danlis,
creature of sun and horizons... If  she lived, did she remember their  last time
together as he remembered it, a dream dreamed centuries ago?

Having the day free,  she had wanted to  explore the countryside north  of town.
Cappen had objected on three counts. The first he did not mention; that it would
require a good  deal of  effort, and  he would  get dusty  and sweaty and saddle
sore. She despised men who were not at least as vigorous as she was, unless they
compensated by being venerable and learned.

The second he  hinted at. Sleazy  though most of  Sanctuary was, he  knew places
within it where a man and a woman could enjoy themselves, comfortably, privately
- his apartment, for instance. She  smiled her negation. Her family belonged  to
the old aristocracy ofRanke, not the newly rich, and she had been raised in  its
austere tradition. Albeit her father had  fallen on evil times and she  had been
forced to  take service,  she kept  her pride,  and proudly  would she yield her
maidenhead  to  her  bridegroom.  Thus  far  she  had  answered  Cappen's ardent
declarations with the admission that she  liked him and enjoyed his company  and
wished he would change the subject.  (Buxom Lady Rosanda seemed as if  she might
be  more  approachable,  but  there  he  was  careful  to  maintain  a  cheerful
correctness.) He did  believe she was  getting beyond simple  enjoyment, for her
patrician reserve seemed less each time  they saw each other. Yet she  could not
altogether have forgotten that he was merely the bastard of a minor nobleman  in
a remote country, himself disinherited and a footloose minstrel.

His third objection he dared  say forth. While the hinterland  was comparatively
safe,  Molin Torchholder  would be  furious did  he learn  that a  woman of  his
household  had gone  escorted by  a single  armed man,  and he  no professional
fighter. Molin would probably have been justified, too. Danlis smiled again  and
said, 'I could ask a guardsman off duty to come along. But you have  interesting
friends, Cappen. Perhaps a warrior is among them?'

As a matter of fact, he knew any number, but doubted she would care to meet them
- with a single exception. Luckily,  Jamie the Red had no prior  commitment, and
agreed to join the party. Cappen told the kitchen staff to pack a picnic  hamper
for four.

Jamie's girls stayed behind;  this was not their  sort of outing, and  sun might
harm their  complexions. Cappen  thought it  a bit  ungracious of the Northerner
never to share them. That put him, Cappen, to considerable expense in the Street
of Red Lanterns, since he could scarcely keep a paramour of his own while wooing
Danlis. Otherwise he was fond of Jamie. They had met after Rosanda, chancing  to
hear the  minstrel sing,  had invited  him to  perform at  the mansion, and then
invited him  back, and  presently Cappen  was living  in the Jeweller's Quarter.
Jamie had an apartment near by.

Three horses and a pack mule  clopped out of Sanctuary in the  new-born morning,
to a jingle of harness bells. That merriment found no echo in Cappen's head;  he
had been  drinking past  midnight, and  in no  case enjoyed  rising before noon.
Passive, he listened to Jamie: '- Aye, milady, they're mountaineers where I hail
from, poor folk but free folk. Some might  call us  barbarians, but  that  might
be unwise  in our  hearing. For we've tales,  songs, laws, ways, gods  as old as
any in the  world, and as  good. We lack  much of your   Southern lore, but  how
much  of ours  do  you  ken? Not  that  I  boast, please  understand. I've  seen
wonders in my wanderings. But I do say we've a few wonders of our own at home.'

'I'd like to hear of them,' Danlis responded. 'We know almost nothing about your
country in the Empire - hardly  more than mentions in the chronicles  of Venafer
and Mattathan, or the Natural History  of Kahayavesh. How do you happen  to come
here?'

'Oh-ah, I'm a younger son of our king, and I thought I'd see a bit of the  world
before settling down. Not that I packed  any wealth along to speak of. But  what
with one thing and another,  hiring out hither and yon  for this or that, I  get
by.' Jamie paused. 'You,  uh, you've far more  to tell, milady. You're  from the
crown city of the Empire, and you've got book learning, and at the same time you
come out  to see  for yourself  what land  and rocks  and plants and animals are
like.'

Cappen decided he  had better get  into the conversation.  Not that Jamie  would
undercut  a  friend,  nor  Danlis be  unduly  attracted  by  a wild  highlander.
Neverthless -

Jamie wasn't bad-looking in his fashion.  He was huge, topping Cappen by  a head
and disproportionately wide in  the shoulders. His loose-jointed  appearance was
deceptive, as  the bard  had learned  when they  sported in  a public gymnasium;
those  were  heavy bones  and  oak-hard muscles.  A  spectacular red  mane  drew
attention from boyish face, mild blue eyes, and slightly diffident manner. Today
he was plainly clad,  in tunic and cross-gaitered  breeks; but the knife  at his
belt and the axe at his saddlebow stood out.

As for Danlis,  well, what could  a poet do  but struggle for  words which might
embody a ghost of her glory? She was tall and slender, her features almost  cold
in their straight-lined perfection and alabaster hue - till you observed the big
grey eyes,  golden hair  piled on  high, curve  of lips  whence came  that husky
voice. (How  often he  had lain  awake yearning  for her  lips! He would console
himself by remembering the strong, delicately blue-veined hand that she did  let
him kiss.) Despite waxing warmth and dust puffed up from the horses' hoofs,  her
cowled riding habit  remained immaculate and  no least dew  of sweat was  on her
skin.

By the time Cappen got his wits out of the blankets wherein they had still  been
snoring, talk  had turned  to gods.  Danlis was  curious about  those of Jamie's
country, as she  was about most  things. (She did  shun a few  subjects as being
unwholesome.) Jamie in his turn was eager to have her explain what was going  on
in  Sanctuary.  'I've  heard  but  the one  side  of  the  matter,  and Cappen's
indifferent to it,' he  said. 'Folk grumble about  your master - Molin,  is that
his name -?'

'He is not  my master,' Danlis  made clear. 'I  am a free  woman who assists his
wife. He himself is a high priest in Ranke, also an engineer.'

'Why  is  the  Emperor  angering  Sanctuary?  Most  places  I've  been, colonial
governments know better. They leave the local gods be.'

Danlis grew pensive. 'Where shall I start? Doubtless you know that Sanctuary was
originally a city  of the kingdom  of Ilsig. Hence  it has built  temples to the
gods of Ilsig - notably Ils, Lord of Lords, and his queen Shipri the All-Mother,
but likewise others - Anen of the Harvests, Thufir the tutelary of pilgrims -'

'But none to Shalpa,  patron of thieves,' Cappen  put in, 'though these  days he
has the most devotees of any.'

Danlis  ignored his  jape. 'Ranke  was quite  a different  country, under  quite
different gods,' she continued. 'Chief of these are Savankala the Thunderer, his
consort Sabellia,  Lady of  Stars, their  son Vashanka  the Ten-Slayer,  and his
sister and consort Azyuna - gods of storm and war. According to Venafer, it  was
they who made Ranke supreme at  last. Mattathan is more prosaic and  opines that
the martial spirit they inculcated was responsible for the Rankan Empire finally
taking Ilsig into itself.'

'Yes, milady, yes, I've heard this,' Jamie said, while Cappen reflected that  if
his beloved had a fault, it was her tendency to lecture.

'Sanctuary has  changed from  of yore,'  she proceeded.  Tt has become polyglot,
turbulent,  corrupt,  a canker  on  the body  politic.  Among its  most  vicious
elements  are  the proliferating  alien  cults, not  to  speak of  necromancers,
witches, charlatans, and similar predators  on the people. The time  is overpast
to restore law  here. Nothing less  than the Imperium  can do that.  A necessary
preliminary is the establishment of the Imperial deities, the gods of Ranke, for
everyone to see: symbol, rallying point, and actual presence.'

'But they have their temples,' Jamie argued.

'Small, dingy, to accommodate Rankans, few  of whom stay in the city  for long,'
Danlis retorted.  'What reverence  does that  inspire, for  the pantheon and the
state? No, the  Emperor has decided  that Savankala and  Sabellia must have  the
greatest  fane,  the  most  richly  endowed,  in  this  entire  province.  Molin
Torchholder will build and consecrate it. Then can the degenerates and  warlocks
be scourged out of Sanctuary.  Afterwards the Prince-Governor can handle  common
felons.'

Cappen didn't expect matters would be that  simple. He got no chance to say  so,
for Jamie asked  at once, 'Is  this wise, milady?  True, many a  soul hereabouts
worships foreign gods, or none. But many still adore the old gods of Ilsig. They
look on your, uh,  Savankala as an intruder.  I intend no offence,  but they do.
They're outraged that  he's to have  a bigger and  grander house than Ils of the
Thousand Eyes. Some fear what Ils may do about it.'

'I know,' Danlis said.  'I regret any distress  caused, and I'm sure  Lord Molin
does too. Still,  we must overcome  the agents of  darkness, before the  disease
that they are spreads throughout the Empire.'

'Oh, no,' Cappen managed  to insert, 'I've lived  here awhile, \ mostly  down in
the Maze. I've had to do with a good many so-called magicians, of either sex  or
in between. They  aren't that bad.  Most I'd call  pitiful. They just  use their
little deceptions to  scrabble out what  living they can,  in this crumbly  town
where life has trapped them.'

Danlis gave him a sharp glance. 'You've  told me people think ill of sorcery  in
Caronne,' she said.

'They do,' he admitted. 'But that's  because we incline to be rationalists,  who
consider nearly all magic  a bag of tricks.  Which is true. Why,  I've learned a
few sleights myself.'

'You have?' Jamie rumbled in surprise.

'For amusement,' Cappen said hastily, before Danlis could disapprove. 'Some  are
quite elegant, virtual exercises in three-dimensional geometry.' Seeing interest
kindle in her, he added, 'I studied mathematics in boyhood; my father, before he
died, wanted me to have a  gentleman's education. The main part has  rusted away
in me, but I remember useful or picturesque details.'

'Well, give us a show, come luncheon time,' Jamie proposed.

Cappen did, when they halted. That was on a hillside above the White Foal River.
It  wound gleaming  through farmlands  whose intense  green denied  that desert
lurked on  the rim  of sight.  The noonday  sun baked  strong odours  out of the
earth: humus, resin, juice of wild plants. A solitary plane tree graciously gave
shade. Bees hummed.

After the meal,  and after Danlis  had scrambled off  to get a  closer look at a
kind of lizard  new to her,  Cappen demonstrated his  skill. She was  especially
taken  - enchanted  - by  his geometric  artifices. Like  any Rankan  lady, she
carried a sewing kit in her  gear; and being herself, she had  writing materials
along. Thus he could apply scissors and thread to paper. He showed how a  single
ring may be  cut to produce  two. that are  interlocked, and how  a strip may be
twisted to have but one surface and  one edge, and whatever else he knew.  Jamie
watched with pleasure, if with less enthusiasm.

Observing how delight made her glow, Cappen was inspired to carry on the  latest
poem he was composing for  her. It had been slower  work than usual. He had  the
conceit, the motif, a comparison of her to the dawn, but hitherto only the first
few lines had emerged, and no proper structure. In this moment -

	- the banner of her brightness harries
	The hosts of Shadowland from off the way
	That she now wills to tread - for what can stay
	The triumph of that radiance she carries?

Yes, it was clearly going to be a rondel. Therefore the next two lines were:

	My lady comes to me like break of day.
	I dream in darkness if it chance she tarries.

He had  gotten that  far when  abruptly she  said: 'Cappen,  this is such a fine
excursion,  such splendid  scenery. I'd  like to  watch sunrise  over the  river
tomorrow. Will you escort me?'

Sunrise? But she was telling Jamie, 'We  need not trouble you about that. I  had
in mind a walk out  of town to the bridge.  If we choose the proper  route, it's
well guarded everywhere, perfectly safe.'

And scant traffic moved at that hour; besides, the monumental statues along  the
bridge stood in front  of bays which they  screened from passers-by -  'Oh, yes,
indeed, Danlis, I'd love to,' Cappen said. For such an opportunity, he could get
up before cockcrow.

- When he reached the mansion, she had not been there.

Exhausted after his encounter with Illyra, Cappen hied him to the Vulgar Unicorn
and related his  woes to One-Thumb.  The big man  had come on  shift at the  inn
early, for a fellow boniface had not yet recovered from the effects of a dispute
with a  patron. (Shortly  thereafter, the  patron was  found floating  face down
under a pier. Nobody questioned One-Thumb about this; his regulars knew that  he
preferred the establishment  safe, if not  always orderly.) He  offered taciturn
sympathy and the  loan of a  bed upstairs. Cappen  scarcely noticed the  insects
that shared it.

Waking about sunset, he found  water and a washcloth,  and felt much refreshed  
hungry and thirsty, too. He made his way to the taproom below. Dusk was blue  in
windows and open door, black under the rafters. Candles smeared weak light along
counter and  main board  and on  lesser tables  at the  walls. The air had grown
cool, which allayed the stenches of  the Maze. Thus Cappen was acutely  aware of
the smells of beer - old in the rushes underfoot, fresh where a trio of men  had
settled down to guzzle - and of spitted meat, wafting from the kitchen.

One-Thumb  approached, a  shadowy hulk  save for  highlights on  his bald  pate.
'Sit,' he grunted. 'Eat. Drink.' He carried a great tankard and a plate  bearing
a slab of roast beef on bread. These he put on a corner table, and himself on  a
chair.

Cappen sat also and attacked the meal. 'You're very kind,' he said between bites
and draughts.

'You'll pay when you get coin, or if you don't, then in songs and magic  stunts.
They're good for trade.' One-Thumb fell silent and peered at his guest.

When Cappen was done, the innkeeper said, 'While you slept, I sent out a  couple
of fellows to ask  around. Maybe somebody saw  something that might be  helpful.
Don't worry - I didn't mention you,  and it's natural I'd be interested to  know
what really happened.'

The minstrel stared. 'You've gone to a deal of trouble on my account.'

'I told you, I want to know for my own sake. If deviltry's afoot, where could it
strike next?' One-Thumb rubbed a finger  across the toothless part of his  gums.
'Of course, if you  should luck out  - I don't  expect it, but  in case you  do 
remember who gave  you a boost.'  A figure appeared  in the door  and he went to
render service.

After a bit of  muttered talk, he led  the newcomer to Cappen's  place. When the
minstrel recognized the lean youth,  his pulse leaped. One-Thumb would  not have
brought him and Hanse  together without cause; bard  and thief found each  other
insufferable. They nodded  coldly but did  not speak until  the tapster returned
with a round of ale.

When the three were  seated, One-Thumb said, 'Well  spit it out, boy.  You claim
you've got news.'

'For him?' Hanse flared, gesturing at Cappen.

'Never mind who. Just talk.'

Hanse scowled. 'I don't talk for a single lousy mugful.'

'You do if you want to keep on coming in here.'

Hanse bit his lip. The  Vulgar Unicorn was a rendezvous  virtually indispensable
to one in his trade.

Cappen thought it best to sweeten the pill: 'I'm known to Molin Torchholder.  If
I can serve him in this  matter, he won't be stingy.  Nor will I. Shall we  say 
hm - ten gold royals to you?'

The sum  was not  princely, but  on that  account plausible. 'Awright, awright,'
Hanse replied. 'I'd been  casing a job I  might do in the  Jewellers' Quarter. A
squad of the watch came by towards morning and I figured I'd better go home, not
by the way I came, either. So I went along the Avenue of Temples, as I might  be
wanting to  stop in  and pay  my respects  to some  god or  other. It was a dark
night, overcast, the reason I'd been out  where I was. But you know how  several
of the temples  keep lights going.  There was enough  to see by,  even upwards a
ways. Nobody else was in sight.  Suddenly I heard a kind of  whistling, flapping
noise aloft. I looked and -'

He broke off.

'And what?' Cappen blurted. One-Thumb sat impassive.

Hanse  swallowed. 'I  don't swear  to this,'  he said.  'It was  still dim,  you
realize. I've wondered since if I didn't see wrong.'

'What was it?' Cappen gripped the table edge till his fingernails whitened.

Hanse wet his throat and said in a  rush: 'What it seemed like was a huge  black
thing, almost like a snake, but bat-winged. It came streaking from, oh, more  or
less the direction of Molin's, I'd guess now that I think back. And it was aimed
more or less towards the temple  of Ils. There was something that dangled below,
as it might be a  human body or two. I  didn't stay to watch, I  ducked into the
nearest alley and waited. When I came out, it was gone.'

He knocked back  his ale and  rose. 'That's all,'  he snapped. 'I  don't want to
remember  the sight  any longer,  and if  anybody ever  asks, I  was never  here
tonight.'

'Your story's worth a couple more drinks,' One-Thumb invited.

'Another evening,' Hanse demurred. 'Right now I need a whore. Don't forget those
ten royals, singer.' He left, stiff-legged.

'Well,' said the innkeeper after a silence, 'what do you make of this latest?'

Cappen suppressed a shiver. His palms  were cold. 'I don't know, save  that what
we confront is not of our kind.'

'You told me once you've got a charm against magic.'

Cappen fingered the little silver amulet, in the form of a coiled snake, he wore
around his neck.  'I'm not sure.  A wizard I'd  done a favour  for gave me this,
years ago. He claimed it'd protect me against spells and supernatural beings  of
less than godly rank. But  to make it work, I  have to utter three truths  about
the spellcaster or  the creature. I've  done that in  two or three  scrapes, and
come out of them intact, but I can't prove the talisman was responsible.'

More customers entered, and One-Thumb must  go to serve them. Cappen nursed  his
ale. He yearned to  get drunk and belike  the landlord would stand  him what was
needful, but he  didn't dare. He  had already learned  more than he  thought the
opposition would approve of- whoever or whatever the opposition was. They  might
have means of discovering this.

His candle flickered.  He glanced up  and saw a  beardless fat man  in an ornate
formal  robe,  scarcely  normal  dress  for  a  visit  to  the  Vulgar  Unicorn.
'Greetings,' the person said. His voice was like a child's.

Cappen squinted through the gloom. 'I don't believe I know you,' he replied.

'No, but you will come to believe it, oh, yes, you will.' The fat man sat  down.
One-Thumb came over and took an order for red wine - 'a decent wine, mine  host,
a Zhanuvend or Baladach.' Coin gleamed forth.

Cappen's heart thumped. 'Enas Yorl?' he breathed.

The other nodded. 'In the flesh, the  all too mutable flesh. I do hope  my curse
strikes again soon.  Almost any shape  would be better  than this. I  hate being
overweight. I'm  a eunuch,  too. The  times I've  been a  woman were better than
this.'

'I'm sorry, sir,' Cappen  took care to say.  Though he could not  rid himself of
the  spell  laid  on  him,  Enas  Yorl  was  a  powerful  thaumaturge,  no  mere
prestidigitator.

'At least I've not been arbitrarily displaced. You can't imagine how annoying it
is, suddenly to find oneself elsewhere,  perhaps miles away. I was able  to come
here in proper wise, in my  litter. Faugh, how can anyone voluntarily  set shoes
to these open sewers they call streets in the Maze?' The wine arrived. 'Best  we
speak fast and to the point, young man, that we may finish and I get home before
the next contretemps.'

Enas Yorl  sipped and  made a  face. 'I've  been swindled,'  he whined. 'This is
barely drinkable, if that.'

'Maybe your present palate is at  fault, sir,' Cappen suggested. He did  not add
that  the tongue  definitely had  a bad  case of  logorrhea. It  was an  almost
physical torture to sit stalled, but he had better humour the mage.

'Yes, quite  probably. Nothing  has tasted  good since  - Well.  To business. On
hearing that One-Thumb was inquiring  about last night's incident, I  sent forth
certain investigators of my  own. You will understand  that I've been trying  to
find  out  as much  as  I can.'  Enas  Yorl drew  a  sign in  the  air. 'Purely
precautionary. I  have no  desire whatsoever  to cross  the Powers  concerned in
this.'

A wintry tingle went through Cappen.  'You know who they are, what  it's about?'
His tone wavered.

Enas  Yorl  wagged  a finger.  'Not  so  hasty, boy,  not  so  hasty. My  latest
information was of  a seemingly unsuccessful  interview you had  with Illyra the
seeress. I also learned you were now  in this hostel and close to its  landlord.
Obviously you are involved. I must know why, how, how much - everything.'

'Then you'll help - sir?'

A headshake made chin  and jowls wobble. 'Absolutely  not. I told you  I want no
part of this.  But in exchange  for whatever data  you possess, I  am willing to
explicate as far  as I am  able, and to  advise you. Be  warned: my advice  will
doubtless be that you drop the matter and perhaps leave town.'

And  doubtless he  would be  right, Cappen  thought. It  simply happened  to be
counsel that was impossible for a lover to follow ... unless - 0 kindly gods  of
Caronne, no, no! - unless Danlis was dead.

The whole story spilled out of him, quickened and deepened by keen questions. At
the end, he sat breathless while Enas Yorl nodded.

'Yes, that appears to confirm what  I suspected,' the mage said most  softly. He
stared past the minstrel, into shadows that loomed and flickered. Buzz of  talk,
clink  of drinking  ware, occasional  gust of  laughter among  customers seemed
remoter than the moon.

'What was it?' broke from Cappen.

'A sikkintair, a Flying Knife. It can have been nothing else.'

'A-what?'                      -

Enas focused on his companion. 'The monster that took the women,' he  explained.
'Sikkintairs are an attribute of Ils. A pair of sculptures on the grand stairway
of his temple represent them.'

'Oh, yes, I've seen those, but never thought -'

'No, you're not a votary of any gods they have here. Myself, when I got word  of
the abduction, I sent my familiars scuttling about and cast spells of inquiry. I
received indications ... I can't describe  them to you, who lack arcane  lore. I
established that the very fabric of space had been troubled. Vibrations had  not
quite damped out as yet, and were centred  on the temple of Ils. You may, if you
wish a crude analogy, visualize a water surface and the waves, fading to ripples
and finally to naught, when a diver has passed through.'

Enas Yorl drank more in a gulp than was his wont. 'Civilization was old in Ilsig
when Ranke was still  a barbarian village,' he  said, as though to  himself; his
gaze had drifted away again, towards  darkness. 'Its myths depicted the home  of
the  gods as  being outside  the world  - not  above, not  below, but  outside.
Philosophers of a later, more rationalistic era elaborated this into a theory of
parallel universes. My  own researches -  you will understand  that my condition
has  made me  especially interested  in the  theory of  dimensions, the  subtler
aspects of geometry  - my own  researches have demonstrated  the .possibility of
transference between these different spaces.

'As another analogy, consider a pack of  cards. One is inhabited by a king,  one
by a knight, one by a deuce, et cetera. Ordinarily none of the figures can leave
the  plane on  which it  exists. If,  however, a  very thin  piece of  absorbent
material soaked in  a unique kind  of solvent were  laid between two  cards, the
dyes that form them could pass through: retaining their configuration, I  trust.
Actually, of course, this is a less than ideal comparison, for the  transference
is accomplished through a particular contortion of the continuum -'

Cappen could endure no more pedantry.  He crashed his tankard down on  the table
and shouted, 'By all the hells of all the cults, will you get to the point?'

Men stared from adjacent  seats, decided no fight  was about to erupt,  and went
back to their  interests. These included  negotiations with street-walkers  who,
lanterns in hand, had come in looking for trade.

Enas Yorl smiled. 'I forgive  your outburst, under the circumstances,'  he said.
'I too am occasionally young.

'Very well.  Given the  foregoing data,  including yours,  the infrastructure of
events seems reasonably evident. You are  aware of the conflict over a  proposed
new temple, which is to outdo that of Ils and Shipri. I do not maintain that the
god has taken a direct hand. I certainly hope he feels that would be beneath his
dignity;  a theomachy  would not  be  good  for us,  to understate   the case  a
trifle. But   he may  have inspired   a few  of  his  more fanatical  priests to
action.  He may have  revealed to them, in  dreams or vision, the  means whereby
they could  cross to  the next  world and  there make  the  sikkintairs do their
bidding.  I  hypothesize  that  the   Lady Rosanda   -  and,  to  be   sure, her
coadjutrix, your  inamorata  -  are incarcerated   in  that  world.   The temple
is  too  full  of priests,  deacons,  acolytes, and lay  people for hiding   the
wife of  a magnate. However,  the gate need not be recognizable as such.'

Cappen controlled  himself with  an inward  shudder and  made his  trained voice
casual: 'What might it look like, sir?'

'Oh, probably a scroll,  taken from a coffer  where it had long  lain forgotten,
and now unrolled - yes,  I should think in the  sanctum, to draw power from  the
sacred objects and to be seen by as  few persons as possible who are not in  the
conspiracy -'  Enas Yorl  came out  of his  abstraction. 'Beware!  I deduce your
thought. Choke it before it kills you.'

Cappen ran sandy tongue  over leathery lips. 'What  ... should we ...  expect to
happen, sir?'

'That is an interesting question,' Enas Yorl said. 'I can but conjecture. Yet  I
am well acquainted with the temple hierarchy and - I don't think the  Archpriest
is privy to the matter. He's too aged and weak. On the other hand, this is quite
in the style  of Hazroah, the  High Flamen. Moreover,  of late he  has in effect
taken over the governance  of the temple from  his nominal superior. He's  bold,
ruthless - should have been a soldier  - Well, putting myself in his skin,  I'll
predict that he'll let Molin stew a while, then cautiously open negotiations - a
hint at first, and always a claim that this is the will of Ils.

'None  but the  Emperor can  cancel an  undertaking for  the Imperial  deities.
Persuading him will take much time and pressure. Molin is a Rankan aristocrat of
the old school; he will be torn between his duty to his gods, his state, and his
wife. But I suspect that  eventually he can be worn  down to the point where  he
agrees that it  is, in truth,  bad policy to  exalt Savankala and  Sabellia in a
city whose tutelaries  they have never  been. He in  his turn can  influence the
Emperor as desired.'

'How long would this take, do you think?' Cappen whispered. 'Till the women  are
released?'

Enas Yorl shrugged. 'Years, possibly. Hazroah  may try to hasten the process  by
demonstrating that  the Lady  Rosanda is  subject to  punishment. Yes,  I should
imagine that the remains of an ancilla who had been tortured to death, delivered
on Molin's doorstep, would be a rather strong argument.'

His look grew intense on the appalled countenance across from him. 'I know,'  he
said. 'You're breeding fever-dreams of a heroic rescue. It cannot be done.  Even
supposing that somehow you won through  the gate and brought her back,  the gate
would remain.  I doubt Ils would  personally seek  revenge; besides being petty,
that could provoke open strife with Savankala and his retinue, who're formidable
characters themselves. But Ils  would not stay the  hand of the Flamen  Hazroah,
who is a most vengeful sort. If  you escaped his assassins, a sikkintair   would
come after you, and nowhere in the  world could you and she hide. Your  talisman
would be   of  no  avail.  The   sikkintair is   not  supernatural,  unless  you
give that designation to the force which  enables so huge a mass to fly;  and it
is from  no magician, but from the god.

'So forget  the girl.  The town  is full  of them.'  He fished  in his purse and
spilled  a handful  of coins  on the  table. 'Go  to a  good whorehouse,  enjoy
yourself, and raise one for poor old Enas Yorl.'

He got up and waddled off, Cappen sat staring at the coins. They made a generous
sum, he realized vaguely: silver lunars, to the number of thirty.

One-Thumb came over. 'What'd he say?' the taverner asked.

'I should abandon  hope,' Cappen muttered.  His eyes stung;  his vision blurred.
Angrily, he wiped them.

'I've a notion I might not be smart to hear more.' One-Thumb laid his  mutilated
hand on Cappen's shoulder. 'Care to get  drunk? On the house. I'll have to  take
your money or the rest will want free booze too, but I'll return it tomorrow.'

'No, I - I thank you, but - but  you're busy, and I need someone I can talk  to.
Just lend me a lantern, if you will.'

'That might attract a robber, fellow, what with those fine clothes of yours.'

Cappen gripped swordhilt. 'He'd be very welcome, the short while he lasted,'  he
said in bitterness.

He climbed to his feet. His fingers remembered to gather the coins.

Jamie let  him in.  The Northerner  had hastily  thrown a  robe over his massive
frame; he carried  the stone lamp  that was a  night light. 'Sh,'  he said. 'The
lassies are asleep.' He nodded towards a closed door at the far end of this main
room. Bringing the lamp  higher, he got a  clear view of Cappen's  face. His own
registered shock. 'Hey-o, lad, what ails you? I've seen men pole-axed who looked
happier.'

Cappen stumbled across the threshold and collapsed in an armchair. Jamie  barred
the outer  door, touched  a stick  of punk  to the  lamp flame  and lit candles,
filled wine goblets. Drawing a seat opposite, he sat down, laid red-furred right
shank across left knee, and said gently, 'Tell me.'

When  it had  spilled from  Cappen, he  was a  long span  quiet. On  the walls
shimmered his weapons, among pretty  pictures that his housemates had  selected.
At last he asked low, 'Have you quit?'

'I don't know, I don't know,' Cappen groaned.

'I think  you can  go on  aways, whether  or no  things are  as the  witchmaster
supposes. We hold where I come from that no man can flee his weird, so he may as
well meet it in a way that'll leave  a good story. Besides, this may not be  our
death-day; and I doubt yon dragons  are unkillable, but it could be  fun finding
out; and chiefly, I was much taken with your girl. Not many like her, my friend.
They also say in my homeland, "Waste not, want not".'

Cappen lifted his  glance, astounded. 'You  mean I should  try to free  her?' he
exclaimed.

'No, I mean we should.' Jamie chuckled. 'Life's gotten a wee bit dull for me  of
late - aside from Butterfly and Light-of-Pearl, of course. Besides, I could  use
a share of reward money.'

'I ... I want to,' Cappen stammered. 'How I want to! But the odds against us -'

'She's your girl, and it's your decision.  I'll not blame you if you hold  back.
Belike, then, in your country, they don't believe a man's first troth is to  his
woman and kids. Anyway, for you that was no more than a hope.'

A surge went through the minstrel. He sprang up and paced, back and forth,  back
and forth. 'But what could we doT

'Well, we could  scout the temple  and see what's  what,' Jamie proposed.  'I've
been there  once in  a while,  reckoning 'twould  do no  hurt to give those gods
their honour. Maybe we'll find that indeed  naught can be done in aid. Or  maybe
we won't, and go ahead and do it.'

Danlis-

Fire blossomed in  Cappen Varra. He  was young. He  drew his sword  and swung it
whistling on high. 'Yes! We will!'

A small grammarian part  of him noted the  confusion of tenses and  moods in the
conversation.

The sole traffic on the Avenue of Temples was a night breeze, cold and sibilant.
Stars,  as  icy to  behold,  looked down  on  its broad  emptiness,  on darkened
buildings and  weather-worn idols  and rustling  gardens. Here  and there flames
cast restless light, from porticoes or  gables or ledges, out of glass  lanterns
or iron pots or pierced stone jars.  At the foot of the grand staircase  leading
to the fane of Ils and Shipri, fire formed haloes on the enormous figures,  male
and female in robes of antiquity, that flanked it.

Beyond,  the  god-house  itself loomed,  porticoed  front,  great bronze  doors,
granite walls rising sheer above to  a gilt dome from which light  also gleamed;
the highest point in Sanctuary.

Cappen started up. 'Halt' said Jamie,  and plucked at his cloak. 'We  can't walk
straight in. They keep guards in the vestibule, you know.'

'I want a close view of those sikkintairs,' the bard explained.

'Um, well, maybe not  a bad idea, but  let's be quick. If  a squad of the  watch
comes by, we're in trouble.' They could not claim they simply wished to  perform
their  devotions, for  a civilian  was not  allowed to  bear more  arms in  this
district than a knife.  Cappen and Jamie each  had that, but no  illuminant like
honest men. In addition, Cappen carried his rapier, Jamie a claymore, a  visored
conical helmet, and a knee-length byrnie. He had, moreover, furnished spears for
both.

Cappen nodded and bounded aloft. Half-way, he stopped and gazed. The statue  was
a daunting  sight. Of  obsidian polished  glassy smooth,  it might have measured
thirty feet were the tail not coiled  under the narrow body. The two legs  which
supported the  front ended  in talons  the length  ofJamie's dirk.  An upreared,
serpentine neck bore a wickedly lanceolate head, jaws parted to show fangs  that
the sculptor had rendered in diamond. From the back sprang wings, bat-like  save
for their sharp-pointed  curvatures, which if  unfolded might well  have covered
another ten yards.

'Aye,' Jamie murmured, 'such  a brute could bear  off two women like  an eagle a
brace of leverets.  Must take a  lot of food  to power it.  I wonder what quarry
they hunt at home.'

'We may find out,' Cappen said, and wished he hadn't.

'Come.' Jamie led the way  back, and around to the  left side of the temple.  It
occupied almost  its entire  ground, leaving  but a  narrow strip of flagstones.
Next to  that, a  wall enclosed  the flower-fragrant  sanctum of  Eshi, the love
goddess. Thus the space between  was gratifyingly dark; the intruders  could not
now be spied from  the avenue. Yet enough  light filtered in that  they saw what
they were  doing. Cappen  wondered if  this meant  she smiled  on their venture.
After all, it was for love, mainly. Besides, he had always been an  enthusiastic
worshipper of hers,  or at any  rate of her  counterparts in foreign  pantheons;
oftener than most men had he rendered her favourite sacrifice.

Jamie had pointed out that the  building must have lesser doors for  utilitarian
purposes. He soon found one, bolted for the night and between windows that  were
hardly more than slits, impossible to crawl through. He could have hewn the wood
panels asunder, but the noise might be  heard. Cappen had a better idea. He  got
his partner down on  hands and knees. Standing  on the broad back,  he poked his
spear through a window  and worked it along  the inside of the  door. After some
fumbling and whispered obscenities, he caught  the latch with the head and  drew
the bolt.

'Hoosh, you missed your trade, I'm thinking,' said the Northerner as he rose and
opened the way.

'No, burglary's too risky for my taste,' Cappen replied in feeble jest. The fact
was that he had never stolen or cheated unless somebody deserved such treatment.

'Even burgling the house of a god?' Jamie's grin was wider than necessary.

Cappen shivered. 'Don't remind me.'

They entered a storeroom,  shut the door, and  groped through murk to  the exit.
Beyond  was a  hall. Widely  spaced lamps  gave bare  visibility. Otherwise  the
intruders saw emptiness and heard silence. The vestibule and nave of the  temple
were  never closed;  the  guards  watched  over  a  priest  always  prepared  to
accept offerings.  But elsewhere hierarchy and staff were asleep. Or so the  two
hoped.

Jamie had known that the  holy of holies was in  the dome, Ils being a  sky god.
Now he let  Cappen take  the lead,  as having  more familiarity  with  interiors
and ability to  reason out  a route.  The minstrel  used half  his mind for that
and scarcely noticed  the splendours  through which  he passed.  The second half
was  busy  recollecting legends  of  heroes who  incurred  the anger  of  a god,
especially a major god, but won  to  happiness in the end  because they had  the
blessing  of another. He decided  that  future attempts to propitiate  Ils would
only draw  the attention of that  august personage; however,  Savankala would be
pleased,  and, yes,  as for  native deities,  he would  by all  means fervently
cultivate Eshi.

A few times, which felt ghastly long,  he took a wrong turning and must  retrace
his steps after he had discovered that. Presently, though, he found a  staircase
which seemed  to zig-zag  over the  inside of  an exterior  wall. Landing  after
landing passed by -

The last was enclosed in a very small room, a booth, albeit richly ornamented -

He opened the door and stepped out -

Wind searched between the pillars that upheld the dome, through his clothes  and
in towards his bones. He saw stars.  They were the brightest in heaven, for  the
entry booth  was the  pedestal of  a gigantic  lantern. Across  a floor tiled in
symbols unknown to him, he observed something large at each cardinal point -  an
altar, two statues, and the famous Thunderstone, he guessed; they were  shrouded
in cloth of gold. Before the eastern  object was stretched a band, the far  side
of which seemed to be aglow.

He gathered his courage and approached.  The thing was a parchment, about  eight
feet long and four  wide, hung by cords  from the upper corners  to a supporting
member of the dome. The cords appeared  to be glued fast, as if to  avoid making
holes in the surface.  The lower edge of  the scroll, two feet  above the floor,
was  likewise secured;  but to  a pair  of anvils  surely brought  here for  the
purpose. Nevertheless the parchment  flapped and rattled a  bit in the wind.  It
was covered with cabalistic signs.

Cappen stepped around to the other side, and whistled low. That held a  picture,
within a narrow border. Past the edge of what might be a pergola, the scene went
to a meadowland made stately by oak trees standing at random intervals. About  a
mile away  - the  perspective was  marvellously executed  - stood  a building of
manorial  size  in  a  style he  had  never  seen  before, twistily  colon-aded,
extravagantly sweeping of roof and eaves, blood-red. A formal garden  surrounded
it, whose paths and topiaries were of equally alien outline; fountains sprang in
intricate  patterns. Beyond  the house,  terrain rolled  higher, and  snow-peaks
thrust above the horizon. The sky was deep blue.

'What the pox!' exploded from Jamie. 'Sunshine's coming out of that painting.  I
feel it.'

Cappen rallied his wits and paid heed. Yes,Warmth as well as light, and ...  and
odours? And were those fountains not actually at play?

An eerie thrilling took  him. 'I ... believe  ... we've ... found  the gate,' he
said.

He poked his  spear cautiously at  the scroll. The  point met no  resistance; it
simply  moved on.  Jamie went  behind. 'You've  not pierced  it,' he  reported.
'Nothing sticks out on this side - which, by the way, is quite solid.'

'No,' Cappen answered faintly, 'the spear-head's in the next world.'

He drew the weapon back. He and Jamie stared at each other.

'Well?' said the Northerner.

'We'll never get a better chance,'  Cappen's throat responded for him. 'It'd  be
blind  foolishness  to  retreat now,  unless  we  decide to  give  up  the whole
venture.'

'We, uh, we could go tell Molin, no, the Prince what we've found.'

'And be cast into a madhouse?  If the Prince did send investigators  anyway, the
plotters need merely take this thing down  and hide it till the squad has  left.
No.' Cappen  squared his  shoulders. 'Do  what you  like, Jamie,  but I am going
through.'

Underneath, he heartily  wished he had  less self-respect, or  at least that  he
weren't in love with Danlis.

Jamie scowled and  sighed. 'Aye, right  you are, I  suppose. I'd not  looked for
matters to take so headlong a  course. I awaited that we'd simply  scout around.
Had I foreseen this, I'd have roused the lassies to bid them, well, good night.'
He hefted his spear  and drew his sword.  Abruptly he laughed. 'Whatever  comes,
'twill not be dull!'

Stepping high over the threshold, Cappen went forward.

It felt like walking through any door, save that he entered a mild summer's day.
After Jamie had  followed, he saw  that the vista  in the parchment  was that on
which he  had just  turned his  back: a  veiled mass,  a pillar,  stars above  a
nighted  city. He  checked the  opposite side  of the  strip, and  met the  same
designs as had been painted on its mate.

No, he thought, not its mate. If he had understood Enas Yorl aright, and rightly
remembered what his tutor in  mathematics had told him about  esoteric geometry,
there could be but a  single scroll. One side of  it gave on this universe,  the
other side on his,  and a spell had  twisted dimensions until matter  could pass
straight between.

Here too the  parchment was suspended  by cords, though  in a pergola  of yellow
marble, whose circular stairs led down  to the meadow. He imagined a  sikkintair
would find the passage tricky, especially  if it was burdened with two  women in
its claws. The  monster had probably  hugged them close  to it, come  in at high
speed, folded  its wings,  and glided  between the  pillars of  the dome and the
margins of the  gate. On the  outbound trip, it  must have crawled  through into
Sanctuary.

All this Cappen did and thought in  half a dozen heartbeats. A shout yanked  his
attention back.  Three men  who had  been idling  on the  stairs had noticed the
advent and were on their way  up. Large and hard-featured, they bore  the shaven
visages, high-crested morions,  gilt cuirasses,  black tunics  and boots,  short
swords, and  halberds of  temple guards.  'Who in  the Unholy's  name are  you?'
called the first. 'What're you doing here?'

Jamie's qualms vanished under  a tide of boyish  glee. 'I doubt they'll  believe
any words of ours,'  he said. 'We'll have  to convince them a  different way. If
you  can  handle  him on  our  left,  I'll take  his  feres.'  Cappen felt  less
confident. But he lacked time to  be afraid; shuddering would  have to   be done
in a   more convenient   hour. Besides,  he was  quite a  good fencer. He dashed
across the floor and down the stair.

The trouble was,  he had no  experience with spears.  He jabbed. The  halberdier
held his weapon,  both hands close  together, near the  middle of the  shaft. He
snapped  it  against  Cappen's,  deflected  the  thrust,  and  nearly  tore  the
minstrel's  out of  his grasp.  The watchman's  return would  have skewered  his
enemy, had the minstrel not flopped straight to the marble.

The guard guffawed, braced his legs wide, swung the halberd back for an axe-head
blow. As it  descended, his hands  shifted towards the  end of the  helve. Chips
flew. Cappen had rolled downstairs. He  twirled the whole way to the  ground and
sprang erect. He  still clutched his  spear, which had  bruised him whenever  he
crossed above it. The sentry bellowed and hopped in pursuit. Cappen ran.

Behind them, a second guard sprawled and flopped, diminuendo, in what seemed  an
impossibly copious and bright amount of blood. Jamie had hurled his own spear as
he charged and taken the man in the neck. The third was giving the Northerner  a
brisk fight, halberd against claymore. He had longer reach, but the redhead  had
more brawn. Thump and clatter rang across the daisies.

Cappen's adversary was bigger than he was. This had the drawback that the former
could not  change speed  or direction  as readily.  When the  guard was pounding
along at his best clip, ten or twelve feet in the rear, Cappen stopped within  a
coin's breadth, whirled about,  and threw his shaft.  He did not do  that as his
comrade had done. He pitched it between the guard's legs. The man crashed to the
grass. Cappen plunged in. He didn't risk  trying for a stab. That would let  the
armoured combatant grapple him. He wrenched the halberd loose and skipped off.

The sentinel rose. Cappen reached an oak and tossed the halberd. It lodged among
boughs. He drew blade. His foe did the same.

Shortsword versus  rapier -  much better,  though Cappen  must have  a care. The
torso opposing him was protected.  Still, the human anatomy has  more vulnerable
points than that. 'Shall we dance?' Cappen asked.

As he and Jamie  approached the house, a  shadow slid across them.  They glanced
aloft and saw the gaunt black form of a sikkintair. For an instant, they  nerved
themselves for the worst. However, the Flying Knife simply caught an  updraught,
planed high, and hovered in  sinister magnificence. 'Belike they don't  hunt men
unless commanded to,' the Northerner speculated. 'Bear and buffalo are meatier.'

Cappen frowned at the  scarlet walls before him.  'The next question,' he  said,
'is why nobody has come out against us.'

'Um, I'd deem those wights we  left scattered around were the only  fighting men
here. What task was theirs? Why, to keep the ladies from escaping, if those  are
allowed to  walk outdoors  by day.  As for  yon manse,  while it's plenty big, I
suspect it's on loan from its owner. Naught but a few servants need be on hand 
and the women, let's  hope. 1 don't suppose  anybody happened to see  our little
brawl.'

The thought  that they  might effect  the rescue  - soon,  safely, easily - went
through Cappen in a wave of  dizziness. Afterwards - he and Jamie  had discussed
that. If the temple hierophants, from Hazroah on down, were put under  immediate
arrest, that ought to dispose of the vengeance problem.

Gravel  scrunched  underfoot.  Rose,  jasmine,  honeysuckle  sweetened  the air.
Fountains leaped and chimed. The partners  reached the main door. It was  oaken,
with many glass eyes inset; the knocker had the shape of a sikkintair.

Jamie leaned his spear, unsheathed  his sword, turned the knob  left-handed, and
swung the  door open.  A maroon  sumptuousness of  carpet, hangings,  upholstery
brooded beyond. He and Cappen entered.  Inside were quietness and an odour  like
that just before a thunderstorm.

A man in a  deacon's black robe came  through an archway, his  tonsure agleam in
the dimness*'Did I hear - Oh!' he gasped, and scuttled backwards.

Jamie made a long arm and collared him. 'Not so fast, friend,' the warrior  said
genially. 'We've  a request,  and if  you oblige,  we won't  get stains  on this
pretty rug. Where are your guests?'

'What, what, what,' the deacon gobbled.

Jamie shook him, in  leisured wise lest he  quite dislocate the shoulder.  'Lady
Rosanda, wife to Molin Torchholder, and  her assistant Danlis. Take us to  them.
Oh, and we'd liefer not meet folk along the way. It might get messy if we did.'

The deacon fainted.

'Ah,  well,' Jamie  said. 'I  hate the  idea of  cutting down  unarmed men,  but
chances are they won't be foolhardy.' He filled his lungs. 'Rosanda!' he bawled.
'Danlis! Jamie and Cappen Varra are here! Come on home!'

The  volume  almost bowled  his  companion over.  'Are  you mad?'  the  minstrel
exclaimed. 'You'll warn  the whole staff  -' A flash  lit his mind:  if they had
seen no further guards, surely  there were none, and nothing  corporeal remained
to fear. Yet every minute's delay heightened the danger of something else  going
wrong. Somebody might find signs of invasion back in the temple; the gods  alone
knew what lurked in this realm ... Yes, Jamie's judgement might prove  mistaken,
but it was the best he could have made.

Servitors appeared, and recoiled from naked steel. And then, and then -

Through a  doorway strode  Danlis. She  led by  the hand,  or dragged,  a half
hysterical Rosanda. Both  were decently attired  and neither looked  abused, but
pallor in cheeks and smudges under eyes bespoke what they must have suffered.

Cappen came nigh dropping his spear. 'Beloved!' he cried. 'Are you hale?'

'We've not been ill-treated in the flesh, aside from the snatching itself,'  she
answered efficiently. 'The  threats, should Hazroah  not get his  way, have been
cruel. Can we leave now?'

'Aye, the soonest, the best,' Jamie  growled. 'Lead them on ahead, Cappen.'  His
sword covered the rear. On his way out, he retrieved the spear he had left.

They started back  over the garden  paths. Danlis and  Cappen between them  must
help Rosanda  along. That  woman's plump  prettiness was  lost in  tears, moans,
whimpers, and occasional screams. He paid scant attention. His gaze kept seeking
the clear profile  of his darling.  When her grey  eyes turned towards  him, his
heart became a lyre.

She parted her lips. He waited for  her to ask in dazzlement, 'How did  you ever
do this, you unbelievable, wonderful men?'

'What have we ahead of us?' she wanted to know.

Well, it was an intelligent query. Cappen swallowed disappointment and  sketched
the immediate past.  Now, he said,  they'd return via  the gate to  the dome and
make their stealthy way from the temple, thence to Molin's dwelling for a joyous
reunion. But then they must act promptly - yes, roust the Prince out of bed  for
authorization - and occupy the temple  and arrest everybody in sight before  new
trouble got fetched from this world.

Rosanda gained some self-control  as he talked. 'Oh,  my, oh, my,' she  wheezed,
'you unbelievable, wonderful men.'

An ear-piercing trill slashed across her voice. The escapers looked behind them.
At the entrance to the house stood a thickset middle-aged person in the  scarlet
robe  of  a ranking  priest  of Ils.  He  held a  pipe  to his  mouth  and blew.
'Hazroah!' Rosanda shrilled. 'The ringleader!'

'The High Flamen -' Danlis began.

A rush  in the  air interrupted.  Cappen flung  his vision  skyward and knew the
nightmare was true. The sikkintair was descending. Hazroah had summoned it.

'Why, you son of a bitch!' Jamie  roared. Still well behind the rest, he  lifted
his spear, brought  it back, flung  it with his  whole strength and  weight. The
point went home  in Hazroah's breast.  Ribs did not  stop it. He  spouted blood,
crumpled, and spouted no more. The shaft quivered above his body.

But the sikkintair's vast  wings eclipsed the sun.  Jamie rejoined his band  and
plucked the second spear from Cappen's fingers. 'Hurry on, lad/he ordered.  'Get
them to safety.'

'Leave you? No!'  protested his comrade.  Jamie spat an  oath. 'Do you  want the
whole faring to've gone for naught? Hurry, I said!'

Danlis  tugged  at  Cappen's  sleeve.  'He's  right.  The  state  requires   our
testimony.'

Cappen stumbled onward. From time to time he glanced back. In the shadow of  the
wings, Jamie's  hair blazed.  He stood  foursquare, spear  grasped as a huntsman
does.  Agape, the  Flying Knife  rushed down  upon him.  Jamie thrust  straight
between those jaws, and twisted.

The monster let out a sawtoothed shriek. Its wings threshed, made  thundercrack,
it swooped by, a foot raked. Jamie had his claymore out. He parried the blow.

The sikkintair rose.  The shaft waggled  from its throat.  It spread great  ebon
membranes,  looped, and  came back  earthward. Its  claws were  before it.  Air
whirred behind.

Jamie stood his ground, sword in right hand, knife in left. As the talons smote,
he fended them off  with the dirk. Blood  sprang from his thigh,  but his byrnie
took most  of the  edged sweep.  And his  sword hewed.  The sikkintair  ululated
again. It tried to ascend, and couldn't.

Jamie had crippled  its left wing.  It landed -  Cappen felt the  impact through
soles and bones - and hitched itself  towards him. From around the spear came  a
geyser hiss.

Jamie held fast  where he was.  As fangs struck  at him, he  sidestepped, sprang
back, and threw his shoulders against  the shaft. Leverage swung jaws aside.  He
glided by the  neck towards the  forequarters. Both of  his blades attacked  the
spine.

Cappen and the women hastened on.

They were almost at  the pergola when footfalls  drew his eyes rearwards.  Jamie
loped at an overtaking pace. Behind him, the sikkintair lay in a heap.

The redhead pulled alongside. 'Hai, what  a fight!' he panted. 'Thanks for  this
journey, friend! A drinking bout's worth of thanks!'

They mounted the death-defiled stairs. Cappen peered across miles. Wings beat in
heaven, from the direction of the mountains. Horror stabbed his guts. 'Look!' He
could barely croak.

Jamie squinted. 'More of them,' he said. 'A score, maybe. We can't cope with  so
many. An-army couldn't.'

'That whistle  was heard  farther away  than mortals  would hear,'  Danlis added
starkly.

'What do we linger for?' Rosanda wailed. 'Come, take us home!'

'And the sikkintairs follow?' Jamie retorted. 'No. I've my lassies, and kinfolk,
and -' He moved to stand before the parchment. Edged metal dripped in his hands;
red lay splashed  across helm, ringmail,  clothing, face. His  grin broke forth,
wry. 'A spaewife once told me I'd die on the far side of strangeness. I'll wager
she didn't know her own strength.'

'You assume that the mission  of the beasts is to  destroy us, and when that  is
done they will return  to their lairs.' The  tone Danlis used might  have served
for a remark about the weather.

'Aye, what else? The  harm they'd wreak would  be in a hunt  for us. But put  to
such trouble, they could grow furious and harry our whole world. That's the more
likely when Hazroah lies skewered. Who else can control them?'

'None that I know of, and he  talked quite frankly to us.' She nodded.  'Yes, it
behoves us to die where we are.' Rosanda sank down and blubbered. Danlis  showed
irritation. 'Up!'  she commanded  her mistress.  'Up and  meet your  fate like a
Rankan matron!'

Cappen goggled hopelessly at her. She gave him a smile. 'Have no regrets, dear,'
she said. 'You did well. The conspiracy against the state has been checked.'

The far side of strangeness - check  - chessboard - that version of chess  where
you pretend the right and left sides of  the board are identical on a cylinder  
tumbled through Cappen. The Flying  Knives drew closer fast. Curious  aspects of
geometry -

Lightning-smitten, he  knew ...  or guessed  he did  ... 'No,  Jamie, we go!' he
yelled.

'To no  avail save  reaping of  innocents?' The  big man  hunched his shoulders.
'Never.'

'Jamie, let us by! I can close the gate. I swear I can - I swear by - by Eshi -'

The Northerner locked eyes with Cappen for  a span that grew. At last: 'You  are
my brother in arms.' He stood aside. 'Go on.'

The sikkintairs were so  near that the noise  of their speed reached  Cappen. He
urged Danlis  towards the  scroll. She  lifted her  skirt a  trifle, revealing a
dainty  ankle, and  stepped through.  He hauled  on Rosanda's  wrist. The  woman
wavered to her feet but seemed unable to find her direction. Cappen took an  arm
and passed it into the next world for Danlis to pull. Himself, he gave a  mighty
shove on milady's buttocks. She crossed over.

He did. And Jamie.

Beneath the temple dome, Cappen's  rapier reached high and slashed.  Louder came
the racket of cloven  air. Cappen severed the  upper cords. The parchment  fell,
wrinkling, crackling. He  dropped his weapon,  a-clang, squatted, and  stretched
his arms wide. The  free corners he seized.  He pulled them to  the corners that
were still secured, to make a closed band of the scroll.

From it sounded monstrous thumps and scrapes. The sikkintairs were crawling into
the pergola. For them the portal must hang unchanged, open for their hunting.

Cappen gave that which he held a half-twist and brought the edges back together.

Thus he created a surface which had but a single side and a single edge. Thus he
obliterated the gate.

He had  not been  sure what  would follow.  He had  fleetingly supposed he would
smuggle the scroll out, held  in its paradoxical form,  and eventually glue it  
unless he could burn  it. But upon the  instant that he completed  the twist and
juncture, the parchment was gone. Enas Yorl told him afterwards that he had made
it impossible for the thing to exist.

Air rushed in where the gate had  been, crack and hiss. Cappen heard that  sound
as it were an alien word of incantation: 'Mobius-s-s.'

Having stolen out of the temple and some distance thence, the party stopped  for
a few minutes of recovery before they proceeded to Molin's house.

This was in  a blind alley  off the avenue,  a brick-paved recess  where flowers
grew in planters,  shared by the  fanes of two  small and gentle  gods. Wind had
died away, stars glimmered  bright, a half moon  stood above easterly roofs  and
cast wan argence. Afar, a tomcat serenaded his intended.

Rosanda  had gotten  back a  measure of  equilibrium. She  cast herself  against
Jamie's breast.  'Oh, hero,  hero,' she  crooned, 'you  shall have  reward, yes,
treasure, ennoblement, everything!' She  snuggled. 'But nothing greater  than my
unbounded thanks ...'

The Northerner cocked an  eyebrow at Cappen. The  bard shook his head  a little.
Jamie nodded  in understanding,  and disengaged.  'Uh, have  a care, milady,' he
said. 'Pressing against ringmail, all bloody and sweaty too, can't be good for a
complexion.'

Even if one rescues them, it is not wise to trifle with the wives of magnates.

Cappen had been busy himself. For the first time, he kissed Danlis on her lovely
mouth; then for the second time; then for the third. She responded decorously.

Thereafter she likewise  withdrew. Moonlight made  a mystery out  of her classic
beauty. 'Cappen,' she said, 'before we go on, we had better have a talk.'

He gaped. 'What?'

She bridged her fingers. 'Urgent matters first,' she continued crisply. 'Once we
get  to the  mansion and  wake the   high priest,  it will  be chaos  at  first,
conference  later,  and I  -  as a  woman  - excluded  from  serious discussion.
Therefore best I give my  counsel now, for you to  relay. Not that Molin or  the
Prince  are  fools; the  measures  to  take  are  for  the  most  part  obvious.
However,  swift   action  is  desirable,  and  they  will  have  been  caught by
surprise.'

She ticked her points off. 'First, as you have indicated, the Hell Hounds' - her
nostrils pinched in distaste at the nickname - 'the Imperial elite guard  should
mount  an immediate  raid on  the temple  of Ils and arrest  all personnel   for
interrogation, except the Arch-priest. He's probably innocent, and in any  event
it would be  inept politics. Hazroah's  death may have  removed the danger,  but
this should not be taken for granted. Even if it has, his co-conspirators  ought
to be identified and made examples of.

'Yet, second, wisdom should temper justice. No lasting harm was done, unless  we
count those persons who are trapped in the parallel universe; and they doubtless
deserve to be.'

They  seemed entirely  males, Cappen  recalled. He  grimaced in  compassion. Of
course, the sikkintairs might eat them.

Danlis was talking on: '- humane  governance and the art of compromise.  A grand
temple dedicated to  the Rankan gods  is certainly required,  but it need  be no
larger  than that  of  Ils.  Your counsel  will  have  much weight,  dear.  Give
it wisely. I will advise you.'

'Uh?' Cappen said.

Danlis  smiled  and  laid her  hands  over  his. 'Why,  you  can  have unlimited
preferment, after what you did,' she told  him. 'I'll show you how to apply  for
it.'

'But - but I'm no blooming statesman!' Cappen stuttered.

She stepped back and considered  him. 'True,' she agreed. 'You're  valiant, yes,
but you're also flighty and lazy and - Well, don't despair. I will mould you.'

Cappen gulped and  shuffled aside. 'Jamie,'  he said, 'uh,  Jamie, I feel  wrung
dry, dead on my feet. I'd be worse than no use - I'd be a drogue on things  just
when they have to move  fast. Better I find me  a doss, and you take  the ladies
home. Come over here and I'll tell you how to convey the story in fewest  words.
Excuse us, ladies. Some of those words you oughtn't to hear.'

					*

A week thence,  Cappen Varra  sat drinking  in the  Vulgar Unicorn.  It was  mid
afternoon  and none  else were  present but  the associate  tapster, his   wound
knitted.

A man filled  the doorway and  came in, to  Cappen's table. 'Been  casting about
everywhere for you,' the Northerner grumbled. 'Where've you been?'

'Lying low,' Cappen replied.  'I've taken a place  here in the Maze  which'll do
till I've dropped back into obscurity, or decide to drift elsewhere altogether.'
He sipped his wine. Sunbeams  slanted through windows; dust motes  danced golden
in their warmth; a cat lay on a sill and purred. 'Trouble is, my purse is flat.'

'We're free  of such  woes for  a goodly  while.' Jamie  flung his length into a
chair and signalled the attendant. 'Beer!' he thundered.

'You collected a reward, then?' the minstrel asked eagerly.

Jamie nodded. 'Aye. In the way you  whispered I should, before you left us.  I'm
baffled why and it went sore against the grain. But I did give Molin the  notion
that the rescue was my idea and you  naught but a hanger-on whom I'd slip a  few
royals. He filled a box with gold and silver money, and said he wished he  could
afford ten times that.  He offered to get  me Rankan citizenship and  a title as
well, and make a bureaucrat of me, but  I said no, thanks. We share, you and  I,
half and half. But right this now, drinks are on me.'

'What about the plotters?' Cappen inquired.

'Ah, those.  The matter's  been kept  quiet, as  you'd await.  Still, while  the
temple of Ils can't  be abolished,  seemingly it's  been tamed.'  Jamie's regard
sought across the table and sharpened. 'After you disappeared, Danlis agreed  to
let me claim  the whole honour.  She knew better  - Rosanda never  noticed - but
Danlis wanted  a man  of the  hour to  carry her  redes to  the prince, and none
remained save me. She  supposed you were simply  worn out. When last  I saw her,
though, she ...  um-m ... she  "expressed disappointment".' He  cocked his ruddy
head. 'Yon's quite a girl. I thought you loved her.'

Cappen Varra took a fresh draught of wine. Old summers glowed along his  tongue.
'I did,' he confessed. 'I  do. My heart is broken,  and in part I drink  to numb
the pain.'

Jamie raised his brows. 'What? Makes no sense.'

'Oh, it makes very basic sense,' Cappen answered. 'Broken hearts

tend to heal rather soon. Meanwhile, if I may recite from a rondel

I completed before you found me -

	'Each sword of sorrow that would maim or slay,
	 My lady of  the morning deftly parries.
	 Yet gods forbid I be the one she marries!
	 I rise from bed the latest hour I may.
	 My lady comes to me like break of day;
	 I dream in darkness if it chance she tarries.'

A FEW REMARKS BY FURTWAN COINPINCH, MERCHANT

The first thing I noticed about him, just that first impression you -understand,
was that he couldn't be a poor man.  Or boy, or youth, or whatever he was  then.
Not with all those weapons on him. From the shagreen belt he was wearing over  a
scarlet sash - a violently scarlet sash! - swung a curved dagger on his left hip
and on the right one  of those Ilbarsi 'knives' long  as your arm. Not a  proper
sword, no. Not a military man, then. That isn't all, though. Some few of us know
that his left buskin  is equipped with a  sheath; the slim thing  and knife-hilt
appear  to be  only a  decoration. Gift  from a  woman, I  heard him  tell Old
Thumpfoot one afternoon in the bazaar. I doubt it.

(I've been told  he has another  sticker strapped less  than comfortably to  his
inner thigh, probably the  right. Maybe that's part  of the reason he  walks the
way he does. Cat-supple and yet sort  of stiff of leg all at ,once.  A tumbler's
gait - or a punk's swagger. Don't tell him I said!)

Anyhow, about  the weapons  and my  first impression  that he  couldn't be poor.
There's a throwing knife in that  leather and copper armlet, on his  right upper
arm, and another in the long bracer of black leather on that same arm. Both  are
short. The stickers I mean, not the bracers or the arms either.

All that armament would be  enough to scare anybody on  a dark night, or even  a
moonbright one. Imagine being in the Maze or some place like that and out of the
shadows comes this young bravo, swaggering, wearing all that sharp metal!  Right
at you out of the  shadows that spawned him. Enough  to chill even one of  those
Hell Hounds. Even  one ofyou-know-who's boys  in the blue  hawk-masks might step
aside.

That was my impression. Shadowspawn. About as pleasant as gout or dropsy.

SHADOWSPAWN
by Andrew Offutt

His mop of hair was blacker than black and his eyes nearly so, under brows  that
just missed meeting above  a nose not quite  falcate. His walk reminded  some of
one of those red-and-black gamecocks brought over from Mrsevada. They called him
Shadow-spawn. No compliment was intended, and he objected until Cudget told  him
it was  good to  have a  nickname -  although he  wished his  own weren't Cudget
Swearoath. Besides, Shadowspawn  had a romantic  and rather sinister  sound, and
that appealed to his ego, which was the largest thing about him. His height  was
almost average and he was rangy,  wiry; swiftly wiry, with those bulgy  rocks in
his biceps and calves that other males wished they had.

Shadowspawn. It  was descriptive  enough. No  one knew  where he'd been spawned,
which was  shadowy, and  he worked  among shadows.  Perhaps it  was down  in the
shadows of the 'streets' of Downwind and maybe it was over in Syr that he'd been
birthed. It didn't matter.  He belonged to Sanctuary  and wished it belonged  to
him. He  acted as  if it  did. If  he knew  or suspected  that he'd  come out of
Downwind, he was sure he had risen above it. He just didn't have time for  those
street-gangs of which surely he'd have been chieftain.

He was no more sure of his age than anyone else. He might have lived a score  of
years.  It might  have been  fewer. Had  a creditable  moustache before  he was
fifteen.

The raven-wing  hair, tending  to an  indecisive curl,  covered his ears without
reaching his shoulders. He'd an earring  under that hair, on the left.  Few knew
it. Had it done  at fourteen, to impress  her who took his  virginity that year.
(She was twoscore-and-two then,  married to a man  like a building stone  with a
belly. She's a hag with a belly out to here, now.)

'The lashes under those  thick glossy brows of  his are so black  and thick they
look almost kohled, like  a woman's or a  priest over in Yenized,'  a man called
Weasel told Cusharlain, in the Vulgar Unicorn. 'Some fool made that remark once,
in his  presence. The  fellow wears  the scar  still and  knows he's lucky to be
wearing tongue and life. Should have known that a bravo who wears two  .throwing
knives on  his right  arm is  dangerous, and  left-handed. And  with a name like
Shadowspawn ...!'

His name was not  Shadowspawn, of course. True,  many did not know  or no longer
remembered his  name. It  was Hanse.  Just Hanse.  Not Hanse Shadowspawn; people
called him the one or the other or nothing at all.

He seemed  to wear  a cloak  about him  at all  times, a thoughtful S'danzo told
Cusharlain. Not a cloak  of fabric; this one  concealed his features, his  mind.
Eyes hooded like a cobra's, some  said. They weren't, really. They just  did not
seem directed outward,  those glittering black  onyxes he had  for eyes. Perhaps
their gaze was fixed  on the plank-sized chips  on his shoulders. Mighty  easily
knocked off.

By night  he did  not swagger,  save when  he entered  a public  place. Night of
course was Hanse's time, as it had been Cudgel's. By night ... 'Hanse walks like
a hungry cat,' some said, and they might  shiver a bit. In truth he did not.  He
glided. His buskins' soft soles lifting only a finger's breadth with each  step.
They came down on the balls of the feet,  not the heels. Some made fun of that  
not to Hanse -  because it made for  a sinuous glide strange  in appearance. The
better-born watched him with  an aesthetic fascination. And  some horripilation.
Among females,  highborn or  otherwise, the  fascination was  often layered with
interest,  however unwilling.  Most then  said the  predictable: a  distasteful,
rather sexy animal; that Hanse, that Shadowspawn.

It had been suggested to him that  a bit of committed practice could make  him a
real sword-slinger: he was  a natural. Employment, a  uniform ... Hanse was  not
interested. Indeed he sneered at soldiers,  at uniforms. And now he hated  them,
with a sort of unreasoning reason.

These things Cusharlain  learned, and he  began to know  him called Shadowspawn.
And to dislike him. Hanse sounded the sort of too-competent young snot you  step
aside for - and hate yourself for doing it.

'Hanse is a bastard!' This from Shive  the Changer, with a thump of his  fist on
the broad table on which he dealt with such as Hanse, changing loot into coin.

'Ah.' Cusharlain looked innocently at him. 'You mean by nature.'

'Probably by birth too. A bastard by  birth and by nature! Better that all  such
cocky snotty stealthy arrogant bravos were stillborn!'

'He's bitten you then, Shive?'

'A bravo and a lowborn punk he is, and that's all.'

'Punk?'

'Well ... perhaps a cut above  punk.' Shive touched his mous-tachioes, which  he
kept curled like the horns of a mountain goat. 'Cudget was a damned good  thief.
The sort of fellow who made the trade honourable. An art form. A pleasure  doing
business with. And Hanse was his apprentice,  or nearly, sort of ... and he  has
the potential of being  an even better thief.  Not man - thief.'  Shive wagged a
finger made shiny by wax. 'The potential, mind you. He'll never realize it.' The
finger paused on its way back to stroke one moustachio.

'You think not,' Cusharlain  said, drawing Shive out,  pulling words from a  man
who knew how to keep his mouth shut and was alive and wealthy because he did.

'I think not. He'll absorb a foot or so of sharp metal long before. Or dance  on
the air.'

'As, I remind you, Cudget did,' Cusharlain said, noting that within the trade no
one said 'hanged'.

Shive  took  umbrage. 'After  a  long career!  And  Cudget was  respected!  He's
respected still.'

'Umm. Pity  you admire  the master  but not  the apprentice.  He could  use you,
surely. And  you him.  If he's  a successful  thief, there'll  be profit for the
fence he chooses to -'         \

'Fence? Fence?'

'Sorry, Shive. The Changer he chooses to exchange his... goods with, for  Rankan
coin. There's always a profit to -'

'He cheated me!'

So. At last Shive  admitted it. That's how  he'd been bitten by  this Hanse. Fat
and fifty and the second most  experienced Changer in Sanctuary, Shive had  been
cheated by a cocky  youngster. 'Oh,' Cusharlain said.  He rose, showing Shive  a
satirical little smile. 'You know, Shive  ... you shouldn't admit that. You  are
after all a man with some twenty years' experience ... and he has only that many
years of life, if not less.'

Shive stared after the customs  inspector. An Aurveshan raised in  Sanctuary and
now employed by their mutual conqueror, Ranke. As well as by an informal  league
of Changers and Sanctuary's foremost thieves; those so successful they  employed
other  thieves.  With a  distinct  curl of  his  lip -  a  cultivated artificial
manoeuvre - and a brush of his double-curled left moustachio, Shive returned his
attention  to the  prying of  a nice  ruby from  its entirely  too recognizable
setting.

Just  now  Cusharlain's  prowling  the Maze  was  in  service  of still  another
employer, for  he was  an ambitious  and ever-hungry  man. An  amenable man,  to
opportunities  for profit  and new  contracts. Today  he was  merely collecting
information about the former apprentice  ofCudget Swearoath, who had been  swung
shortly after the new Prince-Governor came out from Ranke to 'whip this Thieves'
World of a town into shape'. Above bribery, beyond threat, the (very) young  ass
actually meant to govern Sanctuary! To clean it up! Young Kadakithis, whom  they
called Kittycat!

So far he had angered the  priesthood and every thief and Changer  in Sanctuary.
And a  good three-fifths  of the  taverners. And  even a  number of the garrison
soldiers, with those baby-clean, revolting competent Hell Hounds of his. Some of
the old villa-dwellers thought he was just wonderful.

Probably wets his bed, Cusharlain thought with a jerk of his head - at the  same
time as he  expertly twitched his  robe's hem away  from the touch  of a legless
beggar. Cusharlain knew very well that the fellow's legs were single-strapped up
under his long, long, tattered coat. Well,  and well. So one boy of nineteen  or
twenty, a  thief, hated  another, a  half-brother of  the Emperor  sent out here
because it was  the anus of  the Empire, good  and far from  the Rankan imperial
seat! This the customs inspector had learned today, while gathering  information
for his secretive and clandestine employer.  Hanse, Hanse. In all his life  this
Hanse  had  held  regard  for  one person  other  than  his  cocky  self: Cudget
Swearoath. Respected senior thief. And Cudget had been arrested, which certainly
would not  have happened  in the  old days.  The days  BDP, Cusharlain  thought;
Before this  Damned Prince!  Far more  incredibly, if  there could  be grades of
incredibility, Cudget had been hanged!

Prince Stupid!

'Ah, the lad knows he can't hope  to do injury on the prince,' someone  had told
the night proprietor of the Golden Lizard, who had told Cusharlain's old  friend
Gelicia, proprietor of the popular House of Mermaids. 'He schemes to steal  from
the very Prince-Governor, and make a quick large profit in the doing.'

Cusharlain stared  at her.  'This young  gamecock means  to try  to rob the very
palace?' he said, feeling stupid instantly; so she'd said, yes.

'Don't scoff,  Cusher,' Gelicia  said, waving  a doughy  hand well leavened with
rings. This noon she was wearing  apple-green and purple and lavender and  mauve
and orange, all in a way that  exposed a large portion of her unrivalled  bosom,
which resembled two white  cushions for a large  divan and which Cusharlain  was
singularly uninterested in viewing.

'If it can be done, Shadowspawn'll do it,' she said. 'Oh, go ahead, tip yourself
some more wine. Did you hear about the ring he tugged from under Corlas's pillow
- while Corlas's head  was on it, sleeping?  You know, Corlas the  camel-dealer.
Or've you heard tell of  how our boy Hanse dumb  up and stole the eagle  off the
roof of Barracks Three for a lark?'

'I wondered what had happened to that!'

She nodded wisely with a trembling of chin and a flashing wing of earrings whose
diameter was the same as his wine-cup - which was of silver. Her wine-cup,  that
is; the one he was using. 'Shadowspawn,' she said, 'as Eshi is my witness. Had a
prodigal  offer from  some richie  up in  Twand, too  - and  do you  know Hanse
wouldn't take it? Said he liked having the thing. Pisses on it every morning  on
rising, he says.'

Cusharlain smiled. 'And ... if it can't be done? Reaching the palace, I mean.'

Gelicia's shrug imparted to her bosom a quake of seismic proportions. 'Why  then
Sanctuary will  be minus  one more  cockroach, and  no one'll  miss him.  Oh, my
Lycansha will moon for a while, but she'll soon be over it.'

'Lycansha? Who's Lycansha?'

Nine rings flashed on Gelicia's hands as she sketched a form in the air  exactly
as a man would  have done. 'Ah, the  sweetest little Cadite oral-submissive  you
ever laid eyes  on, who fancies  that leanness and  those midnight eyes  of his,
Cusher. Like to ... meet her? She's at liberty just now.'

'I'm on business, Gelicia.' His sigh was carefully elaborate.

'Asking  about  our  little  Shadowspawn?'  Gelicia's  meaty  face  took  on   a
businesslike expression, which some would have called crafty-furtive.

'Aye.'

'Well. Whoever you're reporting to, Cusher - you haven't talked to me!'

'Of course not,  Gelicia! Don't be  silly. I haven't  talked with anyone  with a
name, or an  address, or a  face. I enjoy  my ... relationship  with some of you
more enterprising citizens' -  he paused for her  mirthful snort - 'and  have no
wish  to jeopardize  it. Or  to lose  the physical  attributes necessary  to my
availing myself of your dear girls from time to time.'

Her snickering laugh rose and went on up to whoops about the time he reached the
street, assuring him that eventually the successful Gelicia had got his  parting
joke.  Red  Lanterns was  a  quiet neighbourhood  this  time of  day,  after the
sweeping up of the  dust and tracks of  last night's customers. Now  sheets were
being washed. A few  deliveries made. A couple  of workmen were occupied  with a
broken door-hasp at  a House down  the street. Cusharlain  squinted upwards. The
Enemy, a horrid white ball in a  horrid sky going the colour of turmeric  powder
laced with saffron, was high, nigh to passing noon. One-Thumb should be stirring
himself about now. Cusharlain decided to go  and have a talk with him, too,  and
maybe he could get his report made by sunset. His employer did not seem as  long
on patience  as on  funds. The  customs inspector  of a  fading city whose chief
business was theft and the disposal  of its product had learned the  former, and
was ever at work on increasing his share of the latter.

'Did what?' the startlingly good-looking woman said. 'Roaching? What's  roaching
mean?'

Her companion, who was only a little older than her seventeen or eighteen years,
stiffened his neck  to keep from  looking anxiously around.  'Sh - not  so loud.
When do cockroaches come out?'

She blinked at the dark, so-intense young man. 'Why - at night.'

'So do thieves.'

'Oh!' She laughed, struck her hands together with a jangling of bangles -  gold,
definitely - and touched  his arm. 'Oh, Hanse,  I know so little!  You know just
about everything, don't you.' Her face changed. 'My, these hairs are soft.'  And
she left her hand on that arm with its dark, dark hairs.

'The streets are  my home,' he  told her. 'They  birthed me and  gave me suck. I
know quite a bit, yes.'

He could hardly  believe his luck,  sitting here in  a decent tavern  out of the
Maze with this genuinely beautiful Lirain  who was ... by the Thousand  Eyes and
by Eshi,  too, could  it be?  - one  of the  concubines the  Prince-Governor had
brought over from Ranke! And she's obviously fascinated with me, Hanse  thought.
He acted as if he sat here in the Golden Oasis every afternoon with such as she.
What a coincidence, what great good fortune  to have run into her in the  bazaar
that way!  Run into  her indeed!  She had  been hurrying  and he'd been turning,
glancing back at one of those child-affrighters of Jubal's, and they had slammed
together and  had to  cling to  each other  to avoid  falling. She  had been  so
apologetic and in seeming need to make amends and - here they were, Hanse and  a
palace conky unguarded or watched, and a beauty at that - and wearing enough  to
support him for a year. He strove to be oh so cool,

'You certainly do like my gourds, don't you.'

'Wha-'

'Oh, don't dissemble. I'm not mad. Really, Hanse. If I didn't want 'em looked at
I'd cover 'em in high-necked homespun.'

'Uh ... Lirain, I've seen one other pearl-sewn halter of silk in my life, and it
didn't have those swirls of gold thread, or so many pearls. I wasn't this close,
either.' Damn, he  thought. Should have  complimented her, not  let her know  my
interest is greed for the container!

'Oh! Here I am, one of seven women for one man and bored, and I thought you were
wanting to get into my bandeau, when  what you really want is it. What's  a poor
girl to do, used to the flatteries  of courtiers and servants, when she meets  a
real man who speaks his real thoughts?'

Hanse tried not to let his preening  show. Nor did he know how to  apologize, or
to fancy-talk beyond the level of the Maze. Besides, he thought this pout-lipped
beauty with her  heart-shaped face and  nice woman's belly  was having some  fun
with him. She knew that pout was irresistible!

'Wear high-necked homespun,'  he said, and  while she laughed,  'and try not  to
look that way. This real  man knows what you're used  to, and that you can't  be
interested in Hanse the roach!'

Her expression  became very  serious. 'You  must not  have access  to a  mirror,
Hanse. Why don't you try me?'

Hanse fought his astonishment and made swift recovery. With prickly armpits  and
outward confidence, he said, 'Would you like to take a walk, Lirain?'

'Is there a more private room at the end of it?'

Holding her gaze as she held his, he nodded.

'Yes,' she said, that quickly.  Concubine of Prince Kadakithis! 'Could  anything
as good as this bandeau be bought in the bazaar?'

He  was  rising.  'Who'd  buy  it?  No,'  he  said,  puzzled  at  the  question.
i'   -

'Then you must buy me the best  we can find after a short search.'  She chuckled
at the sight of his stricken face.  The cocky creature thought she was a  whore,
to charge him  some trifle like  any girl! 'So  that I can  wear it back  to the
palace,'  she  said, and  watched  understanding brighten  that  frightening yet
sensuous pair of onyxes he wore for  eyes, all hard and cold and wary.  She slid
her hand into his, and they departed the Golden Oasis.

'Of course I'm sure. Bourne!' Lirain twitched off the blue-arabesqued bandeau of
green silk  Hanse had  bought her,  and hurled  it at  the man  on the divan. He
grinned so that  his big brown  beard writhed. 'He  has such needs\  He is never
relaxed, and wants and needs  so badly, and so wants  to be and to do.  He is so
impressed with who or rather what I am, and yet he would deny under torture that
I was anything but another nice tumble. You and I both well know about low-borns
who hunger for far more  than food! He is completely  taken in and he'll be  the
perfect tool. Bourne. My  agent assured me that  he is a competent  sneak-thief,
and that he wants to rob and gain a leg on Prince Kittycat so badly he can taste
it. I saw that, right enough. Look, it's perfect!'

'A thief. And competent, you say.' Bourne scratched his thigh under the tunic of
his Hell Hound's uniform. He glanced around the apartment she occupied on nights
when the prince might come  - hours from now. 'And  he has a valuable halter  of
you now, to sell. Perhaps to brag  about and get you into trouble. That  kind of
trouble ends in death, Lirain.'

'You find it hard to admit that  I a woman - have accomplished this,  love? Look
here, that gourd-holster was stolen today in the market-place. Sliced through in
back and snatched off,  in a single act.  Some child of about  thirteen, a dirty
girl who ran off with it like a racing dromedary. I did not tell anyone  because
I so hated its loss and am so mortified.'

'All right. Maybe. That's  not bad - forget  the part about its  being sliced in
back, lest it turn up whole. Hmm - I guess it won't. Likely perfectly good  silk
will be dumped while the pearls and gold thread are sold. And how competent  was
he at the couching, Lirain?'

Lirain looked to the  heavens. '0 Sabellia, and  we call Thee the  Sharp-Tongued
One! Men! Plague and drought. Bourne, can't  you be more than a man? He  was ...
fair. That's all. I  was on business. We  are on business, love.  Our assignment
for those  "certain interested  nobles" back  in Ranke  - my  hind leg, it's the
Emperor  himself,   worried  about   his  half-brother's   pretty  golden-haired
magnetism! - is to embarrass His pretty golden-haired Highness K-adakithis! He's
been doing that well enough all by himself! Trying to implement civilized law in
this roach-nest of a  town! Continuing to insist  that temples to Savankala  and
Sabellia have to be mightier than the one  to the Ils these  people worship, and
that Vashanka's must be equal to Ils's. Priests hate him and merchants hate  him
and thieves hate him - and thieves make this town go!'

Bourne nodded - and demonstrated  his strength by drawing a  fifteen-inch dagger
to clean his nails.

Lirain tossed  her girdle  of silver  links on  to a  pile of  cushions and idly
fingered her navel. 'Now we provide  the finishing touch. There will never  be a
threat to the Emperor from this pretty boy's supporters again! We help Hanse the
roach into the palace.'

'After which he is  absolutely on his own,'  he said, pointing with  the dagger.
'We've got to be uncompromised.'

'Oh,'  she said   flaunting, 'I  shall be   a-couching with  His  Highness!  The
while,  Hanse steals  his Rod  of Authority:  the Savankh  of Ranke,  given him
personally by the Emperor as  symbol  of full  authority here! Hanse  will  wish
to  negotiate a private, quiet trade  with Kittycat. Rod  for a fat  ransom, and
his  safety. We will be busily seeing that word gets  around. A thief broke into
the palace  and stole the Savankh! And the Prince-Governor is the laughing stock
of  the  capital! He'll  either  rot here  -  or, worse  still,  be recalled  in
disgrace.'

The big man  lounging so familiarly  on her divan  nodded slowly. 'I  do have to
point out that you may well rot here with him.'

'Oh, no. You  and I are  promised reprieve from  this midden-heap town.  And ...
Bourne ... particularly if  we heroically regain the  Savankh for the honour  of
the Empire. After its theft is just terribly well known, of course.'

'Now, that's  good!' Bourne's  brows tipped  up and  his lips  pursed, a  rather
obscene spectacle between the bushiness  of brown moustache and beard.  'And how
do we do that? You going to trade this Hanse another halter for it?'

She looked  long at  him. Coolly,  brows arched  above blue-lidded eyes. 'What's
that  in  your   hand.  Guardian;  Hell   Hound  so  loyal   to  His  Highness?'

Bourne regarded the dagger in his big hairy hand, looked at Lirain, and began to
smile.

					*

Though hardly beloved nor indeed particularly lovable, Hanse was a member of the
community. Though a paid ally, the  customs inspector was not. Hanse heard  from
three sources that Cusharlain  had been asking after  him, on behalf of  someone
else. After giving that thought, Hanse  traded with a grimy little thief.  First
Hanse reminded him that he could easily take the five truly fine melons the  boy
had been so deft as  to steal, all in an  afternoon. The boy agreed to  accept a
longish, stiffish piece  of braided gold  thread, and Hanse  gained four melons.
With his hilt and then thumb, Hanse  made a nice depression in the top  of each.
Into each he tucked a nice pearl; four of his thirty-four.

These he set before  the hugely fat and  grossly misnamed Moonflower, a  S'danzo
who liked food, melons, pearls, Hanse, and proving that she was more than a mere
charlatan.  Many others  were. Few  had the  Gift. Even  the cynical  Hanse was
convinced that Moonflower had.

She sat on a cushioned stool of extra width and sturdy legs. Her pile of red and
yellow and green skirts overflowed it, while disguising the fact that so did her
vast backside. Her back was against the east wall of the tired building  wherein
she and her man and seven of their brood of nine dwelt, and wherein her man sold
... things. Hanse sat  cross-legged before her.  Looking boyish without  his arm
sheaths and in  a dusty tunic  the colour of  an old camel.  He watched a  pearl
disappear under Moonflower's shawl into  what she called her treasure  chest. He
watched the melon disappear between her lavender-painted lips. Swiftly.

'You are such a good boy, Hanse.' When she talked, Moonflower was a kitten.

'Only when I want something, passionflower.'

She laughed and beamed and tousled his  hair for he knew that such talk  pleased
her. Then  he told  her the  story. Handed  her, disguised  in carefully smudged
russet, a strip of silken cloth: two straps and two cupped circles bearing  many
thread-holes.

'Ah! You've  been visiting  a lady  in the  Path of  Money! Nice  of you  to let
Moonflower have  four of  the pearls  you've laboriously  sliced off this little
sheath!'

'She gave it me for services rendered.' He waved a hand.

'Oh, of course. Hmm.'  She folded it, unfolded  it, fondled it, drew  it through
her dimple-backed hands, sniffed and tasted it with a dainty tongue-tip. A gross
kitten at her divining.  She closed her eyes  and was very still.  As Hanse was,
waiting.

'She is  indeed a  c- what  you said,'  she told  him, able  to be discreet even
though in something approaching a trance. 'Oh, Shadowspawn! You are involved  in
a plot beyond your dreaming. Odd - this must be the Emperor I see, watching from
afar. And this big man with your - acquaintance. A big man with a big beard.  In
a uniform? I think so.  Close to our ruler, both.  Yet ... ahh ... they  are his
enemies. Yes. They plot. She is a serpent and he a lion of no little craft. They
seek ... ah, I see. The  Prince-Governor has become faceless. Yes. They  seek to
cost him face.' Her eyes opened to stare wide at him, two big garnets set amid a
heavy layer of kohl. 'And you, Hanse my sweet, are their tool.'

They  stared  at  each  other  for  a  moment.  'Best  you  vanish  for  a time,
Shadowspawn. You know what becomes of tools once they are no longer needed.'

'Discarded,'  he  snarled,  not  even bemoaning  the  loss  of  Lirain's denuded
bandeau, which Moonflower made vanish within a shawl-buried vaster one.

'Or,' she said, keeping him fixed by her gaze, 'hung up.'

Lirain  and  her  (uniformed?)  confederate  were  tools  then,  Hanse reasoned,
prowling the streets. Prince Kadakithis was nice to look at, and charismatic. So
his imperial half-brother had sent him way out here, to Sanctuary. Now he wanted
him sorely embarrassed here. Hanse could  see the wisdom of that, and  knew that
despite what any might say, the Emperor was no fool. So, then. They two plotted.
Lirain gained enough knowledge of Hanse to employ Cusharlain to investigate him.
She had found  a way to  effect their meeting.  Yes; though it  hurt his ego, he
admitted to himself that she had made the approach and the decisions. So now  he
was their tool. A tool of tools!

Robbing Kadakithis,  however, had  been his  goal before  he met that cupidinous
concubine. So long as she helped, he  was quite willing to let her think  he was
her dupe. He wanted  to be their tool,  then - insofar as  it aided him to  gain
easy  entry  to  the  palace. Forewarned  and  all  that.  There was  definitely
potential here for a clever man, and Hanse deemed himself twice as clever as  he
was, which was considerably. Finally, being made the tool of plotting tools  was
far too demeaning for the Hansean ego to accept.

Yes. He  would gain  the wand.  Trade it  to the  Prince-Governor for gold - no,
better make it the less intimidating silver - and freedom. From Suma or Mrsevada
or some place, he'd send  a message back, anonymously informing  Kadakithis that
Lirain was a traitor. Hanse smiled  at that pleasant thought. Perhaps he'd  just
go up to  Ranke and tell  the Emperor what  a pair of  incompetent agents he had
down in Sanctuary. Hanse saw himself richly rewarded, an intimate of the Emperor
...

And so he and Lirain met again, and made their agreement and plan.

A gate was indeed left open. A guard  did indeed quit his post before a door  of
the palace. It did indeed prove to be unlatched. Hanse locked it after him. Thus
a rather  thick-waisted Shadow-spawn  gained entry  to the  palatial home of the
governor of Sanctuary. Dark corridors led  him to the appointed chamber. As  the
prince was not in it, it was not specifically guarded. The ivory rod, carved  to
resemble  rough-barked wood,  was indeed  there. So,  unexpectedly enjoying  the
royal couch in  its owner's absence,  was Lirain's sister  concubine. She proved
not to have been drugged. She woke  and opened her mouth to yell. Hanse  reduced
that to a squeak by punching her  in the belly, which was shockingly convex  and
soft, considering her youth. He held a pillow over her face, sustaining a couple
of scratches and  a bruised shin.  She became still.  He made sure  that she was
limp but quite alive, and bound her with a gaiter off her own sandal. The  other
he pulled around so as to hold  in place the silken garment he stuffed  into her
mouth, and tied  behind her head.  He removed the  pendant from one  ear. All in
darkness. He hurried to wrap the rod of authority in the drape off a low  table.
Hitching up his tunic, he began drawing from around his waist the thirty feet of
knotted rope he had deemed wise. Lirain had assured him that a sedative would be
administered to the Hell Hounds' evening  libation. Hanse had no way of  knowing
that to be the  truth; that not only  had one of those  big burly five done  the
administering, he had drunk  no less than the  others. Bourne and company  slept
most soundly. The plan was that Hanse  would leave the same way he had  entered.
Because he knew he was a tool and was suspicious unto caution, Hanse had decided
to effect a different exit.

One end of the rope he secured  to the table whose drape he'd stolen.  The other
he tossed  out the  window. Crosswise,  the table  would hold  the rope  without
following him through the window.

It proved true. Hanse went out, and down. Slipping out westwards to wend his way
among the brothels, he was aware of a number of scorpions scuttling up and  down
his back, tails poised. Evidently the  bound occupant of His Highness's bed  was
not found. Dawn  was still only  a promise when  Hanse reached his  second-floor
room in the Maze.

He was a long time wakeful.  Admiring the symbol of Rankan authority,  named for
the god they claimed had given  it them. Marvelling at its unimposing  aspect. A
twig-like wand not two feet long, of yellowing ivory. He had done it!

Shortly after noon next  day, Hanse had a  talk with babbly old  Hakiem, who had
lately done much babbling  about what a fine  fellow His handsome Highness  was,
and how he had even spoken with Hakiem, giving him two pieces of good silver  as
well! Today Hakiem listened to Hanse,  and he swallowed often. What could  he do
save agree?

Carrying a pretty pendant off a woman's earring, Hakiem hied him to the  palace.
Gained the  Presence by  sending in  one word  to the  Prince, with the pendant.
Assured him he had nothing to do with the theft. Most privily Hakiem stated what
he'd been told, and the thief's terms. Ransom.

The Prince-Governor had to pay, and knew it. If he could get the damned  Savankh
back, he'd never  have to let  out that it  had been stolen  in the first place.
Taya, who had spent a night in  his bed less comfortable than she had  expected,
had no notion  what had been  taken. Too, she  seemed to believe  his promise to
stretch or  excise various  parts of  her anatomy  should she  flap her mouth to
anyone at all.

Meanwhile the concubine  Lirain and Hell  Hound Bourne were  jubilant. Plotting.
Grinning. Planning  the Revelation  that would  destroy their  employer. Indeed,
they lost no  time in dispatching  a message to  their other employers,  back in
Ranke. That was premature, unwise, and downright stupid.

Next came the coincidence, though it  wasn't all that much one. Zaibar  and Quag
were sword-happy hotheads.  Razkuli complained of  fire in the  gut and had  the
runs besides. That left only two Hell Hounds; whom else would the prince entrust
with  this  mission?  After  a short  testing  conference,  he  chose Bourne  to
implement the transaction  with the thief.  Bourne's instructions were  detailed
and unequivocal: all was to be effected precisely as the thief, through  Hakiem,
had specified. Bourne  would, of course,  receive a nice  bonus. He was  made to
understand that it was also to serve as a gag. Bourne agreed, promised, saluted,
louted, departed.

Once the  villa had  commanded a  fine view  of the  sea and  naturally terraced
landscape flowing a  league along the  coast to Sanctuary.  Once a merchant  had
lived here with his family, a couple of concubines who counted themselves lucky,
servants, and a small  army or defence force.  The merchant was wealthy.  He was
not liked and did not  care that many did not  care for the way he  had achieved
wealth and waxed richer. One day a pirate attack began. Two days later the gorge
that  marked the  beginning of  rough country  disgorged barbarians.  They also
attacked. The merchant's small army proved too small. He and his armed force and
servants and  unlucky concubines  and family  were wiped  out. The  manse he had
called Eaglenest was looted and burned. The pirates had not been pirates and the
barbarians  had  not   been  barbarians  -technically,   at  least:  they   were
mercenaries.  Thus, forty  years ago,  had some  redistribution of  wealth been
achieved  by  that clandestine  alliance  of Sanctuarite  nobles  and merchants.
Others  had called  Eaglenest 'Eaglebeak'  then and  still did,  though now  the
tumbled ruins  were occupied  only by  spiders, snakes,  lizards, scorpions, and
snails. As Eaglebeak was said to be haunted, it was avoided.

It was a fine plan for a  night meeting and transfer of goods, and  to Eaglebeak
came Bourne, alone, on a good big  prancing horse that swished its tail for  the
sheer joy and pride of it. The  horse bore Bourne and a set of  soft saddlebags,
weighty and jingling.

Near the scrubby  acacia specified, he  drew rein and  glanced about at  a drear
pile and scatter  of building stones  and their broken  or crumbled pieces.  His
long cloak he doffed before he dismounted. Sliding off his horse, he stood clear
while he  unbuckled his  big weapons  belt. The  belt, with  sheathed sword  and
dagger, he hung on his saddle-horn. He removed the laden bags. Made them jingle.
Laid them on the  ground. Stepping clear of  horse and ransom, he  held his arms
well out from his body while he turned, slowly.

He  had shown  the ransom  and shown  himself unarmed.  Now a  pebble flew  from
somewhere to whack  a big chunk  of granite and  go skittering. At  that signal.
Bourne squatted and, on clear  ground in the moonlight, emptied  both saddlebags
in a clinking, chiming, shimmering,  glinting pile of silver coinage  amid which
gleamed a few gold disks. Laboriously and without happiness, Bourne clinked them
all back into the pouches of soft  leather, each the size of a nice  cushion. He
paced forward  to lay  them, clinking,  atop a  huge square  stone against which
leaned another. All as specified.

'Very good.' The voice,  male and young, came  out of the shadows  somewhere; no
valley floor  was so  jumbled with  stones as  this once-courtyard of Eaglebeak.
'Now get on your horse and ride back to Sanctuary.'

'I will not. You have something for me.'

'Walk over to the acacia tree, then, and look towards Sanctuary.'

'I will walk over  to the tree and  watch the saddlebags, thanks,  thief. If you
show up without that rod ...'

Bourne did that, and the  shadows seemed to cough up  a man, young and lean  and
darkly dressed. The crescent  moon was behind him  so that Bourne could  not see
his face.  The fellow  pounced lithely  atop a  stone, and  held high the stolen
Savankh.

'I see it.'

'Good. Walk back to your  horse, then. I will put  this down when I pick  up the
bags.'

Bourne hesitated, shrugged, and began ambling towards his horse. Hanse, thinking
that he was very clever indeed and wanting all that money in his hands,  dropped
from his granite dais and hurried to the bags. Sliding his right arm through the
connecting strap, he  laid down the  rod he carried  in his left.  That was when
Bourne turned around and charged. While he demonstrated how fast a big burly man
in mail-coat could move, he also showed what a dishonest rascal he was. Down his
back, inside his  mail-shirt, on a  thong attached to  the camel-hair torque  he
wore, was a sheath. As he charged, he drew a dagger long as his forearm.

His quarry saw  that the weight  of the silver  combined with Bourne's  momentum
made trying to  run not only  stupid, but suicidal.  Still, he was  young, and a
thief: supple,  clever, and  fast. Bourne  showed teeth,  thinking this  boy was
frozen with shock  and fear. Until  Hanse moved, fast  as the lizards  scuttling
among these great stones. The  saddlebags slam-jingled into Bourne's right  arm,
and the knife flew away while he was knocked half around. Hanse managed to  hang
on to his  own balance; he  bashed the Hell  Hound in the  back with his ransom.
Bourne fell  sprawling. Hanse  ran -  for Bourne's  horse. He  knew Bourne could
outrun him so long as he was laden  with the bags, and he was not about  to part
with them. In a few bounds, he gained a great rock and from there pounced on  to
the horse's back, just as he'd seen  others do. It was Hanse's first attempt  to
mount a horse. Inexperience and the  weight of his ransom carried him  right off
the other side.

In odd silence,  he rose, on  the far side  of the horse.  Not cursing as anyone
might expect. Here came  Bourne, and his fist  sprouted fifteen inches of  sharp
iron. Hanse drew Bourne's other dagger  from the sheath on the saddle  and threw
the small flat knife from his buckskin. Bourne went low and left, and the  knife
clattered  among  the  stumbled  stones of  Eaglebeak.  Bourne  kept  moving in,
attacking under the  horse. Hanse struck  at him with  his own dagger.  To avoid
losing his face. Bourne had to fall. Under the horse. Hanse failed to check  his
swipe, and his dagger nicked the inside of the horse's left hind leg.

The animal squealed, bucked, kicked, tried  to gallop. Ruins barred him, and  he
turned  back  just as  Bourne  rose. Hanse  was  moving away  fast,  hugging one
saddlebag to him and half-dragging the other. Bourne and his horse ran into each
other. One of them fell backwards  and the other reared, neighed, pranced  - and
stood still, as if stricken with guilt. The other, downed painfully in mail  for
the second time in  two minutes, cursed horse,  Hanse, luck, gods, and  himself.
And began getting up.

However badly  it had  been handled,  Bourne had  horse, sword,  and a few paces
away, the rod  of Rankan authority.  Hanse had more  silver than would  comprise
Bourne's retirement. Under its weight he could not hope to escape. He could drop
it and run or be overtaken.  Dragging sword from sheath. Bourne hoped  the roach
kept running. What fun to carve him for the next hour or so!

Hanse was working at a decision, too, but none of it fell out that way.  Perhaps
he should have done something about trying  to buy off a god or two;  perhaps he
should have taken better note of the well, this afternoon, and not run that  way
tonight. He discovered it too late. He fell in.

He was far less aware  of the fall than of  utter disorientation - and of  being
banged in every  part of his  body, again and  again, by the  sides of the well,
which were brick, and by the  saddlebags. When his elbow struck the  bricks, the
bags were  gone. Hanse  didn't notice  their splash;  he was  busy crashing into
something that wasn't water. And he was hurting.

The well's old wooden  platform of a cover  and sawhorse affair had  fallen down
inside, or  been so  hurled by  vandals or  ghosts. They  weren't afloat,  those
pieces of very  old, damp wood;  they were braced  across the well,  at a slant.
Hanse hit, hurt, scrabbled,  clung. His feet were  in water, and his  shins. The
wood creaked.  The well's  former cover  deflected the  head-sized stone  Bourne
hurled down. The fist-sized one he next threw struck the well's wall, bounced to
roll down Hanse's back, caught a moment at his belt, and dropped into the water.
The delay in his hearing the splash led Bourne to misconstrue the well's  depth.
Hanse clung and dangled. The water was cold.

In the  circle of  dim light  above, Hanse  saw Bourne's  helmeted head. Bourne,
peering down into a well, saw nothing.

'If you happen to  be alive, thief, keep  the saddlebags! No one  will ever find
you or them -  or the Savankh you  stole! You treacherously tricked  us all, you
see,  and fled  with both  ransom and  Savankh. Doubtless  I will  be chastised
severely by His pretty Highness - and once I'm in Ranke again, I'll be rewarded!
You have been a fool  and a tool, boy, because  I've friends back home in  Ranke
who will  be delighted  by the  way /  have brought  embarrassment and  shame on
Prince Kittycat!'

Hanse, hurting and scared  that the wood would  yield, played dead. Strange  how
cold water could be, forty feet down in a brick-walled shaft!

Grinning,  Bourne  walked over  and  picked up  the  Savankh, which  His  stupid
Highness would never see. He shoved it  into his belt. Stuck his sword into  the
ground. And began wrestling a huge stone  to drop, just in case, down the  well.
His horse whickered. Bourne, who had left his sword several feet away, froze. He
straightened and turned  to watch the  approach of two  helmeted men. They  bore
naked swords. One was a soldier. The other was - the Prince-Governor?!

'We thank you for letting us hear your confession. Bourne, traitor.'

Bourne moved. He gained  his sword. No slouch  and no fool, he  slashed the more
dangerous enemy. For an instant the soldier's mail held Bourne's blade. Then the
man crumpled. The  blade came free  and Bourne spun,  just in time  to catch the
prince's slash in the side. Never burly, K-adakithis had learned that he had  to
put everything he  had behind his  practice strokes just  so that his  opponents
would notice.  He did  that now,  so wildly  and viciously  that his  blade tore
several links of Bourne's mail-coat and relocated them in his flesh. Bourne made
an awful noise.  Horribly shocked and  knowing he was  hurt, he decided  it were
best to fly. He staggered as he ran, and the prince let him go.

Kadakithis picked up the fallen rod of authority and slapped it once against his
leather-clad leg. His heart beat unconscionably rapidly as he knelt to help  the
trusted man he'd brought with him. That was not necessary. In falling, the  poor
wight had smashed his head open on a  chunk of marble from a statue. Slain by  a
god.  Kadakithis glanced  after Bourne,  who had  vanished in  darkness and  the
ruins.

The Prince-Governor stood thinking.  At last he went  to the well. He  knelt and
called down into blackness.

'I am Prince Kadakithis. I have the wand. Perhaps I speak uselessly to one  dead
or dying. Perhaps not, in which case you may remain there and die slowly, or  be
drawn up to die under torture, or ... you can agree to help me in a little  plan
I have just devised. Well - speak up!'

No contemplation  was required  to convince  Hanse that  he would  go along with
anything that meant vacating the well  and seeing his next birthday. Who'd  have
thought  pretty Prince  Kittycat would  come out  here, and  helmeted, too!  He
wondered at the noises he had heard. And made reply. The wood creaked.

'You need promise only this,' Kadakithis  called down. 'Be silent until you  are
under torture. Suffer a little, then tell all.'

'Suffer? ... Torture?'

'Come, come,  you deserve  both. You'll  suffer only  a little  of what you have
coming. Don't, and betray these words, roach, and you will die out of hand.  No,
make that slowly. Nor will anyone believe you, anyhow.'

Hanse  knew that  he was  in over  his head,  both literally  and figuratively.
Hanging on to creaky old wood that was definitely rotting away by the second, he
agreed.

'I'll need help,' the prince called. 'Hang on.'

Hanse rolled his eyes and made an  ugly face. He hung on. He waited.  Daring not
to pull himself  up on to  the wood. His  shoulders burned. The  water seemed to
grow colder, and the cold  rose up in his legs.  He hung on. Sanctuary was  only
about a league away. He hoped Kitty - the prince - galloped. He hung on.  Though
the sun never came up and the  moon's position changed only a little, Hanse  was
sure that  a week  or two  passed. Cold,  dark, and  sore, those  weeks. Riches!
Wealth! Cudgel had told him that  revenge was a stupid luxury the  poor couldn't
afford!

Then His clever Highness was back, with several men of the night watch and a lot
of rope.  While they  hauled up  a bedraggled,  bruised Shadowspawn,  the prince
mentioned a call of nature and strolled away amid the clutter of big stones.  He
did not lift his tunic. He rf/rfpause on the other side of a pile of rubble.  He
gazed earthwards, upon a dead traitor, and slowly he smiled in satisfaction. His
first kill! Then Kadakithis began puking.

					*

Pitchy torches flickered to create weird, dancing shadows on stone walls grim as
death.  The walls  framed a  large room  strewn with  tables, chains,   needles,
pincers, gyves, ropes,  nails, shackles, hammers,  wooden wedges and  blocks and
splinters,  pliers,  fascinating  gags,  mouth-  and  tongue-stretchers, heating
irons, wheels, two  braziers, pulleys. Much  of this charming  paraphernalia was
stained dark here  and there. On  one of the  tables lay Hanse.  He was bruised,
cut, contused - and being stretched,  all in no more than his  breechclout. Also
present,  were  Prince  Kadakithis, his  bright-eyed  consort,  two severe  Hell
Hounds, his  oddly attired  old adviser,  and three  Sanctuarite nobles from the
council. And the palace smith. Massively constructed and black-nailed, he was an
imposing substitute for the torturer, who was ill.

He took up  a sledgehammer and  regarded it thoughtfully.  Milady Consort's eyes
brightened still more.  So did those  ofZalbar the Hell  Hound. Hanse discovered
that in his  present posture a  gulp turned his  Adam's apple into  a blade that
threatened to cut his throat from the inside.

The smith put down the hammer and took up a pair of long-handled pincers.

'Does he have to keep that there rag on his jewels, Yer Highness?'

'No need to torture him there,' Kadakithis said equably. He glanced at his wife,
who'd gone all trembly. ' Yet. Try a few less horrific measures. First.'

'Surely he isn't tall enough,' Zaibar said hopefully. He stood about six  inches
from the crank of the rack on which Hanse lay, taut.

'Well do something to him!' Milady snapped.

The smith surprised everyone. The movement was swift and the crack loud. He drew
back his whip  from a white  stripe across Hanse's  stomach. It went  pink, then
darker, and  began to  rise. The  smith raised  his brows  as if  impressed with
himself. Struck again, across the captive's chest. The whip cracked like a slack
sail caught in a  gust. Chains rattled and  Hanse's eyes and mouth  went wide. A
new welt began to rise.  The smith added one across  the tops of his thighs.  An
inch from the jewels, that. Milady Consort breathed through a mouth gone open.

'I don't like whippin'  a man,' the smith  said. 'Nor thisun either.  Think I'll
just ease this arm out of its socket and turn it around t'other way.'

'You needn't walk all the way  around to this side,' Zaibar rumbled.  'I'll turn
the crank.'

To the considerable disappointment of  Zaibar and Sanctuary's first lady,  Hanse
began to talk. He told them about  Bourne and Lirain. He could not tell  them of
Bourne's death, as he did not know of it.

'The Prince Governor of Sanctuary,' Kadakithis said, 'and representative of  the
Emperor of Ranke, is merciful  to one who tells him  of a plot. Release him  and
hold him here - without torture. Give him wine and food.'

'Damn!' Zaibar rumbled.

'Might I be getting back  to my wife now. Highness?  This job ain't no work  for
me, and I got all that anchor chain to work on tomorrow.'

Hanse, not caring who  released or guarded or  fed him, watched the  exit of the
royal party.

With Zaibar and Quag, the prince went to Lirain's apartment. 'Do you stay here,'
he said, and  took Quag's sword.  Neither Hell Hound  cared for that  and Zaibar
said so.

'Zaibar: I don't know if you had a big brother you hated or what, you're a  mean
hothead who really ought to be employed as royal wasp-killer. Now stand here and
shut up and wait for me.'

Zaibar came to attention. He and Quag waited, board-stiff save for a rolling  of
dark eyes, while their charge entered the chamber of his treacherous  concubine.
And closed the door. Zaibar was sure  that a week or two passed before  the door
opened and Kadakithis called them in. Quag's sword dripped in his hand.

The Hell Hounds hurried within and stopped short. Staring. Lirain lay not  dead,
but asleep, sprawled naked  and degagee on a  rumpled couch, obviously a  recent
participant in love-making. Naked beside her lay Bourne, not alive, and  freshly
bloodied.

'I've knocked  her unconscious,'  the Prince  said. 'Take  her down  to the less
comfortable bed so recently vacated by that  Hanse fellow, who is to be sent  to
my apartment.  Here, Quag  - oh.'  The prince  carefully wiped  Quag's sword  on
Lirain's  belly  and  thighs and  handed  it  to his  Hell  Hound.  Both guards,
impressed and  pleased, saluted.  And bowed  as well.  They looked passing happy
with their prince. Prince Kadakithis looked flagrantly happy with himself.

Attired in a soft tunic that proved a thief could be the size of a prince, Hanse
sipped wine from a goblet he wished he could conceal and carry off with him.  He
rolled his eyes to glance around this royal chamber for audiences most  private.
For that reason the door was open. By it sat a deaf woman plucking a lute.

'Both of us are overdue for sleep, Hanse. The day presses on to mid-morning.'

'I am ... more accustomed to night work than y - than His Highness.'

The prince laughed. 'So you are,  Shadowspawn! Amazing how many clever men  turn
to crime. Broke into the very palace! My very chamber! Enjoyed a royal concubine
too, eh?' He  sat gazing reflectively  at the thief,  very aware that  they were
nearly of an  age. Peasant and  prince; thief and  governor. 'Well, soon  Lirain
will be babbling her  head off, and all  will know there was  a plot - and  from
home at that! Also that she was dishonouring her royal master's bed with her  co
-conspirator.'

'And that His heroic Highness not only slew the son of a toad, but showed a true
noble ruler's mercy by sparing a thief,' Hanse said hopefully.

'Yes, Hanse. That is being put into  writing at this moment. Ah, and there  were
witnesses to everything! All of it!'

Hanse was overboldened to say, 'Except... Bourne's death, my lord prince.'

'Hoho! Would you like  to know about that,  Hanse? You know so  much already. We
have holds each on the other, you  and I. I killed Bourne up at  Eaglenest. With
one stroke,' Kadakithis added. After all, it had been his first.

Hanse stared.

'You do seem to be learning caution, Shadowspawn! I do hope you will accept  the
employment I'll soon be  offering you. You avoid  mentioning that when you  came
out of that well  you saw no corpse.  No; he tried to  flee and died a  few feet
away. The moment we returned here,  I drugged Lirain. Drank it herself;  thought
she was drinking poison! She has lain with no one this night. I arranged her  on
the couch. One  absolutely loyal  man  and I went  back and fetched   Bourne. My
lady wife and I  placed the corpse beside  Lirain. Along with a  bladder of  the
blood of a - appropriately! - pig. I thrust my sword into it before I called  in
Quag and Zaibar.'

Hanse continued to  stare. This saffron-haired  boy was clever'  enough to be  a
thief!  Hanse  bet he  was  dissembling still,  too;  doubtless a  favoured  rug
merchant had  aided in the bringing of Bourne's  corpse into the palace!

The prince saw his stare, read it. 'Perhaps I'm not Prince Kitty-cat after  all?
I will shortly have high respect in Sanctuary, and wide knowledge of the plot is
a weapon against  my enemies at  home. You are  a hero -  ah.' The prince nodded
towards the  doorway, beckoned.  An oldish  man entered  to hand  him a sheet of
parchment. It soon bore the  governor's signature and seal. The  secretary left.
Kadakithis handed the document to Hanse  with a small flourish and a  smile that
Hanse saw  was distinctly  royal. Hanse  glanced at  it -  very impressive - and
looked again at the prince.

'Oh,' Kadakithis said, and  no more; a prince  did not apologize to  a thief for
forgetting his lack of education.  'It says that by my  hand and in the name  of
the Emperor in Ranke, you are forgiven of all you may have done up to this  day,
Hanse. You aren't a quintuple murderer, are you?'

'I've never killed anyone, Highness.'

'I have! This very night - last night, rather!'

'Pardon, Highness, but killing's the business of them that rule, not thieves.'

Kadakithis looked long  and thoughtfully at  Hanse after that,  and would likely
quote Shadowspawn  long hence.  Hanse had  twice to  mention the  ransom at  the
bottom of the well.

'Ah! Forgot  that, didn't  I. It's  been a  bit busy  tonight - last night. I've
things to do. Hanse. A busy day ahead on no sleep and much excitement. I fear  I
can't be bothered thinking  about some coins someone  may have lost down  an old
well. If you can get it out,  do. And do return here to discuss  employment with
me.'

Hanse rose. He felt  the kinship between them  and was not comfortable  with it.
'That ... will  need some ...  some thinking, Prince-Governor,  sir. I mean  ...
work. And for you! Uh, yourself, that is - Your Highness. First I have to try to
get used to the fact that I can't hate you any more.'

'Well, Hanse, maybe  you can help  a few others  not to. I  could use the  help.
Unless you take it ill  of me to remind you  that half of salvage found  in this
demesne is the property of the government.'

Hanse began to wonder about the  possibility of transferring the few gold  coins
into one saddlebag. If he was able to  get the bags out of the well. That  would
take time, and help. And that  would require paying someone. Or cutting  someone
in ...

Hanse  left  the palace  wearing  a soft  new  tunic, eyes  narrowed.  Planning,
calculating. Plotting.

THE PRICE OF DOING BUSINESS
by Robert Lynn Asprin

Jubal  was  more powerful  than  he appeared.  Not  that his  form  conveyed any
softness or  weakness. If  anything, his  shiny ebony  skin stretched tight over
lithe, firm muscles  gave an immediate  impression of quick  strength, while his
scarred, severe facial features indicated a mind which would not hesitate to use
that strength to his own advantage.

Rather, it was his wealth and the shrewd mind that had accumulated it which gave
Jubal power above and beyond his iron muscles and razor-edged sword. His  money,
and the fierce entourage of sell-swords it had bought him made him a  formidable
force in the social order of Sanctuary.

Blood had been the price of his  freedom; great quantities of blood shed by  his
opponents in the gladiator pits of Ranke. Blood, too, had given him his start at
wealth:  seizing a  poorly guarded  slave caravan  for later  sale at  a sinful
profit.

Where others might be  content with modest gains,  Jubal continued to amass  his
fortune  with fanatic  intensity. He  had learned  a dear  lesson while  glaring
through hate-slitted  eyes at  the crowds  who cheered  his gory  pit victories:
swords and those who  wielded them were bought  and sold, and thus  accounted as
nothing in the minds  of Society. Money and  Power, not skill and  courage, were
what determined one's  standing in the  social order of  men. It was  fear which
determined who spat and who wiped in his world.

So Jubal stalked the world of  merchants as he had stalked the  pits, ruthlessly
pouncing on  each opportunity  and vulnerability  as he  had pitilessly cut down
crippled opponents in  the past. To  enter into a  deal with Jubal  was to match
wits with a mind trained to equate failure with death.

With this attitude, Jubal's concerns prospered and flourished in Sanctuary. With
the first of his profits,  he purchased one of the  old mansions to the west  of
town. There he resided like a bloated spider in a web, waiting for signs of  new
opportunities. His fangs were his sell-swords, who swaggered through the streets
of Sanctuary, their features disguised by blue hawk-masks. His web was a network
of informants, paid to pass the word of any incident, any business deal, or  any
shift in local politics, which might be of interest to their generous master.

Currently the network was humming with word of the cataclysm in town. The Rankan
prince and his new ideas were shaking the very roots of Sanctuary's economic and
social structure.

Jubal sat at the centre of his web and listened.

					*

After a while, the status reports all began to run together, forming one  boring
monotone.

Jubal slouched in his  throne-like chair staring vacantly  at one of the  room's
massive incense burners, bought in an unsuccessful attempt to counter the stench
carried  from Sanctuary  by the  easterly winds.  Still the  reports droned  on.
Things had been different when he was  just beginning. Then he had been able  to
personally manage the various facets of his growing enterprises. Now, he had  to
listen while others ... Something in the report caught his attention.

'Who did you kill?' he demanded.

'A blind,' Saliman repeated, blinking at the interruption. 'An informer who  was
not an informer. It was done to provide an example ... as you ordered.'

'Of course.' Jubal waved. 'Continue.'

He relied heavily on informants from the town for the data necessary to  conduct
his affairs. It was known that if  one sold false information to Jubal, one  was
apt to  be found  with a  slit throat  and a  copper piece  clenched between the
teeth. This was known  because it happened ...  frequently. What was not  widely
known was that if Jubal felt his informants needed an example to remind them  of
the penalty for selling fabrications, he would order his men to kill someone  at
random  and leave  the body  with the  marks of  a false  informer. His  actual
informers were not  targets for these  examples - good  informants were hard  to
find. Instead, someone would  be chosen who had  n;ver dealt with Jubal.  As his
informants did not know each other's identities, the example would work.

'... was  found this  morning.' Saliman  plodded on  in his  tireless recitation
voice. 'The coin was stolen by the person discovering the body, so there will be
no investigation. The thief will talk, though, so word will spread.'

'Yes, yes.' Jubal grimaced impatiently. 'Go on with another item.'

'There is some consternation  along the Avenue of  Temples over the new  shrines
being erected to Savankala and Sabellia -'

'Does it affect our operations?' Jubal interrupted.

'No,' Saliman admitted. 'But I thought you should know.'

'Now I know,' Jubal countered. 'Spare me the details. Next item.'

'Two of our men were refused service at the Vulgar Unicorn last night.'

'By who?' Jubal frowned.

'One-Thumb. He oversees the place evenings from -'

'I  know who  One-Thumb is!'  Jubal snapped.  'I also  know he's  never refused
service to any of my men as long  as they had gold and their manners were  good.
If he  moved against  two of  mine, it  was because  of their  own actions,  not
because he has ill feelings towards me. Next item.'

Saliman hesitated to reorganize his thoughts, then continued.

'Increased pressure from the prince's Hell Hounds has closed the wharves to  the
smugglers. It is rumoured they will be  forced to land their goods at the  Swamp
of Night Secrets as they did in the old days.'

'An inconvenience which will doubtless drive their prices up,' Jubal mused. 'How
well guarded are their landings?'

'It is not known.'

'Look into  it. If  there's a  chance we  can intercept  a few  shipments in the
Swamp, there'll be no reason to pay their inflated prices at the bazaar.'

'But if the smugglers lose shipments, they will raise their prices all the  more
to recover the loss.'

'Of course.' Jubal smiled. 'Which means  when we sell the stolen goods,  we will
be able to charge higher prices and still undercut the smugglers.'

'We shall investigate the possibility. But -'

'But what?' Jubal inquired, studying  his lieutenant's face. 'Out with  it, man.
Something's bothering you about my plan, and I want to know what it is.'

'I fear we  might encounter difficulty  with the Hell  Hounds,' Saliman blurted.
'If they have also  heard rumours of the  new landing sites, they  might plan an
ambush of their  own. Taking a  shipment away from  smugglers is one  thing, but
trying to take confiscated evidence away  from the Hell Hounds ... I'm  not sure
the men are up to it.'

'My men?  Afraid of  guardsmen?' Jubal's  expression darkened.  'I thought I was
paying good gold to have the finest swords in Sanctuary at my disposal.'

'The Hell Hounds are not  ordinary guardsmen,' Saliman protested. 'Nor  are they
from Sanctuary.  Before they  arrived, I  would have  said ours  were the finest
swords. Now ...'

'The Hell Hounds!'  Jubal snarled. 'It  seems all anyone  can talk about  is the
Hell Hounds.'

'And you should listen.' Saliman bristled. 'Forgive me, Jubal, but you  yourself
admit the men  you hire are  no newcomers to  battle. When they  speak of a  new
force  at  large in  Sanctuary,  you should  listen  instead of  decrying  their
judgement or abilities.'

For a moment,  a spark of  anger flared in  Jubal's eyes. Then  it died, and  he
leaned forward attentively in his chair.

'Very well, Saliman. I'm listening. Tell me about the Hell Hounds.'

'They ... they are unlike the guardsmen we see in Sanctuary, or even the average
soldier of the  Rankan army.' Saliman  explained, groping for  words. 'They were
handpicked from the Royal Elite Guard especially for this assignment.'

'Five men  to guard  a royal  prince.' Jubal  murmured thoughtfully.  'Yes, they
would have to be good.'

'That's right,'  Saliman confirmed  hurriedly. 'With  the entire  Rankan army to
choose from, these  five were selected  for their skill  at arms and  unswerving
loyalty to the empire. Since their  arrival in Sanctuary, every effort to  bribe
or assassinate them has ended in death for whoever attempted it.'

'You're right.' Jubal nodded. 'They could be a disruptive force. Still, they are
only men, and all men have weaknesses.'

He lapsed into thoughtful silence for several moments.

'Withdraw  a  thousand gold  pieces  from the  treasury,'  he ordered  at  last.
'Distribute it to the men to  spread around town, particularly to those  working
in the governor's palace. In exchange, I want information about the Hell Hounds,
individually  and collectively.  Listen especially  for word  of dissent  within
their  own ranks  ... anything  that could  be used  to turn  them against  each
other.'

'It shall  be done.'  Saliman responded,  bowing slightly.  'Do you  also wish a
magical investigation commissioned?'

Jubal hesitated. He had a warrior's dread of magicians and avoided them whenever
possible. Still, if the Hell Hounds constituted a large enough threat...

'Use the money for normal informants,'  he decided. 'If it becomes necessary  to
hire a magician, then I will personally -'

A sudden commotion at  the chamber's entry-way drew  the attention of both  men.
Two blue-masked figures appeared, dragging  a third between them. Despite  their
masks, Jubal recognized them as  Mor-Am and Moria, a brother-and-sister  team of
sell-swords in his employment. Their  apparent captive was an urchin,  garbed in
the dirty rags common to Sanctuary's street children. He couldn't have been more
than ten years of age, but the sizzling vindictives he screeched as he struggled
against his captors marked him as one knowledgeable beyond his years.

'We caught this gutter-rat on the grounds,' Mor-Am announced, ignoring the boy's
protests.

'Probably out to steal something,' his sister added.

'I wasn't stealing!' the boy cried, wrenching himself free.

'A Sanctuary street-rat who doesn't steal?' Jubal raised an eyebrow.

'Of course I steal!' the urchin spat. 'Everyone does. But that's not why I  came
here.'

'Then  why did  you come?'  Mor-Am demanded,  cuffing the  boy and  sending him
sprawling. 'To beg? To sell your body?'

'I have a message!' the boy bawled. 'For Jubal!'

'Enough, Mor-Am,' Jubal ordered, suddenly interested. 'Come here, boy.'

The urchin scrambled to  his feet, pausing only  to knuckle tears of  anger from
his eyes. He  shot a glare  of pure venom  at Mor-Am and  Moria, then approached
Jubal.

'What is your name, boy?' Jubal prompted.

'I - am called Mungo,' the urchin stammered, suddenly shy. 'Are you Jubal?'

'I am,' Jubal nodded. 'Well, Mungo, where is this message you have for me?'

'It... it's not written down,'  Mungo explained, casting a  hasty glance at Mor
Am. 'I was to tell you the message.'

'Very well, tell me,' Jubal urged,  growing impatient. 'And also tell me  who is
sending the message.'

'The message is from Hakiem,' the boy blurted. 'He bids me tell you that he  has
important information for sale.'

'Hakiem?' Jubal frowned.

The old storyteller! He  had often been of  service to Jubal when  people forgot
that he could listen as well as talk.

'Yes, Hakiem. He sells stories in the bazaar ...'

'I know, I know,' Jubal snapped. For some reason, today everyone thought he knew
nothing of the people  in town. 'What information  does he have for  me, and why
didn't he come himself?'

'I don't know  what the information  is. But it's  important. So important  that
Hakiem is in hiding, afraid for his life. He paid me to fetch you to him, for he
feels the information will be especially valuable to you.'

'Fetch me to him?' Jubal rumbled, his temper rising.

"One moment,  boy,' Saliman  interceded, speaking  for the  first time since his
report was interrupted. 'You say Hakiem paid you? How much?'

'A silver coin,' the boy announced proudly.

'Show it to us!' Saliman ordered.

The boy's hand disappeared within his rags. Then he hesitated.

'You won't take it from me, will you?' he asked warily.

'Show the coin!' Jubal roared.

Cowed by the sudden outburst, Mungo extended his fist and opened it, revealing.a
silver coin nestled in his palm.

Jubal's eyes  sought Saliman,  who raised  his eyebrows  in silent  surprise and
speculation. The fact the boy actually had a silver coin indicated many things.

First: Mungo was probably telling the truth. Street-rats rarely had more than  a
few coppers, so a silver coin would have had to come from an outside benefactor.
If the boy had stolen it, he would  himself be in hiding, gloating over his  ill
gotten wealth -not displaying it openly as he had just done.

Assuming the boy was telling the truth, then Hakiem's information must indeed be
valuable and the danger to him real. Hakiem was not the sort to give away silver
coins unless he were confident of recouping the loss and making a healthy profit
besides. Even then, he would save the expense and bring the information himself,
were he not truly afraid for his life.

All  this  flashed  through Jubal's  mind  as  he saw  the  coin,  and Saliman's
reactions confirmed his thoughts.

'Very well. We shall see what  information Hakiem has. Saliman, take Mor-Am  and
Moria and go with Mungo to find the storyteller. Bring him here and -'

'No!' the  boy cried,  interrupting. 'Hakiem  will only  give the information to
Jubal personally, and he is to come alone.'

'What?' Saliman exclaimed.

'This sounds like a trap!' Moria scowled.

Jubal waved them to silence  as he stared down at  the boy. It could be  a trap.
Then again, there could be another reason for Hakiem's request. The  information
might  involve  someone in  Jubal's  own force!  An  assassin ...  or  worse, an
informer!  That could  explain Hakiem's  reluctance to  come to  the mansion  in
person.

'I will go,'  Jubal said, rising  and sweeping the  room with his  eyes. 'Alone,
with Mungo. Saliman, I will require the use of your mask.'

'I want my knife back!' Mungo declared suddenly.

Jubal raised a questioning eyebrow at  Mor-Am, who flushed and produced a  short
dagger from his belt.

'We took it from  him when we caught  him,' the sell-sword explained.  'A safety
precaution. We had no intent to steal it.'

'Give it back,' Jubal laughed. 'I would not send my worst enemy into the streets
of Sanctuary unarmed.'

'Jubal,' Saliman murmured as he surrendered his hawk-mask. 'If this should be  a
trap ...'

Jubal dropped a hand to his sword hilt.

'If it is a trap,' he  smiled, 'they'll not find me  easy prey. I survived five
to-one odds and worse in the pits before I won my freedom.'

'But-'

'You are not to follow,' Jubal ordered sternly. 'Nor allow any other to  follow.
Anyone who disobeys will answer to me.'

Saliman drew a breath to answer, then saw the look in Jubal's eyes and nodded in
silent acceptance.

Jubal studied his guide covertly as they left the mansion and headed towards the
town. Though he had  not shown it openly,  he had been impressed  with the boy's
spirit during their brief encounter. Alone  and unarmed in the midst of  hostile
swords ...  men twice  Mungo's age  had been  known to  tremble and  grovel when
visiting Jubal at his mansion.

In  many ways,  the boy  reminded Jubal  of himself  as a  youth. Fighting  and
rebellious, with no parents but his pride and stubbornness to guide him, he  had
been bought from  the slave pens  by a gladiator  trainer with an  eye for cold,
spirited fighters. If he  had instead been purchased  by a gentle master  ... if
someone interceded in the dubious path Fate had chosen for Mungo ...

Jubal halted that  line of thought  with a grimace  as he realized  where it was
leading. Adopt the  boy into his  household? Ridiculous! Saliman  and the others
would think he  had gone soft  in his old  age. More important,  his competitors
would see it as a sign of weakness, an indication that Jubal could be reached by
sentimentality ...  that he  had a  heart. He  had risen  above his  own squalid
beginnings; the boy would just have to do the same!

The sun was4iigh  and staggering in  its heat as  Jubal followed the  boy's lead
into town. Sweat trickled in annoying rivulets from beneath his blue  hawk-mask,
but he was loath to acknowledge his discomfort by wiping them away. The  thought
of  removing  the mask  never  entered his  mind.  The masks  were  necessary to
disguise those in  his employment who  were wanted by  the law; to  complete the
camouflage, all must  wear them. To  exempt himself from  his own rule  would be
unthinkable.

In  an effort  to distract  himself from  his discomfort,  Jubal began  to peer
cautiously at the people about him as they approached the bazaar. Since they had
crossed the bridge and placed the  hovels of the Downwinders behind them,  there
was a marked improvement in the quality of clothes and manners of the citizenry.

His eye fell on a magician, and he wondered about the star tattooed on the man's
forehead. Then, too,  he noted that  the mage was  engaged in a  heated argument
with a brightly  garbed young bravo  who displayed numerous  knives, their hilts
protruding from arm-sheath, sash, and boot top in ominous warning.

'That's Lythande,' Mungo  informed him, noting  his interest. 'He's  a fraud. If
you're looking for a magician, there are better to be had ... cheaper.'

'You're  sure  he's  a  fraud?'  Jubal  asked,  amused  at  the  boy's analysis.

'If  he  were  a true  magician,  he  wouldn't have  to  carry  a sword,'  Mungo
countered, pointing to the weapon slung at the magician's side.

'A point well taken,' Jubal acknowledged. 'And the man he's arguing with?'

'Shadowspawn,' the  boy announced  loftily. 'A  thief. Used  to work with Cudget
Swearoath before the old fool got himself hung.'

'A  magician and  a thief,'  Jubal murmured  thoughtfully, glancing  at the  two
again. 'An interesting combination of talents.'

'Unlikely!'  Mungo scoffed.  'Whatever Shadowspawn's  last venture  was, it  was
profitable.  He's been  spending freely  and often,  so it's  unlikely he'll  be
looking for more work. My guess would be they're arguing over a woman. They each
fancy themselves to be a gift from the gods to womankind.'

'You seem to be well informed,'  Jubal commented, impressed anew with the  boy's
knowledge.

'One hears much in the streets.'  Mungo shrugged. 'The lower one's standing  is,
the more  important information  is for  survival... and  few are  lower than my
friends and I.'

Jubal pondered this as the boy led  the way past Shambles Cross. Perhaps he  had
overlooked a valuable  information source in  the street children  when he built
his network of informers. They probably  would not hear much, but there  were so
many of them. Together they might be enough to confirm or quash a rumour.

'Tell me, Mungo,' he called to his guide. 'You know I pay well for  information,
don't you?'

'Everyone knows that.' The urchin turned into the Maze and skipped lightly  over
a prone figure, not bothering to see if the man were asleep or dead.

'Then why is it that none of your friends come to me with their knowledge?'

Jubal stepped carefully over the obstacle and cast a wary glance about. Even  in
broad daylight, the Maze could be a dangerous place for a lone traveller.

'We street-rats are close,' Mungo explained over his shoulder. 'Even closer than
the bazaar people or  the S'danzo. Shared secrets  lose their value, so  we keep
them for ourselves.'

Jubal recognized the wisdom in the  urchin's policy, but it only heightened  his
resolve to recruit the children.

'Talk it over with your friends,' he urged. 'A full stomach can ... where are we
going?'

, They had  left the dank  Serpentine for an  alley so narrow  that Jubal had to
edge sideways to follow.

'To meet Hakiem,' Mungo called, not slackening his pace.

'But where is he?' Jubal pressed. 'I do not know this rat run.'

'If you knew it, it would not make a good hiding place.' The boy  laughed.'i.t's
just a little further.'

As he spoke, they emerged from the crawl-space into a small courtyard.

'We're here,' Mungo announced, coming to a halt in the centre of the yard.

'Where?' Jubal growled standing  beside him. 'There are  no doors or windows  in
these walls. Unless he is hiding in one of those refuse heaps ...'

He broke off his commentary as  the details of their surroundings sank  into his
mind. No doors or windows! The only  other way out of the courtyard was  another
crawl-space as  small as  that they  had just  traversed ...  except that it was
blocked by a pile of wooden cartons. They were in a cul-de-sac!

A sudden crash sounded  behind them, and Jubal  spun to face it,  his hand going
reflexively to his sword. Several wooden  boxes had fallen from the roof  of one
of the buildings, blocking the entrance.

'It's  a trap!'  he hissed,  backing towards  a corner,  his eyes  scanning the
rooftops.

There  was a  sudden impact  on his  back. He  staggered slightly,  then lashed
backwards with his sword, swinging blind. His blade encountered naught but  air,
and he turned to face his attacker.

Mungo danced lightly just out of  sword range, his eyes bright with  triumph and
glee.

'Mungo?' Jubal asked, knowing the answer.

He had been wounded often enough to recognize the growing numbness in his  upper
back. A rasp of pain  as he shifted his stance  told the rest of the  story. The
boy had planted his dagger in Jubal's back, and there it remained. In his mind's
eye, Jubal could see it protruding from his shoulder at an unnatural angle.

'I told you  we were close,'  Mungo taunted. 'Maybe  the big folk  are afraid of
you, but we aren't. You shouldn't have ordered Gambi's death.'

'Gambi?' Jubal frowned, weaving slightly. 'Who is Gambi?'

For a moment, the boy froze  in astonishment. Then his face contorted  with rage
and he spat.

'He was found this morning with his  throat cut and a copper coin in  his mouth.
Your trademark! Don't you even know who you kill?'

The blind! Jubal cursed himself for not listening closer to Sali-man's  reports.

'Gambi never sold you  any information,' Mungo shouted.  'He hated you for  what
your men did to his mother. You had no right to kill him as a false informer.'

'And Hakiem?' Jubal asked, stalling for time.

'We  guessed right  about that,  didn't we  - about  Hakiem being  one of  your
informers?' the  boy crowed.  'He's on  the big  wharf sleeping  off a drunk. We
pooled our money for the silver coin that drew you out from behind your guards.'

For some reason, this last taunt stung Jubal more than had the dagger thrust. He
drew himself erect,  ignoring the warm  liquid dripping down  his back from  the
knife wound, and glared down at the boy.

'I need  no guard  against the  likes of  you!' he  boomed. 'You  think you know
killing? A street-rat who stabs overhand with a knife? The next time you try  to
kill a man - if there is  another time - thrust underhand. Go between  the ribs,
not through them!  And bring friends  - one of  you isn't enough  to kill a real
man.'

'I brought friends!' Mungo laughed, pointing. 'Do you think they'll be enough?'

Jubal  risked a  glance over  his shoulder.  The gutter-rats  of Sanctuary  were
descending on the courtyard. Scores of them! Scrabbling over the wooden cases or
swarming down from the roofs like spiders. Children in rags - none of them  even
half Jubal's height, but with knives, rocks, and sharp sticks.

Another man might have broken before those hate-filled eyes. He might have tried
to beg or bribe his way out  of the trap, claiming ignorance of Gambi's  murder.
But this  was Jubal,  and his  eyes were  as cold  as his  sword as he faced his
tormentors.

'You claim you're doing  this to avenge one  death,' he sneered. 'How  many will
die trying to pull me down?'

'You  feel free  to kill  us one  at a  time, for  no reason,'  Mungo retorted,
circling wide to join the  pack. 'If some of us  die killing you, then at  least
the rest will be safe.'

'Only if you kill me,' Jubal  corrected. Without taking his eyes from  the pack,
he reached  his left  hand over  his right  shoulder, found  the knife hilt, and
wrenched it free. 'And for that, you'll need your knife back!'

Mungo saw the knife  coming as Jubal whipped  his left hand down  and across his
body, but he froze for a split second. In that split second, the knife took  him
full in the throat. The world blurred and he went down, not feeling the fall.

The pack surged forward, and Jubal went to meet them, his sword flashing in  the
sun as he desperately tried to win his way to the exit.

A  few fell  before his  first rush  - he  didn't know  how many  -but the  rest
scattered and closed about him from all sides. Sticks jabbed at his face  faster
than he could parry them, and he felt the touch of knives as small forms  darted
from behind him to slash and duck away.

Realization came to him that the harassment would bring him down before he could
clear the wooden cases; abandoning his charge, he paused, whirling and  cutting,
trying to  clear a  space around  him. The  urchins were  sharp-toothed, elusive
phantoms, disappearing from in front of him to worry him from behind. It flashed
through his mind that he was  going to die! The survivor of  countless gladiator
duels was going to meet his end at the hands of angry children!

The thought drove him to desperate action. With one last powerful cut, he  broke
off his efforts  at defence and  tried to sprint  for the wall  to get something
solid  at his  back. A  small girl  grabbed his  ankle and  clung with  all her
strength.  He  stumbled, nearly  falling,  and cut  downwards  viciously without
looking. His leg came free, but  another urchin leapt on to his  back. hammering
at his head with a rock.

Jubal lurched sideways, scraping  the child off along  the wall, then turned  to
face the pack. A  stick pierced his mask,  opening a gash in  his forehead which
began to drip blood in his  eyes. Temporarily blinded, he laid about  him wildly
with his sword, sometimes striking something solid, sometimes encountering  air.
A  rock  caromed  off his  head,  but  he was  past  feeling  and continued  his
sightless, mindless slashing.

Slowly  it  crept into  his  fogged brain  that  there was  a  new note  in  the
children's screams. At the same time, he realized that his sword had not  struck
a target for ten or fifteen swings now. Shaking his head to clear it, he focused
anew on the scene before him.

The courtyard was littered with small  bodies, their blood a bright contrast  to
their drab  rags. The  rest of  the pack  was in  full flight,  pursued over the
rubble piles by ...

Jubal sagged  against the  wall, fighting  for breath  and numb  from wounds too
numerous to count.  He watched as  his rescuer strode  to his side,  sheathing a
sword wet with fresh blood.

'Your ... your name?' he gasped.

'Zaibar,'  the  uniformed  figure  panted in  return.  'Bodyguard  to  His Royal
Highness, Prince Kadakithis. Your wounds ... are they...?'

'I've survived worse.' Jubal shrugged, wincing at the pain the movement caused.

'Very well.' the man nodded. 'Then I shall be on my way.'

'A moment,' Jubal asked, holding up a restraining hand. 'You have saved my  life
... a life I value quite highly. I owe you thanks and more, for you can't  spend
words. Name your reward.'

'That is not necessary,' Zaibar sniffed. 'It is my duty.'

'Duty or  not,' Jubal  argued, 'I  know no  other guardsman  who would enter the
Maze, much  less risk  his life  to save...  Did you  say a royal bodyguard: Are
you...'

'A Hell Hound,'  Zaibar finished with  a grim smile.  'Yes, I am.  And I promise
you, the day is not far off when we will not be the only guardsmen in the Maze.'

He turned to go, but Jubal stopped him again, removing the hawk-mask to mop  the
blood from his eyes.

'Wait!' he ordered. 'I have a proposal for you. I have need of men such as  you.
Whatever pay you receive from the Empire, I'll double it... as well as adding  a
bonus for your work today. What say you?'

There was no answer. Jubal squinted to  get the Hell Hound's face in focus,  and
found the man was staring at him in frozen recognition.

'You are Jubal!' Zatbar said in a tone that was more statement than question.

'I am,' Jubal nodded. 'If you know  that, you must also know that there  is none
in Sanctuary who pays higher than I for services rendered.'

'I know your  reputation,' the Hell  Hound acknowledged coldly.  'Knowing what I
do, I would not work for you at any price.'

The rebuff was obvious, but Jubal  chose to ignore it. Instead, he  attempted to
make light of the comment.

'But you already have,' he pointed out. 'You saved my life.'

'I saved a citizen from a pack of street-rats,' Zaibar countered.

'As I said before, it's my duty to my prince.'

'But-' Jubal began.

'Had I known your identity sooner,' the Hell Hound continued, 'I might have been
tempted to delay my rescue.'                l

This time, the  slight could not  be ignored. More  puzzled ' than  angry, Jubal
studied his opponent.

'I sense you are trying to provoke a fight. Did you save me, then, to wreak some
vengeance of your own?'

'In my position, I cannot and will not engage in petty brawls,' Zaibar  growled.
'I fight only to defend myself or the citizens of the empire.'

'And I will not knowingly  raise a sword against one  who has saved my life  ...
save in self-defence,' Jubal  retorted. 'It would seem,  then, that we will  not
fight each other.  Still, it seems  you hold some  grudge against me.  May I ask
what it is?'

'It is  the grudge  I hold  against any  man who  reaps the  benefits of  Rankan
citizenship while accepting none of the responsibility,' the Hell Hound sneered.
'Not only  do you  not serve  the empire  that shelters  you, you  undermine its
strength  by openly  flaunting your  disrespect for  its laws  in your  business
dealings.'

'What do you know of my business dealings that allows you to make such  sweeping
judgements?' Jubal challenged.

'I know you  make your money  in ways decent  men would shun,'  Zaibar retorted.
'You deal in slaves and  drugs and other high-profit, low-moral  commodities ...
but most of all, you deal in death.'

'A professional soldier condemns me for dealing in death?' Jubal smiled.

The Hell  Hound flushed  red at  the barb.  'Yes. I  also deal  in death.  But a
soldier such as myself fights for the good of the empire, not for selfish  gain.
I lost a brother and several friends in the mountain campaigns fighting for  the
empire ... for the freedoms you and your kind abuse.'

'Imagine that,' Jubal mused. 'The whole  Rankan army defending us against a  few
scattered mountain tribes. Why, if you  and your friends hadn't been there,  the
Highlanders certainly would  have swept down  out of the  mountains they haven't
left for generations and murdered us all in our sleep. How silly of me to  think
it was the empire trying to extend  its influence into one more place it  wasn't
wanted.  I should  have realized  it was  only trying  to defend  itself from  a
ferocious attacker.'

Zaibar swayed forwards, his hand going  to his sword hilt. Then He  regained his
composure and hardened his features.

'I am done talking  to you. You can't  understand the minds of  decent men, much
less their words.'

He turned to go, but somehow Jubal was in his path - on his feet now, though  he
swayed from the effort. Though the  soldier was taller by a head,  Jubal's anger
increased his stature to where it was Zaibar who gave ground.

'If you're done talking.  Hell Hound, then it's  time I had my  say,' he hissed.
'It's true I make money from  distasteful merchandise. I wouldn't be able  to do
that if your "decent men" weren't willing  to pay a hefty price for it.  I don't
sell my goods at sword  point. They come to me  - so many of them,  I can't fill
the demand through normal channels.'

He turned to gesture at the corpse-littered courtyard.

'It's also true I  deal in death,' he  snarled. 'Your benevolent Rankan  masters
taught me the trade in the gladiator pits of the capital. I dealt in death  then
for the cheers of those same "decent men" you admire so.

'Those "decent men" allowed me no place in their "decent" society after I won my
freedom, so I  came to Sanctuary.  Now I still  deal in death,  for that is  the
price of doing business here - a price I almost paid today.'

For a fleeting moment,  something akin to sympathy  flashed in the Hell  Hound's
eyes as he shook his head.

'You're wrong, Jubal,' he said quietly. 'You've already paid the price for doing
business in  Sanctuary. It  isn't your  life, it's  your soul...  your humanity.
You've exchanged it for gold, and in my opinion, it was a poor bargain.'

Their eyes met, and  it was Jubal who  averted his gaze first,  unsettled by the
Hell Hound's words. Looking away, his glance fell on the body of Mungo - the boy
he had admired and thought of bringing  into his household - the boy whose  life
he had wanted to change. When he turned again, the Hell Hound was gone.

BLOOD BROTHERS
by Joe Haldeman

Smiling, bowing as the guests leave. A good luncheon, much reassuring talk  from
the gentry assembled: the economy of Sanctuary is basically sound. Thank you, my
new cook ... he's from Twand, isn't  he a marvel? The host appears to  be rather
in need of a new diet than  anew cook, though the heavy brocades he  affects may
make him look stouter than he  actually is. Good leave ... certainly,  tomorrow.
Tell your aunt I'm thinking of her.

You will stay, of course, Amar. One departing guest raises an eyebrow  slightly,
our host a boy-loveri We do have business.

Enoir, you may release the servants  until dawn. Give yourself : a  free evening
as well. We  will be dining  in the city.  •   And thank  you for the  excellent
service. Here.

He laughs. Don't thank me. Just don't spend it all on one woman. As the servant
master  leaves,  our  host's  bluff  expression  I  fades  to  one  of  absolute
neutrality. He listens  to the servant-master's  progress down the  stone steps,
overhears  him  dismissing the  servants.  Turns and  gestures  to the  pile  of
cushions by the huge  fireplace. The smell of  winter's ashes masked by  incense
fumes.

I have a good wine, Amar. Be seated while I fetch it.

Were you comfortable with our guests?

Merchants, indeed. But one does learn from other classes, don't you agree?

He returns with two goblets of wine  so purple it is almost black. He  sets both
goblets in front  of Amar: choose.  Even closest friends  follow this ritual  in
Sanctuary, where  poisoning is  art, sport,  profession. Yes,  it was the colour
that intrigued me. Good fortune.

No, it's from a grove in the mountains, east of Syr. Kalos or something; I could
never get my tongue  around their barbaric ...  yes. A good dessert  wine. Would
you care for a pipe?

Enoir returns, jingling his bell as he walks up the steps.

That will be all for today, thank you ...

No, I don't want the hounds fed. Better sport Ilsday if they're famished. We can
live with their whimpering.

The heavy front door creaks shut behind the servant-master. You don't? You would
not be the only noble  in attendance. Let your beard  grow a day or two,  borrow
some rag from a servant...

Well, there are two schools of  thinking. Hungry dogs are weaker but  fight with
desperation. And if your dogs aren't fed  for a week, there's a week they  can't
be poisoned by the other teams.

Oh, it does happen - I think it happened to me once. Not a killing poison,  just
one that makes them listless, uncompetitive. Perhaps a spell. Poison's cheaper.

He drinks deeply, then  sets the goblet carefully  on the floor. He  crosses the
room and mounts a step and peers through a slot window cut in the deep wall.

I'm sure we're alone now. Drink up; I'll fetch the krrf. He is gone/or less than
a minute, and returns with a heavy brick wrapped in soft leather.

Caronne's finest, pure black, unadulterated. He unfolds the package: ebony block
embossed all over its surface with a foreign seal. Try some?

He nods. 'A wise vintner who avoids his wares.' You have the gold?

He weighs the bag in his hand. This is not enough. Not by half.

He listens and hands back the gold.  Be reasonable. If you feel you can't  trust
my assay, take a small amount back to Ranke; have anyone test it. Then bring  me
the price we established.

The other man suddenly  stands and claws at  his falchion, but it  barely clears
its sheath, then clatters on the marble floor. He falls to his hands and  knees,
trembling, stutters a few words, and collapses.

No, not  a spell,  though nearly  as swift,  don't you  think? That's the virtue
ofcoadjutant poisons. The first ingredient you had along with everyone else,  in
the sauce for the sweetmeats. Everyone but me. The second part was in the  wine,
part of its sweetness.

He runs his thumbnail along the block, collecting a pinch of krrf, which he rubs
between thumb and forefinger and then sniffs. You really should try it. It makes
you feel young and brave. But then you are young and brave, aren't you.

He carefully wraps the krrf up and  retrieves the gold. Excuse me. I have  to go
change. At the door  he hesitates. The poison  is not fatal; it  only leaves you
paralysed for a while. Surgeons use it.

The man stares at the  floor for a long time.  He is conscious of drooling,  and
other loss of control.

When the host returns, he is barely recognizable. Instead of the gaudy robe,  he
wears a  patched and  stained houppelande  with a  rope for  a belt. The pomaded
white mane is  gone: his bald  scalp is creased  with a webbed  old scar from  a
swordstroke. His left  thumb is missing  from the second  joint. He smiles,  and
shows almost as much gap as tooth.

I am going to treat  you kindly. There are some  who would pay well to  use your
helpless body, and they would kill you afterwards.

He  undresses the  limp man,  clucking, and  again compliments  himself for  his
charity,  and  the man  for  his well-kept  youth.  He lifts  the  grate in  the
fireplace and  drops the  garment down  the shaft  that serves  for disposal  of
ashes.

In another part of town, I'm known as One-Thumb; here, I cover the stump with  a
taxidermist's  imitation. Convincing,  isn't it?  He lifts  the man  easily and
carries him  through the  main door.  No fault  of yours,  of course, but you're
distantly related to  the magistrate who  had my thumb  off. The barking  of the
dogs grows louder as they descend the stairs.

Here we  are. He  pushes open  the door  to the  kennels. The  barking quiets to
pleading whines. Ten fighting hounds, each in an individual run, up against  its
feeding trough, slavering politely, yawning grey sharp fangs.,

We have to feed them separately, of course. So they don't hurt each other.

At the far end of the room is a wooden slab at waist-level, with channels cut in
its  surface leading  to hanging  buckets. On  the wall  above it,  a rack  with
knives, cleavers, and a saw.

He deposits the mute staring man on the slab and selects a heavy cleaver.

I'm sorry, Amar. I have to start with the feet. Otherwise it's a terrible mess.

There are philosophers who argue that there  is no such thing as evil qua  evil:
that,   discounting  spells   (which  of   course  relieve   an  individual   of
responsibility), when a man commits an  evil deed he is the victim  himself, the
slave  of  his progeniture  and  nurturing. Such  philosophers  might profit  by
studying Sanctuary.

Sanctuary is a seaport, and  its name goes back to  a time when it provided  the
only armed haven along an important  caravan route. But the long war  ended, the
caravans  abandoned that  route for  a shorter  one, and  Sanctuary declined  in
status -  but not  in population,  because for  every honest  person who left to
pursue a normal life elsewhere, a rogue drifted in to pursue his normal life.

Now, Sanctuary is  still appropriately named,  but as a  haven for the  lawless.
Most of them, and  the worst of them,  are concentrated in that  section of town
known as the Maze, a labyrinth  of streets and nameless alleys and  no churches.
There is communion, though, of a rough kind, and much of it goes on in a  tavern
named the  Vulgar Unicorn,  which features  a sign  in the  shape of that animal
improbably engaging itself, and is owned by the man who usually tends bar on the
late shift, an ugly sort of fellow by the name of One-Thumb.

One-Thumb finished feeding the dogs, hosed  the place down, and left his  estate
by way of a long tunnel, that led from his private rooms to the basement of  the
Lily Garden, a respectable whorehouse a few blocks from the Maze.

He climbed the long steps up from the basement and was greeted by a huge  eunuch
with a heavy glaive balanced insolently over his shoulder.

'Early today, One-Thumb.'

'Sometimes I like to check on the help at the Unicom.'

'Surprise inspection?'

'Something like that. Is your mistress in?'

'Sleeping. You want a wench?'

'No, just business.'

The eunuch inclined his head. 'That's business.'

'Tell her I have what she asked for, and more, if she can afford it. When  she's
free. If I'm not at the Unicorn, I'll leave word as to where we can meet.'

'I know what it is,' the eunuch said in a singsong voice. 'Instant  maidenhead.'
One-Thumb  hefted  the  leather-wrapped brick.  'One  pinch,  properly inserted,
turns.you into a girl again.'

The eunuch rolled his eyes. 'An improvement over the old method.'

One-Thumb laughed along with  him. 'I could spare  a pinch or so,  if you'd care
for it.'

'Oh ... not on duty.' He leaned the sword against the wall and found a square of
parchment in his  money-belt. 'I  could save  it for  my off  time, though.' One
Thumb  gave him  a pinch.  He stared  at it  before folding  it up.  'Black ...
Caronne?'

'The best.'

'You have that much of it.' He didn't reach towards his weapon. One-Thumb's free
hand rested on the pommel of his rapier. 'For sale, twenty grimales.'

'A man with no scruples would  kill you for it.' Gap-toothed smile.  'I'm doubly
safe with you, then.' The eunuch nodded and tucked away the krrf, then retrieved
the broadsword. 'Safe with anyone not a stranger.' Everyone in the Maze knew  of
the curse that One-Thumb expensively maintained to protect his life: if he  were
killed, his murderer would never die, but live forever in helpless agony:

		Burn as the stars burn;
		Burn on after they die.
		Never to the peace of ashes.
		Out of sight and succour
		From men or gods or ghost:
		To the ends of time, burn.

One-Thumb himself suspected that the spell  would only be effective for as  long
as the sorcerer who  cast it lived, but  that was immaterial. The  reputation of
the sorcerer, Mizraith,  as well as  the severity of  the spell, kept  blades in
sheaths and poison out of his food.

'I'll pass the message on. Many thanks.'

'Better mix it  with snuff, you  know. Very strong.'  One-Thumb parted a  velvet
curtain and  passed through  the foyer,  exchanging greetings  with some  of the
women  who  lounged  there in  soft  veils  (the cut  and  colour  of the  veils
advertised price, and in some cases, curious specialties), and stepped out  into
the waning light of the end of day.

The afternoon had been an interesting  array of sensations for a man  whose nose
was as refined as it was large.  First the banquet, with all its aromatic  Twand
delicacies, then the good  rare wine with a  delicate tang of half-poison,  then
the astringent krrf sting, the rich  charnel smell of butchery, the musty  sweat
of  the tunnel's  rock walls,  perfume and  incense in  the foyer,  and now  the
familiar  stink of  the street.  As he  walked through  the gate  into the  city
proper, he could tell the wind  was westering; the earthy smell from  the animal
pens had a  slight advantage over  the tanners' vats  of rotting urine.  He even
sorted out  the delicate  cucumber fragrance  of freshly  butchered fish, like a
whisper in a jabbering crowd; not many snouts had such powers of discrimination.
As ever, he enjoyed the first few minutes within the city walls, before the reek
stunned even his nose to dullness.

Most of the stalls in the Farmer's Market were shuttered now, but he was able to
trade two  coppers for  a fresh  melon, which  he peeled  as he  walked into the
bazaar, the krrf inconspicuous under his arm.

He haggled for  a while with  a coppersmith, new  to the bazaar,  for a brace of
lamps to replace the ones that had  been stolen from the Unicorn last night.  He
would send one of  his urchins around to  pick them up. He  watched the acrobats
for a while, then went to the various wine merchants for bids on the next week's
ordinaries. He ordered a hundredweight of  salt meat, sliced into snacks, to  be
delivered that night, and  checked the guild hall  of the mercenaries to  find a
hall guard more sober than the one who had allowed the lamps to be stolen.  Then
he  went down  to the  Wideway and  had an  early dinner  of raw  fish and  crab
fritters. Fortified, he entered the Maze.

As the eunuch had said, One-Thumb had nothing to fear from the regular  denizens
of the Maze. Desperadoes who would disembowel children for sport (a sport  sadly
declining since  the introduction  of a  foolproof herbal  abortifacient) tipped
their hats respectfully, or stayed out of his way. Still, he was careful.  There
were always strangers, often hot to prove themselves, or desperate for the price
of bread  or wine;  and although  One-Thumb was  a formidable  opponent with  or
without his rapier, he knew he  looked rather like an overweight merchant  whose
ugliness interfered with his trade.

He also knew evil  well, from the yiside,  which is why he  dressed shabbily and
displayed no outward sign of wealth. Not to prevent violence, since he knew  the
poor were more  often victims than  the rich, but  to restrict the  class of his
possible opponents to  those who would  kill for coppers.  They generally lacked
skill.

On the way to  the Unicorn, on Serpentine,  a man with the  conspicuously casual
air of a beginner pickpocket fell  in behind him. One-Thumb knew that  the alley
was coming up and would be in deep shadow, and it had a hiding-niche a few paces
inside. He turned into the alley and, drawing the dagger from his boot,  slipped
into the niche and set the krrf between his feet.

The man did follow, proof enough,  and when his steps faltered at  the darkness,
One-Thumb spun out of the niche behind him, clamped a strong hand over his mouth
and nose, and methodically slammed the  stiletto into his back, time and  again,
aiming for kidneys. When the man's knees buckled, One-Thumb let him down slowly,
slitting his throat for silence. He took  the money-belt and a bag of coin  from
the still-twitching body, cleaned and  replaced his dagger, picked up  the krrf,
and resumed his stroll down the Serpentine. There were a few bright spatters  of
blood on his  houppelande, but no  one on that  street would be  troubled by it.
Sometimes  guardsmen came  through, but  not to  harass the  good citizens  nor
criticize their quaint customs.

Two in one day, he thought; it had been a year or more since the last time  that
happened. He felt vaguely good about it,  though neither man had been much of  a
challenge. The cutpurse was  a clumsy amateur and  the young noble from  Ranke a
trusting fool (whose assassination had been commissioned by one of his  father's
ministers).

He came up the street south of the Vulgar Unicorn's entrance and let himself  in
the back door. He  glanced at the inventory  in the storeroom and  noted that it
must have been a slow day, and went through to his office. He locked up the krrf
in a strongbox and then poured himself a small glass of lemony aperitif, and sat
down at the one-way mirror that allowed him to watch the bar unseen.

For an hour  he watched money  and drink change  hands. The bar-tender,  who had
been the cook aboard a pirate vessel until he'd lost a leg, seemed good with the
customers and reasonably honest,  though he gave short  measures to some of  the
more intoxicated patrons  - probably not  out of concern  for their welfare.  He
started to pour a  third glass of the  liqueur and saw Amoli,  the Lily Garden's
mistress, come into the place, along  with the eunuch and another bodyguard.  He
went out to meet them.

'Wine over  here,' he  said to  a serving  wench, and  escorted the  three to  a
curtained-off table.

Amoli was almost beautiful, though she was scarcely younger than One-Thumb, in a
trade that  normally aged  one rapidly.  She came  to the  point at once: 'Kalem
tells me you have twenty grimales of Caronne for sale.'

'Prime and pure.'

That's a rare amount.' One-Thumb nodded. 'Where, may I ask, did it come from?'

'I'd rather not say.'

'You'd better say. I had a twenty-grimale block in my bedroom safe. Yesterday it
was stolen.'

One-Thumb didn't move or change expression. 'That's an interesting coincidence.'

She snorted. They sat without speaking while a pitcher of wine and four  glasses
were slipped through the curtain.

'Of course I'm not accusing you of theft,' she said. 'But you can understand why
I'm interested in the person you bought it from.'

'In  the first  place, I  didn't buy  it. In  the second,  it didn't  come from
Sanctuary.'

'I can't afford riddles, One-Thumb. Who was it?'

'That has to remain secret. It involves a murder.'

'You might be involved in another,' she said tightly.

One-Thumb slowly reached down and brought out his dagger. The bodyguards tensed.
He smiled, and  pushed it across  the table to  Amoli. 'Go ahead,  kill me. What
happens to you will be rather worse than going without krrf.'

'Oh -'  She knocked  the knife  back to  him. 'My  temper is short nowadays. I'm
sorry. But the krrf's not just for me; most of my women use it, and take part of
their pay in  it, which is  why I like  to buy in  large amounts.' One-Thumb was
pouring the wine;  he nodded. 'Do   you have any   idea how much   of my capital
was tied up  in that block?'

He replaced the half-full glasses on the round serving tray and gave it a  spin.
'Half?'

'And half again of  that. I will get  it back, One-Thumb!' She  selected a glass
and drank.

'I hope you do. But it can't be the same block.'

'Let me judge that - have you had it for more than two days?'

'No, but it must have  left Ranke more than a  week ago. It came on  the Anenday
caravan. Hidden inside a cheese.'

'You can't know for sure that it was on the caravan all the time. It could  have
been waiting here until the caravan came.'

'I can hear your logic straining, Amoli.'

'But not  without reason.  How often  have you  seen a  block as large as twenty
grimales!'

'Only this time,' he admitted.

'And  is a  pressed design  stamped all  over it  uniformly, an  eagle within  a
circle?'

'It is. But that only means a common supplier, his mark.'

'Still, I think you owe me information.'

One-Thumb sipped his wine. 'All right. I know I can trust the eunuch. What about
the other?'

'I had a vassal spell laid on him  when I bought him. Besides ... show him  your
tongue, Gage.' The slave opened his mouth and showed pink scar tissue nested  in
bad teeth. 'He can neither speak nor write.'

'We make  an interesting  table,' he  said. 'Missing  thumb, tongue, and tamale.
What are you missing, Amoli?'

'Heart. And a block of krrf.'

'All right.' He drank off the rest of his small glass and refilled it. 'There is
a man  high in  the court  of Ranke,  old and  soon to  die. His  son, who would
inherit  his  title,  is   slothful,  incompetent,  dishonest.  The   old  man's
counsellors would rather the  daughter succeed; she is  not only more able,  but
easier for them to control.'

'I think I know the family you speak of,' Amoli said.

'When I was in Ranke on other business, one of the counsellors got in touch with
me,  and commissioned  me to  dispose of  this young  pigeon, but  to do  it in
Sanctuary. The twenty grimales was my pay, and also the goad, the bait. The  boy
is no addict, but he is greedy, and  the price of krrf is three times higher  in
the court of Ranke than  it is in the Maze.  It was arranged for me  to befriend
him and, eventually, offer to be his wholesaler.

'The counsellor procured the krrf from Caronne and sent word to me. I sent  back
a tempting  offer to  the boy.  He contrived  to make  the journey to Sanctuary,
supposedly  to  be  introduced  to   the  Emperor's  brother.  He'll  miss   the
appointment.'

'That's his blood on your sleeve?' the eunuch asked.

'Nothing so direct;  that was another  matter. When he's  supposed to be  at the
palace tomorrow,  he'll be  floating in  the harbour,  disguised as  the shit of
dogs.'

'So you got the krrf and the boy's money as well,' Amoli said.

'Half the money. He tried to croy  me.' He refilled the woman's glass. 'But  you
see. There can be no connection.'

'I believe there may be. Anenday was when mine disappeared.'

'Did you keep it wrapped in a cheese?'

She ignored that. 'Who delivered yours?'

'Marype, the youngest  son of my  sorcerer Mizraith. He  does all of  my caravan
deliveries.'

The eunuch and Amoli exchanged glances. "That's it! It was from Marype I  bought
the block. Not two  hours after the caravan  came in.' Her face  was growing red
with fury.

One-Thumb drummed his fingers on the table. 'I didn't yet mine till evening,' he
admitted.

'Sorcery?'

'Or  some more  worldly form  of trickery,'  One-Thumb said  slowly. 'Marype  is
studying his father's trade,  but I don't think  he's adept enough to  transport
material objects ... could your krrf have been an illusion?'

'It was no illusion. I tried a pinch.'

'Do you recall from what part of the block you took it?'

'The bottom edge, near one corner.'

'Well, we can settle  one thing,' he said,  standing. 'Let's check mine  in that
spot.'

She bade the bodyguards stay, and followed One-Thumb. At the door to his office,
while he was trying to make the key  work, she took his arm and moved softly  up
against him. 'You  never tarry at  my place any  more. Are you  keeping your own
woman, out at the estate? Did we do something -'

'You can't have all my secrets, woman.' In fact, for more than a year he had not
taken a woman normally, but needed the starch of rape. This was the only part of
his evil life  that shamed him,  and certainly not  because of the  women he had
hurt and twice killed. He dreaded  weakness more than death, and wondered  which
part would fail him next.

Amoli idly  looked through  the one-way  mirror while  One-Thumb attended to the
strongbox. She turned when she heard him gasp.

'Gods!' The leather wrapping lay limp and empty on the floor of the box.

They both stared for a moment. 'Does Marype have his father's protection?' Amoli
asked.

One-Thumb shook his head. 'It was the father that did this.'

Sorcerers are  not omnipotent.  They can  be bargained  with. They  can even  be
killed, with  stealth and  surprise. And  spells cannot  normally be  maintained
without effort;  a good  sorcerer might  hold six  or a  dozen at  once. It  was
Mizraith's fame that he  maintained past a hundred,  although it was well  known
that he did this by casting secondary spells on lesser'sorcerers, tapping  their
power unbeknownst.  Still, gathering  all these  strings and  holding them, ' as
well as the direct spells that protected his life and fortune, used most of  his
concentration, giving him a distracted  air. The unwary might interpret  this as
senility - a  half-century without sleep  had left its  mark - and  might toy to
take his purse or life, as their last act.

But Mizraith was rarely seen on the streets, and certainly never near the  noise
and  smell of  the Maze.  He normally  kept to  his opulent  apartments in  the
easternmost part of town, flanked by the inns of Wideway, overlooking the sea.

One-Thumb warned the pirate cook that he might have to take a double shift,  and
took a bottle of finest brandy to  give to Mizraith, and a skin of  the ordinary
kind to keep up their courage as they went to face the man who guarded his life.
The  emptied  skin joined  the  harbour's flotsam  before  they'd gone  half  of
Wideway, and they continued in grim silence.

Mizraith's eldest son let  them in, not seeming  surprised at their visit.  'The
bodyguards stay here,' he said, and made  a pass with one hand. 'You'll want  to
leave all your iron here, as well.'

One-Thumb felt the  dagger next to  his ankle grow  warm; he tossed  it away and
also dropped  his rapier  and the  dagger sheathed  to his  forearm. There was a
similar scattering of weapons from the other three. Amoli turned to the wall and
reached inside  her  skirts, inside  herself,  to retrieve  the  ultimate birth
control device, a sort of diaphragm with a spring-loaded razor attached (no  one
would  have her  without paying  in some  coin). The  hardware glowed  dull red
briefly, then cooled.

'Is Marype at home?' One-Thumb asked.

'He was, briefly,' the older brother said. 'You came to see Father, though.'  He
turned to lead them up a winding flight of stairs.

Velvet and silk embroidered in arcane patterns. A golden samovar bubbling softly
in the  corner; flower-scented  tea. A  naked girl,  barely ofchildbearing  age,
sitting cross-legged by the samovar,  staring. A bodyguard much larger  than the
ones downstairs, but slightly transparent.  In the middle of this  sat Mizraith,
on a pile  of pillows, or  maybe of gold,  bright eyes in  dark hollows, smiling
open-mouthed at something unseeable.

The brother  left them  there. Magician,  guardian, and  girl all  ignored them.
'Mizraith?' One-Thumb said.

The sorcerer slowly brought his eyes to bear on him and Amoli.

'I've been waiting for you, Lastel, or what is your name in the Maze,  One-Thumb
... I could grow that back for you, you know.'

'I get along well enough -'

'And you brought  me presents! A  bottle and a  bauble - more  my age than  this
sweetmeat.' He made a grotesque face at the naked girl and winked.

'No, Mizraith,  this woman  and I,  we both  believe we've  been wronged by you.
Cheated and stolen from,' he said boldly, but his voice shook. 'The bottle is  a
gift.'

The bodyguard moved towards them, its steps making no noise. 'Hold, spirit.'  It
stopped, glaring. 'Bring that bottle here.'

As One-Thumb  and Amoli  walked towards  Mizraith, a  low table  materialized in
front of him, then three glasses. 'You may serve, Lastel.' Nothing had moved but
his head.

One-Thumb poured each glass  full; one of them  rose a handspan above  the table
and drained itself, then disappeared.  'Very good. Thank you. Cheated,  now? My,
oh my. Stolen? Hee. What could you have that I need?'

'It's only we  who need it,  Mizraith, and I  don't know why  you would want  to
cheat  us out  of it  - especially  me. You  can't have  many commissions  more
lucrative than mine.'

'You might be surprised, Lastel. You might be surprised. TeaY The girl  decanted
a cup of tea and  brought it over, as if  in a trance. Mizraith took  it and the
girl sat at his side, playing with her hair. 'Stolen, eh? What? You haven't told
me. What?'

'Krrf,' he said.

Mizraith gestured negligently with his free  hand and a small snowstorm of  grey
powder drifted to the rug, and disappeared.

'No.'  One-Thumb rubbed  his eyes.  When he  looked at  the pillows,  they were
pillows; when  he looked  away, they  turned to  blocks of  gold. 'Not  conjured
krrf.' It had the same gross effect but no depth, no nuance.

'Twenty grimales of black krrf from Caronne,' Amoli said.

'Stolen from both of us,' One-Thumb said. 'It was sent to me by a man in  Ranke,
payment for  services rendered.  Your son  Marype picked  it up  at the  caravan
depot, hidden  inside a  cheese. He  extracted it  somehow and  sold it  to this
woman, Amoli -'

'Amoli? You're the mistress of a ... of the Slippery Lily?'

'No, the Lily Garden. The other place is  in the Maze, a good place for pox  and
slatterns.'

One-Thumb continued. 'After he sold it to her, it disappeared. He brought it  to
me last night. This evening, it disappeared from my own strongbox.'

'Marype couldn't do that,' Mizraith said.

The conjuring part, I know he couldn't -  which is why I say that you must  have
been behind it. Why? A joke?'

Mizraith sipped. 'Would you like tea?'

'No. Why?'

He handed the half-empty cup to the  girl. 'More tea.' He watched her go  to the
samovar. 'I bought her for the walk. Isn't that fine? From behind, she could  be
a boy.'

'Please, Mizraith. This is financial ruin for Amoli and a gross insult to me.'

'A joke, eh? You think I make stupid jokes?'

'I know that you do things for reasons I cannot comprehend,' he said  tactfully.
'But this is serious -'

'I know that!' He took the tea and fished a flower petal from it; rubbed it away.
'More serious than you  think, if my son  is involved. Did it  all disappear? Is
there any tiny bit of it left?'

'The pinch you gave to my eunuch,' Amoli said. 'He may still have it.'

'Fetch it,' Mizraith said. He stared  slack-jawed into his tea for a  minute. 'I
didn't do it, Lastel. Some other did.'

'With Marype's help.'

'Perhaps unwilling. We shall see ...  Marype is adept enough to have  sensed the
worth of the cheese, and  I think he is worldly  enough to recognize a block  of
rare krrf, and know where to sell it. By himself, he would not be able to  charm
it away.'

'You fear he's betrayed you?'

Mizraith caressed the girl's long hair. 'We have had some argument lately. About
his  progress...  he  thinks  I am  teaching  him  too  slowly, withholding  ...
mysteries. The truth is, spells are  complicated. Being able to generate one  is
not the same as being able to control it; that takes practice, and maturity.  He
sees what his brothers can do and is jealous, I think.'

'You can't know his mind directly?'

'No. That's  a powerful  spell against  strangers, but  the closer  you are to a
person, the harder it is. Against your  own blood ... no. His mind is  closed to
me.'

Amoli returned with the square of parchment. She held it out apologetically. 'He
shared it with the  other bodyguard and your  son. Is this enough?'  There was a
dark patch in the centre of the square.

He took  it between  thumb and  forefinger and  grimaced. 'Mark-mor!' The second
most powerful magician in Sanctuary - an upstart not even a century old.

'He's in league with your strongest competitor?' One-Thumb said.

'In league or in thrall.' Mizraith stood up and crossed his arms. The  bodyguard
disappeared;  the  cushions became  a  stack of  gold  bricks. He  mumbled  some
gibberish and opened his arms wide.

Marype appeared in  front of him.  He was a  handsome lad: flowing  silver hair,
striking features. He was also furious, naked, and rampant.

'Father\I am busy\' He made a flinging gesture and disappeared.

Mizraith made the same gesture and the boy came back. 'We can do this all night.
Or you can talk to me.'

Noticeably less rampant. 'This is unforgiveable.' He raised his arm to make  the
pass again;  then checked  it as  Mizraith did  the same.  'Clothe me.'  A brick
disappeared, and Marype was wearing a tunic of woven gold.

'Tell me you are not in the thrall of Markmor.'

The boy's fists were clenched. 'I am not.'

'Are you quite certain?'

'We are friends, partners. He is teaching me things.'

'You know I will teach you everything, eventually. But -'

Marype made a  pass and the  stack of gold  turned to a  heap of stinking  dung.
'Cheap,' Mizraith said, wrinkling his nose. He held his elbow a certain way  and
the gold came back. 'Don't you see he wants to take advantage of you?'

'I can see that he wants access to you. He was quite open about that.'

'Stefab,' Mizraith whispered. 'Nesteph.'

'You need the help of my brothers?'

The two older brothers appeared, flanking  Mizraith. 'What I need is some  sense
out of you.' To the others: 'Stay him!'

Heavy golden chains bound his wrists and ankles to sudden rings in the floor. He
strained and one broke; a block of blue ice encased him. The ice began to melt.

Mizraith turned to One-Thumb  and Amoli. 'You weaken  us with your presence.'  A
bar of gold floated  over to the woman.  'That will compensate you.  Lastel, you
will have the krrf, once I take care of this. Be careful for the next few hours.
Go.'

As  they  backed out,  other  figures began  to  gather in  the  room. One-Thumb
recognized the outline of Markmor flickering.

In the foyer, Amoli handed the gold to her eunuch. 'Let's get back to the Maze,'
she said. 'This place is dangerous.'

One-Thumb sent  the pirate  cook home  and spent  the rest  of the  night in the
familiar  business of  dispensing drink  and krrf  and haggling  over rates   of
exchange. He took a  judicious amount of krrf  himself - the domestic  kind - to
keep alert. But nothing supernatural happened, and nothing more exciting than  a
routine eye-gouging over a dice dispute. He did have to step over a deceased  ex
patron when he went  to lock up at  dawn. At least he'd  had the decency to  die
outside, so no report had to be made.

One reason  he liked  to take  the death-shift  was the  interesting ambience of
Sanctuary in  the early  morning. The  sunlight was  hard, revealing rather than
cleansing.  Litter and  excrement in  the gutters.  A few  exhausted revellers,
staggering in small groups or sitting half-awake, blade out, waiting for a  bunk
to clear  at first  bell. Dogs  nosing the  evening's remains.  Decadent, stale,
worn, mortal.  He took  dark pleasure  in it.  Double pleasure  this morning,  a
slight krrf overdose singing death-song in his brain.

He almost went  east, to  check on  Mizraith. 'Be  careful the  next few hours' 
that must have  meant his bond  to Mizraith made  him somehow vulnerable  in the
weird struggle with Markmor over Marype. But he had to go back to the estate and
dispose  of the  bones in  the dogs'  troughs, and  then be  Lastel for  a noon
meeting.

					*

There was one drab whore in the waiting-room of the Lily Garden, who gave him  a
thick smile and then  recognized him and slumped  back to doze. He  went through
the velvet  curtain to  where the  eunuch sat  with his  back against  the wall,
glaive across his lap.

He didn't stand. 'Any trouble, One-Thumb?'

'No trouble. No krrf, either.' He heaved  aside the bolt on the massive door  to
the tunnel. 'For all I know, it's still going on. If Mizraith had lost, I'd know
by now, I think.'

'Or if he'd won,' the eunuch said.

'Possibly. I'll be in touch with your mistress if I have anything for her.' One
Thumb lit the waiting lamp and swung the door closed behind him.

Before he'd reached the bottom of  the stairs, he knew something was  wrong. Too
much light. He turned the wick all  the way down; the air was slightly  glowing.
At the  foot of the stairs, he set down  the lamp, drew his rapier, and waited.

The  glow coalesced  into a  fuzzy image  of Mizraith.  It whispered,  'You are
finally in dark,  Lastel. One-Thumb. Listen:  I may die  soon. Your charm,  I've
transferred to Stefab, and it holds. Pay him as you've paid me ...' He  wavered,
disappeared, came back. 'Your krrf is in this tunnel. It cost more than you  can
know.' Darkness again.

One-Thumb waited a  few minutes more  in the darkness  and silence (fifty  steps
from the light above) before re-lighting the lamp. The block of krrf was at  his
feet. He tucked it under his left  arm and proceeded down the tunnel, rapier  in
hand. Not that steel would  be much use against sorcery,  if that was to be  the
end of this. But an empty hand was less.

The tunnel kinked every fifty steps or so, to restrict line-of-sight.  One-Thumb
went through three corners and thought  he saw light at the fourth.  He stopped,
doused the lamp again, and listened. No footfalls. He set down the krrf and lamp
and filled his  left hand with  a dagger, then  headed for the  light. It didn't
have to be magic; three times he had surprised interlopers in the tunnel.  Their
husks were secreted here and there, adding to the musty odour.

But no stranger this time. He  peered around the corner and saw  Lastel himself,
waiting with sword out.

'Don't  hold back  there,' his  alter ego  said. 'Only  one of  us leaves  this
tunnel.'

One-Thumb raised his rapier slowly. 'Wait  ... if you kill me, you  die forever.
If I kill you, the same. This is a sorcerer's trap.'

'No, Mizraith's dead.'

'His son is holding the spell.'

Lastel advanced, crabwise, dueller's gait. 'Then how am I here?'

One-Thumb struggled with his limited knowledge of the logic of sorcery. Instinct
moved him forward, point in line, left-hand weapon ready for side parry or  high
block. He kept his eye on Lastel's point, krrf-steady as his own. The krrf  sang
doom, and lifted his spirit.

It was  like fencing  with a  mirror. Every  attack drew  instant parry, remise,
parry, remise, parry, re-remise, break to counter. For several minutes, a  swift
yet careful  ballet, large  twins mincing,  the tunnel  echoing clash: One-Thumb
knew he had  to do something random,  unpredictable; he lunged with  a cut-over,
impressing to the right.

Lastel knew  he had  to do  something random,  unpredictable; he  lunged with  a
double-disengage, impressing to the right

They missed each other's blades

Slammed home.

One-Thumb saw his  red blade emerge  from the rich  brocade over Lastel's  back,
tried to shout and coughed blood over his killer's shoulder. Lastel's rapier had
cracked breastbone and heart and slit a lung as well.

They clung to each other. One-Thumb watched bright blood spurt from the  other's
back and heard his own blood falling, as the pain grew. The dagger still in  his
left hand, he stabbed, almost idly. Again  he stabbed. It seemed to take a  long
time. The pain grew. The other man was doing the same. A third stab, he  watched
the blade rise and  slowly fall, and inching  slide back out of  the flesh. With
every second, the  pain seemed to  double; with every  second, the flow  of time
slowed by half. Even the splash of blood was slowed, like a viscous oil  falling
through water as it sprayed away. And now it stopped completely, a thick scarlet
web frozen there between his  dagger and Lastel's back -  his own back - and  as
the pain spread and grew, marrow itself  on fire, he knew he would look  at that
for ever. For a flickering moment he saw the. image of two sorcerers, smiling.

MYRTIS
by Christine De Wees

'I feel as young as  I look. I could satisfy  every man in this house  if I took
the notion to, or if any one of them had half the magnificence of Lythande.'

So speaking, Myrtis, proprietor of the Aphrodisia House leaned over the banister
outside  her  private  parlour  and  cast  judgement  on  the  activity  of  her
establishment below.

'Certainly, madame.'

Her companion on the narrow balcony was a well-dressed young man lately  arrived
with his parents from the imperial capital. He eased as far from her as possible
when she turned to smile at him.

'Do you doubt me, young man?'

The words rolled off Myrtis's tongue with an ease and inflection of majesty.  To
many of the long-time residents  of Sanctuary, Myrtis was the  city's unofficial
royalty. On the Street of Red Lanterns she reigned supreme.

'Certainly not, madame.'

'You have seen the girls now. Did  you have a particular lady in mind,  or would
you prefer to explore my establishment further?'

Myrtis guided him back  into her parlour with  slight pressure against his  arm.
She wore  a high-necked  dark gown  which only  hinted at  the legendary  figure
beneath. The madam  of the Aphrodisia  House was beautiful,  more beautiful than
any of the -girls working for her; fathers told this to their sons who were,  in
turn, passing this indisputable fact along to their sons. But a ravishing beauty
which  endured  unchanging  for  three  generations  was  awesome  rather   than
desirable. Myrtis did not compete with the girls who worked for her.

The young man cleared his throat. It was clearly his first visit to any brothel.
He fingered the tassels on the side of an immense wine-coloured velvet love-seat
before speaking.

'I think I'll go a round with the violet-silks.'

Myrtis stared at  him until he  fidgeted one of  the tassels loose  and his face
flushed a deep crimson.

'Call Cylene. Tell her the Lavender Room.'

A girl too young to be working jumped up from a cushion where she had waited  in
silence for such a command. The youth turned to follow her.

'Four pieces of silver - Cylene is very talented. And a name - I think that  you
should be known as Terapis.' Myrtis smiled to reveal her even white teeth.

The youth,  who would  henceforth be  known as  Terapis within  the walls of the
Aphrodisia House,  searched his  purse to  find a  single gold  piece. He  stood
arrogant and obviously well-rehearsed while  Myrtis counted out his change.  The
young girl took  his hand to  lead him to  Cylene for two  hours of unimaginable
bliss.

'Children!' Myrtis mumbled to herself when she was alone in her parlour again.

Four of the nine knobs on the  night-candle had melted away. She opened a  great
leatherbound ledger and entered the youth's true name as well as the one she had
just given him, his choice for the evening, and that he had paid in gold. It had
been fifteen years or more since  she had given the nom-de-guerre of  Terapis to
one of the house's gentlemen. She had  a good memory for all those who  lingered
in the sybaritic luxury of the Aphrodisia House.

A gentle knocking on the parlour door awoke Myrtis late the next morning.

'Your breakfast is ready, madame.'

'Thank you, child. I'll be down for it.'

She lay still for a few moments in the semi-darkness. Lythande had used  careful
spells to  preserve her  beauty and  give her  the longevity  of a magician, but
there were no spells to numb the memory. The girls, their gentlemen, all  passed
through Myrtis's mind in a  blurred unchanging parade which trapped  her beneath
the silken bed-clothes.

'Flowers for you, madame.'

The young girl who had sat quietly on the cushion on the previous evening walked
nonchalantly into the boudoir bearing a large bouquet of white flowers which she
began arranging in a crystal vase.

'A slave from the palace brought them. He said they were from Terapis.'

A surprise. There  were always still  surprises, and renewed  by that comforting
knowledge Myrtis threw  back the bedcovers.  The girl set  down the flowers  and
held an embroidered day-robe of emerald satin for Myrtis to wrap around herself.

Five girls in  their linen shifts  busied themselves with  restoring the studied
disorder of  the lower  rooms as  Myrtis passed  through them  on her way to the
kitchen. Five cleaning, one too pregnant to be of any use, another off nursing a
newborn; that meant  twenty girls were  still in the  upper rooms. Twenty  girls
whose time was fully accounted for; in all, a very good night for the Aphrodisia
House.  Others  might be  suffering  with the  new  regime, but  the  foreigners
expected a certain style and discretion  which in Sanctuary could be found  only
at the Aphrodisia.

'Madame, Dindan ordered  five bottles of  our best Aurvesh  wine last night.  We
have only a dozen bottles left ...' A balding man stepped in front of her with a
shopping list.

'Then buy more.'

'But, madame, since the  prince arrived it is  almost impossible to buy  Aurvesh
wines!'

'Buy them! But first sell the old bottles to Dindan at the new prices.'

'Yes, madame.'

The kitchen was a large, brightly lit room hidden away at the back of the house.
Her cooks and an assortment of  tradesmen haggled loudly at the back  door while
the  half-dozen or  so young  children of  her working  girls raced  around the
massive centre table. Everyone  grew quiet as Myrtis  took her seat in  a sunlit
alcove that faced a tiny garden.

Despite the chaos  the children caused,  she always let  the girls keep  them if
they wanted to. With the girl-children  there was no problem with their  earning
their keep; no virgin was ever  too ugly. But the boy-children were  apprenticed
off at the earliest possible age. Their  wages were garnished to support the  on
going concern that was the Aphrodisia House.

'There is a soldier at  the front door, Madame.' One  of the girls who had  been
cleaning the lower rooms interrupted as Myrtis spread a thick blue-veined cheese
over her bread. 'He demands to see you, madame.'

'Demands to see me?' Myrtis laid  down the cheese knife. 'A soldier  has nothing
that "demands" to see me at the front door. At this hour, soldiers are less  use
than tradesmen. Send him around to the back.'

The girl ran  back up the  stairs. Myrtis finished  spreading her cheese  on the
bread. She had eaten half of it when  a tall man cast a shadow over her  private
dining alcove.

'You are blocking my sunlight, young man,' she said without looking up.

'You are Madame Myrtis, proprietress  of this ... brothel?' he  demanded without
moving.

'You are blocking my sunlight and my view of the garden.'

He stepped to one side.

'The girls are not available during the day. Come back this evening.'

'Madame Myrtis, I  am Zaibar, captain  of Prince Kadakithis's  personal guard. I
have not come to inquire after the services of your girls.'

'Then what have you come for?' she asked, looking up for the first time.

'By order of Prince Kadakithis, a tax of ten gold pieces for every woman  living
on the Street of Red Lanterns is to be levied and collected at once if they  are
to be  allowed to  continue to  practise their  trade without incurring official
displeasure.'

Only the  slight tensing  ofMyrtis's hand  betrayed her  indignation at Zaibar's
statement. Her voice and face remained dispassionately calm.

'The  royal concubines  are no  longer pleasing?'  she replied  with a  sneering
smile. 'You cannot expect every woman on the Street of Red Lanterns to have  ten
gold pieces. How do you expect them to earn the money for your taxes?'

'We do not expect them  to be able to pay  'the tax, madame. We expect  to close
your brothel and every other house  like it on the Street. The  women, including
yourself, will be sent elsewhere to lead more productive lives.'

Myrtis  stared  at  the  soldier with  a  practised  contempt  that ended  their
conversation. The soldier fingered the hilt of his sword.

'The tax will be collected, madame. You will have a reasonable amount of time to
get the money for yourself and the  others. Let us say, three days? I'll  return
in the evening.'

He turned about without  waiting for a reply  and left through the  back door in
complete silence. Myrtis went back to interrupted breakfast while the staff  and
the girls were hysterical with questions  and the seeds of rumour. She  let them
babble in this manner while she ate;  then she strode to the head of  the common
table.

'Everything  shall  continue  as  usual.  If  it  comes  to  paying  their  tax,
arrangements will be made. You older girls already have ample gold set aside.  I
will make the necessary adjustments  for the newer girls.  Unless you doubt me  
in which case, I'll arrange a severance for you.'

'But madame, if  we pay once,  they will levy  the tax again  and again until we
can't pay it. Those Hell Hounds  ...' A girl favoured more by  intelligence than
beauty spoke up.

'That is certainly  their desire. The  Street of Red  Lanterns is as  old as the
walls of Sanctuary  itself. I can  assure you that  we have survived  much worse
than the Hell Hounds.' Myrtis smiled slightly to herself, remembering the others
who had tried and  failed to shut down  the Street. 'Cylene, the  others will be
coming to see me. Send them up to the parlour. I'll wait for them there.'

The  emerald  day-robe billowed  out  from behind  her  as Myrtis  ascended  the
staircase to the lower rooms and up again to her parlour. In the privacy of  her
rooms, she allowed her anger to surface as she paced.

'Ambutta!' She shouted, and the young girl who attended her appeared.

'Yes, madame?'

'I have a message for you to carry.' She sat a't the writing table composing the
message as she spoke to the still-out-of-breath girl. 'It is to be delivered  in
the special way as before. No one must see you leave it. Do you understand (hat?
If you cannot  leave it without  being seen, come  back herd Don't  let yourself
become suspicious.'

The girl  nodded. She  tucked the  freshly folded  and sealed  message into  the
bodice of  her ragged  cast-off dress  and ran  from the  room. In  time, Myrtis
expected her to be a  beauty, but she was still  very much a child. The  message
itself was to Lythande,  who preferred not to  be contacted directly. She  would
not rely on the  magician to solve the  Street's problems with the  Hell Hounds,
but no one else would understand her anger or alleviate it.

The Aphrodisia House  dominated the Street.  The Hell Hounds  would come to  her
first, then visit the other establishments. As word of the tax spread, the other
madams would begin a furtive pilgrimage to the back entrance of the  Aphrodisia.
They  looked  to  Myrtis  for  guidance,  and  she  looked  out  the  window for
inspiration. She had not found one by the time her guests began to appear.

'It's an outrage. They're trying to  put us on the streets like  common whores!'
Dylan of the artificially flaming red hair exclaimed before sitting in the chair
Myrtis indicated to her.

'Nonsense, dear,' Myrtis explained calmly. 'They wish to make us slaves and send
us to Ranke. In a way, it is a compliment to Sanctuary.'

'They can't do such a thing!'

'No, but it will be up to us to explain that to them.'

'How?'.

'First we'll wait until the others arrive. I hear Amoli in the hall; the  others
won't be long in coming.'

It was a blatant stall for time on Myrtis's part. Other than her conviction that
the Hell Hounds and  their prince would not  succeed where others had  failed in
the past, Myrtis  had no idea  how to approach  the utterly incorruptible  elite
soldiers. The other madams of the Street talked among themselves, exchanging the
insight Myrtis had revealed to Dylan, and reacting poorly to it. Myrtis  watched
their reflections in the rough-cut glass.

They were  all old.  More than  half of  them had  once worked  for her. She had
watched them age in the unkind  manner that often overtakes youthful beauty  and
transforms it into grotes-querie. Myrtis might have  been the youngest of them 
young enough to  be working in  the houses instead  of running one  of them. But
when she turned from the window  to face them, there was the  unmistakable glint
of experience and wisdom in her eyes.

'Well, it wasn't really a surprise,' she began. It was rumoured before  Kittycat
got here, and we've  seen what has happened  to the others the  Hell Hounds have
been turned loose on. I admit I'd hoped that some of the others would have  held
their ground better and given us a bit more time.'

'Time wouldn't help. I don't have a  hundred gold pieces to give them!' A  woman
whose  white-paste make-up  cracked around  her eyes  as she  spoke interrupted
Myrtis.

'You don't need a hundred gold pieces!' A similarly made-up woman snarled back.

'The gold is unimportant.' Myrtis's voice rose above the bickering. 'If they can
break one of us, they can drive us all out.'

'We could close our doors; then they'd suffer. Half of my men are from Ranke.'

'Half of all our men are, Gelicia. They won the war and they've got the  money,'
Myrtis countered. 'But  they'll kowtow to  the Hell Hounds,  Kittycat, and their
wives. The men  of Ranke are  very ambitious. They'll  give up much  to preserve
their wealth and positions. If the prince is officially frowning on the  Street,
their  loyalties will  be less  strained if  we have  closed our  doors without
putting up a fight.'

Grudgingly the women agreed.

'Then what will we do?'                 ^

'Conduct your affairs as always. They'll come to the Aphrodisia first to collect
the taxes, just as they came here first to announce it. Keep the back doors open
and I'll send word. If they can't collect from me, they won't bother you.'

There was mumbled disagreement, but no one dared to look straight at Myrtis  and
argue the point  of her power  on the Street.  Seated in her  high-backed chair,
Myrtis smiled contentedly.  She had yet  to determine the  precise solution, but
the house  madams of  the Street  of Red  Lanterns controlled  much of  the gold
within Sanctuary, and she had just confirmed her control of them.

They left her parlour quickly after the decision was rendered. If the Street was
to function as  usual, they all  had work to  do. She had  work to do.  The Hell
Hounds would not return for three days. In that time, the Aphrodisia House would
earn far more than those three hundred gold pieces the empire wanted, and  would
spend only slightly less than that amount to maintain itself. Myrtis opened  the
ledger, making  new notations  in a  clear, educated  hand. The household sensed
that order had  been restored at  least temporarily, and  one by one  they filed
into the parlour to report their earnings or debts.

It was well into afternoon and Ambutta had not returned from placing her message
behind a loose stone  in the wall behind the altar at the  temple of Ils, For  a
moment, Myrtis worried about the girl. The streets of Sanctuary were never truly
safe, and perhaps Ambutta no longer  seemed as childlike to all eyes.  There was
always an element of risk. Twice before girls had been lost in the streets,  and
not even Lythande's magic could find them again.

Myrtis put  such thoughts  aside and  ate dinner  alone in  her parlour. She had
thought a bribe or offer  of free privileges might still  be the way out of  her
problem with the taxes. Prince Kada-kithis was probably sincere, though, in  his
determination to  make Sanctuary  the ideal  city of  his adviser's philosophies
while the capital city  of the empire displayed  many of the same  excesses that
Sanctuary did.  The young  prince had  a wife  and concubines  with whom  he was
supposedly  well pleased.  There had  never been  any suspicion  that he  might
partake of the delights of the Street himself. And as for the Hell Hounds, their
first visit had been to announce the taxes.

The elite guard  were men made  of a finer  fibre than most  of the soldiers  or
fighters Sanctuary had known. On  reflection, Myrtis doubted that they  could be
bought or bribed,  and knew for  certain that they  would never relent  in their
persecution of the Street if the first offer did not succeed in converting them.

It was gathering dusk. The girls  could be heard throughout the house,  giggling
as they prepared for the evening. Myrtis  kept no one who showed no aptitude  or
enjoyment of the profession. Let the other houses bind their girls with  poverty
or drugs;  the Aphrodisia  House was  the pinnacle  of ambition  for the working
girls of the Street.

'I got your message.' A soft voice called from the drapery-hung doorway near her
bed.

'1 was beginning to get worried. My girl has not returned.'

Lythande walked to her side, draping an arm about her shoulders and taking  hold
of her hand.

'I've heard  the rumours  in the  streets. The  new regime  has chosen  its next
enemy, it would seem. What is the truth of their demands?'

'They intend  to levy  a tax  of ten  gold pieces  on every  woman living on the
Street.'

Lythande's habitual smile  faded, and the  blue star tattooed  forehead wrinkled
into a frown. 'Will you be able to pay that?'

'The intent is not that  we pay, but that the  Street be closed, and that  we be
sent up to  the empire. If  1 pay it  once, they'll keep  on levying it  until I
can't pay.'

'You could close the house ...'

'Never!' Myrtis  pulled her  hands away.  'The Aphrodisia  House is  mine. I was
running  this  house when  the  Rankan Empire  was  a collection  of  half-naked
barbaric tribes!'

'But they aren't any longer,' Lythande reminded her gently. 'And the Hell Hounds
- if not the prince - are making substantial changes in all our lives.'

'They won't interfere with magic, will they?'

Myrtis's concern for Lythande briefly overshadowed her fears for the  Aphrodisia
House. The magician's thin-lipped smile returned.

'For now it is doubtful. There are  men in Ranke who have the ability  to affect
us directly, but they  have not followed the  prince to Sanctuary, and  I do not
know if he could command their loyalty.'

Myrtis  stood  up.  She  walked to  the  leaded-glass  window,  with its  thick,
obscuring panes  which revealed  movement on  the Street  but very  little else.
'

'I'll need your help, if it's available,' she said without facing Lythande.

'What can I do?'

'In the past you've prepared a drug for me from a qualis-berry extract. I recall
you said it was quite difficult to mix - but I should like enough for two people
when it's mixed with pure qualis liqueur.'

'Delicate and precise,  but not particularly  difficult. It is  very subtle. Are
you sure you will only need enough to serve two?'

'Yes, Zaibar and myself. I agree; the drug must be subtle.'

'You must be very certain of your methods, then.'

'Of some things, at least. The Street  of Red Lanterns does not lie outside  the
walls of Sanctuary by accident - you know that. The Hell Hounds and their prince
have much  more to  lose by  hindering us  than by  letting the  Street exist in
peace. If our  past purpose were  not enough to  convince them, then  surely the
fact  that much  of the  city's gold  passes through  my hands  every year  will
matter.

'I will use the qualis-berry love  potion to open Zaibar's eyes to  reality, not
to close them.'

'I can  have it  for you  perhaps by  tomorrow evening,  but more likely the day
after.  Many of  the traders  and smugglers  of the  bazaar are  no longer  well
supplied with the ingredients I will need, but I can investigate other  sources.
When the Hell Hounds drove the  smugglers into the Swamp of Night  Secrets, many
honest men suffered.'

Myrtis's eyes narrowed, she released the drapery she had clutched.

'And if the Street  of Red Lanterns wasn't  here ... The mongers  and merchants,
and even the smugglers,  might not want to  admit it, but without  us to provide
them  with their  gold while  "respectable" people  offer promises,  they would
suffer even more than they do now.'

There was a gentle knocking on the door. Lythande stepped back into the  shadows
of the room. Ambutta entered, a large bruise visible on the side of her face.

'The men have begun to arrive,  Madame Myrtis. Will you collect their  money, or
shall I take the ledger downstairs?'

'I shall attend to them. Send them up to me and, Ambutta -'

She stopped the girl as  she headed out of the  parlour. 'Go to the kitchen  and
find out  how many  days we  could go  without buying  anything from  any of the
tradesmen.'

'Yes, madame.'

The room was suddenly  empty, except for Myrtis.  Only a slight rippling  of the
wall  tapestries  showed  where  Lythande  had  opened  a  concealed  panel  and
disappeared into  the secret  passages of  the Aphrodisia  House. Myrtis had not
expected  the  magician to  stay,  but despite  all  their years  together,  the
magician's sudden comings and goings still unsettled her. Standing in front of a
full-length  mirror,  Myrtis rearranged  the  pearl-and-gold pins  in  her hair,
rubbed scented oils into her skin, and greeted the first gentleman-caller as  if
the day had been no different from any other.

Word of the  taxation campaign against  the Street had  spread through the  city
much as Lythande had observed. The result was that many of their frequent guests
and visitors came to  the house to pay  their last respects to  an entertainment
that they openly expected would be gone  in a very short time. Myrtis smiled  at
each of  them as  they arrived,  accepted their  money, and  asked their  second
choice of the girls before assuring  them that the Aphrodisia House would  never
close its doors.

'Madame?'

Ambutta  peered  around the  doorway  .when the  flow  of gentlemen  had  abated
slightly.

'The kitchen says that  we have enough food  for ten days, but  less of ordinary
wine and the like.'

Myrtis touched the feather of her pen against her temple.

'Ten  days? Someone  has grown  lax. Our  storerooms can  hold enough  for many
months. But ten days is  all we will have, and  it will have to be  enough. Tell
the kitchen to place no orders with the tradesmen tomorrow or the next day,  and
send word to the other backdoors.      -                        .

'And, Ambutta, Irda will  carry my messages in  the future. It is  time that you
were taught more important and useful things.'

A steady stream of merchants and tradesmen made their way through the Aphrodisia
House to Myrtis's  parlour late the  next morning as  the effects of  her orders
began to be felt in the town.

'But Madame Myrtis, the tax isn't  due yet, and surely the Aphrodisia  House has
the resources ...' The puffy-faced gentleman who sent meat to half the houses on
the Street was alternately irate and wheedling.                             .

'In such unsettled times as these,  good Mikkun, I cannot look to  luxuries like
expensive meats. I sincerely wish that  this were not true. The taste  of salted
meat has always reminded me of poverty. But the governor's palace does not  care
about the  poverty of  those who  live outside  its walls,  though it  sends its
forces to tax us,' Myrtis said in feigned helplessness.

In  deference to  the sad  occasion she  had not  put on  one of  the brightly
embroidered  day-robes as  was her  custom but  wore a  Soberly cut  dress of  a
fashion outdated in Sanctuary  at least twenty years  before. She had taken  off
her jewellery, knowing that its absence would cause more rumours than if she had
indeed  sold  a  part of  it  to  the gem-cutters.  An  atmosphere  of austerity
enveloped the house and every other  on the Street, as Mikkun could  attest, for
he'd visited most of them.

'But  madame,  I have  already  slaughtered two  cows!  For three  years  I have
slaughtered the cows  first to assure  you the freshest  meat early in  the day.
Today, for no reason, you say you do not want my meat! Madame, you already  have
a debt to me for those two cows!'

'Mikkun! You have never, in all the years I've known you, extended credit to any
house on  the Street  and now  ... now  you're asking  me to  consider my  daily
purchases a debt to you!' She smiled disarmingly to calm him, knowing full  well
that the butcher and the others depended on the hard gold from the Street to pay
their own debts.

'There will be credit in the future!'

'But we will not be here to use it!'           "

Myrtis let her  face take on  a mournful pout.  Let the butcher  and his friends
start dunning the 'respectable' side of Sanctuary, and word would spread quickly
to the palace that something was amiss. A 'something' which she would explain to
the Hell Hound captain, Zaibar, when he  arrived to collect the tax. The  trades
man left her parlour muttering prophecies of doom she hoped would eventually  be
heard by those in a position to worry about them.

'Madame?'

Ambutta's child-serious face appeared in  the doorway moments after the  butcher
had left. Her ragged dress had already  been replaced with one of a more  mature
cut, brighter colour, and new cloth.

'Amoli waits to speak with you. She is in the kitchen now. Shall I send her up?'

'Yes, bring her up.'

Myrtis sighed after Ambutta  left. Amoli was her  only rival on the  Street. She
was a woman who had not learned her trade in the upper rooms of the  Aphrodisia,
and also one who kept her girls working for her through their addiction to krrf,
which she supplied to them. If anyone  on the Street was nervous about the  tax,
though, it  was Amoli;  she had  very little  gold to  spare. The  smugglers had
recently been forced  by the  same Hell  Hounds to  raise the  price of  a well
refined brick of the drug to maintain their own profits.

'Amoli, good woman, you look exhausted.'

Myrtis assisted a woman less than a third her age to the love-seat.

'May I get you something to drink?'

'Qualis, if you have any.' Amoli paused while Myrtis passed the request along to
Ambutta. 'I can't do it, Myrtis -  this whole scheme of yours is impossible.  It
will ruin me!'

The liqueur arrived. Ambutta carried a finely wrought silver tray with one glass
of the deep red liquid. Amoli's  hands shook violently as she grasped  the glass
and emptied it  in one gulp.  Ambutta looked sagely  to her mistress;  the other
madam was, perhaps, victim of the same addiction as her girls?

'I've been approached by Jubal.  For a small fee, he  will send his men up  here
tomorrow night to ambush the Hell Hounds. He has been looking for an opportunity
to eliminate them. With  them gone, Kittycat won't  be able to make  trouble for
us.'

'So Jubal is supplying the krrf now?' Myrtis replied without sympathy.

'They all have  to pay to  land their shipments  in the Night  Secrets, or Jubal
will reveal their activities  to the Hell Hounds.  His plan is fair.  I can deal
with him  directly. So  can anyone  else -  he trades  in anything.  But you and
Lythande will have to unseal the tunnels so his men face no undue risk  tomorrow
night.'

The  remnants  of Myrtis's  cordiality  disappeared. The  Golden  Lily had  been
isolated from the rat's nest of passages on the Street when Myrtis realized  the
extent of krrf addiction within it. Unkind experience warned her against  mixing
drugs and courtesans.  There were always  men like Jubal  waiting for the  first
sign of weakness, and soon the houses were nothing more than slaver's dens;  the
madams forgotten.  Jubal feared  magic, so  she had  asked Lythande  to seal the
tunnels with eerily visible wards. So long  as she - Myrtis - lived, the  Street
would be hers, and not Jubal's, nor the city's.

'There are other suppliers  whose prices are not  so high. Or perhaps  Jubal has
promised you  a place  in his  mansion? I  have heard  he learned things besides
fighting in  the pits  of Ranke.  Of course,  his home  is hardly  the place for
sensitive people to live.'

Myrtis wrinkled  her nose  in the  accepted way  to indicate  someone who  lived
Downwind. Amoli  replied with  an equally  understandable gesture  of insult and
derision, but she left the parlour without looking back.

The  problems with  Jubal and  the smugglers  were only  just beginning.  Myrtis
pondered them after Ambutta  removed the tray and  glass from the room.  Jubal's
ruthless  ambition  was potentially  more  dangerous than  any  threat radiating
directly  from the  Hell Hounds.  But they  were completely  distinct from  the
matters at hand, so Myrtis put them out of her mind.

The second  evening was  not as  lucrative as  the first,  nor the  third day as
frantic as the second. Lythande's aphrodisiac potion appeared in the hands of  a
dazed  street urchin.  The geas  the magician  had placed  on the  young beggar
dissipated as  soon as  the vial  left his  hands. He  had glanced around him in
confusion and  disappeared at  a run  before the  day-steward could  hand him  a
copper coin for his inconvenience.

Myrtis poured  the vial  into a  small bottle  of qualis  which she  then placed
between  two glasses  on the  silver tray.  The decor  of the  parlour had  been
changed subtly during the day.-The red

liqueur replaced the  black-bound ledger  which had  been banished  to the night
steward's cubicle in  the lower rooms.  The draperies around  her bed were  tied
back, and a padded  silk coverlet was creased  to show the plump  pillows. Musky
incense crept into the room from burners hidden in the corners. Beside her  bed,
a large box containing the three hundred gold pieces sat on a table.

Myrtis hadn't put on any of her jewellery. It would only have detracted from the
ebony low-cut, side-slit gown she wore. The image was perfect. No one but Zaibar
would  see her  until the  dawn, and  she was  determined that  her efforts  and
planning would not be in vain.

She waited  alone, remembering  her first  days as  a courtesan  in Ilsig,  when
Lythande was  a magician's  raw apprentice  and her  own experiences a nightmare
adventure. At  that time  she had  lived to  fall wildly  in love with any young
lordling who could  offer her the  dazzling splendour of  privilege. But no  man
came  forward  to  rescue  her  from the  ethereal,  but  doomed,  world  of the
courtesan. Before her  heauty faded, she  had made her  pact with Lythande.  The
magician  visited her  infrequently, and  for all  her boasting,  there was  no
passionate love  between them.  The spells  had let  Myrtis win  for herself the
permanent splendour she had wanted as  a young girl; a splendour no  high-handed
barbarian from Ranke was going to strip away.

'Madame Myrtis?'      '

A peremptory knock on the door  forced her from her thoughts. She  had impressed
the voice  in her  memory and  recognized it  though she  had only heard it once
before.

'Do come in.'

She opened the door for him, pleased  to see by the hesitation in his  step that
he was unaware that he would be entering her parlour and boudoir.

'I have come to collect the taxes!' he said quickly. His military precision  did
not completely conceal his awe and vague embarrassment at viewing the royal  and
erotic scene displayed before him.

He did not turn as Myrtis shut the door behind him and quietly slid a  concealed
bolt into place.

'You have very  nearly undone me,  captain,' she said  with downcast eyes  and a
light touch on his  arm. It is not  so easy as you  might think to raise  such a
large sum of money.'

She lifted the  ebony box inlaid  with pearl from  the table beside  her bed and
carried it slowly to him. He hesitated before taking it from her arms.

'I must count it, madame,' he said almost apologetically.

'I understand. You will find that it is all there. My word is good.'

'You ... you are much different now from how you seemed two days ago.'

'It is the difference between night and day.'

He began assembling  piles of gold  on her ledger  table in front  of the silver
tray with the qualis.

'We have been forced to cut back our orders to the town's merchants in order  to
pay you.'

From the surprised yet thoughtful look he gave her, Myrtis guessed that the Hell
Hounds had begun  to hear complaints  and anxious whinings  from the respectable
parts of town as Mikkun and his friends called back their loans and credit.

'Still,' she continued,  T realize that  you are doing  only what you  have been
told to do. It's not you personally who is to blame if any of the merchants  and
purveyors suffer because the Street no longer functions as it once did.'

Zaibar continued  shuffling his  piles-of coins  around, only  half-listening to
Myrtis. He had half the gold in the box neatly arranged when Myrtis slipped  the
glass stopper out of the qualis decanter..

'Will you join me in a glass of qualis, since it is not your fault and we  still
have a few luxuries  in our larder. They  tell me a damp  fog lies heavy on  the
streets.'

He looked up from his counting and his eyes brightened at the sight of the  deep
red liqueur. The common variety of qualis, though still expensive, had a  duller
colour and was inclined to visible sediment. A man of his position might live  a
full life and never glimpse a fine, pure qualis, much less be offered a glass of
it. Clearly the Hell Hound was tempted.

'A small glass, perhaps.'

She poured two equally full glasses and  set them both on the table in  front of
him while she replaced the stopper and took the bottle to the table by her  bed.
An undetectable glance in a side  mirror confirmed that Zaibar lifted the  glass
farthest from him. Calmly she returned and raised the other.

'A toast then. To the future of your prince and to the Aphrodisia House!'

The glasses clinked.

The potion Lythande  had made was  brewed in part  from the same  berries as the
qualis itself. The fine liqueur made a perfect concealing dilutant. Myrtis could
taste the subtle difference the charm  itself made in the normal flavour  of the
intoxicant, but  Zaibar, who  had never  tasted even  the common qualis, assumed
that the extra warmth was only a part of the legendary mystique of the  liqueur.
When he  had finished  his drink,  Myrtis swallowed  the last  others and waited
patiently for the faint flush which would confirm that the potion was working.

It appeared in  Zaibar first. He  became bored with  his counting, fondling  one
coin while his eyes drifted off  towards nothingness. Myrtis took the coin  from
his fingers. The potion  took longer to affect  her, and its action  when it did
was lessened by  the number  of times  she had  taken it  before and  by the age
inhibiting  spells Lythande  wove about  her. She  had not  needed the  potion,
however, to summon an attraction towards the handsome soldier nor to coax him to
his feet and then to her bed.

Zaibar  protested  that he  was  not himself  and  did not  understand  what was
happening to him. Myrtis did not  trouble herself to argue with him.  Lythande's
potion was not one to rouse a wild, blind lust, but one which endowed a lifelong
affection  in  the drinker.  The  pure qualis  played  a part  in  weakening his
resistance. She held him behind the curtains of her bed until he had no doubt of
his love for her. Then she helped him dress again.

'I'll show you the secrets of the Aphrodisia House,' she whispered in his ear.

'I believe I have already found them.'

'There are more.'

Myrtis took him by  the hand, leading him  to one of the  drapery-covered walls.
She pushed aside the fabric; released a well-oiled catch; took a sconce from the
wall then led him into a dark, but airy, passage way.'

'Walk carefully in my footsteps,  Zaibar - I would not  want to lose you to  the
oubliettes. Perhaps you have  wondered why the Street  is outside the walls  and
its buildings are so old and well-built? Perhaps you think Sanctuary's  founders
wished to keep us outside  their fair city? What you  do not know is that  these
houses - especially the older ones like the Aphrodisia - are not really  outside
the walls at all. My  house is built of stone  four feet thick. The shutters  on
our  windows  are aged  wood  from the  mountains.  We have  our  own wells  and
storerooms which can"supply us  -and the city -  for weeks, if necessary.  Other
passages  lead  away from  here  towards the  Swamp  of Night  Secrets,  or into
Sanctuary and the governor's palace  itself. Whoever has ruled in  Sanctuary has
always sought our cooperation in moving men and arms if a siege is laid.'

She showed the speechless captain catacombs where a sizeable garrison could wait
in complete concealment. He drank water from a deep well whose water had none of
the brackish  taste so  common in  the seacoast  town. Above  he could  hear the
sounds of parties at the Aphrodisia and the other houses. Zaibar's military  eye
took all this in, but  his mind saw Myrtis, candle-lit  in the black gown, as  a
man's dream come true, and the underground fortress she was revealing to him  as
a soldier's dream come true. The potion worked its way with him. He wanted  both
Myrtis and the fortress for his own to protect and control.

'There is so much about Sanctuary  that you Rankans know nothing about.  You tax
the Street and cause havoc with trade in the city. You wish to close the  Street
and send all  of us, including  myself, to the  slave pens or  worse. Your walls
will be breachable 'then. There are  men in Sanctuary who would stop  at nothing
to control these passages,  and they know the  Swamp and the palace  better than
you or your children could ever hope to.'

She showed  him a  wall flickering  with runes  and magic  signs. Zaibar went to
touch it and found his fingers singed for his curiosity.

'These warding walls keep us safe now, but they will fade if we are not here  to
renew them properly. Smugglers and thieves will find the entrances we have  kept
invulnerable for  generations. And  you, Zaibar,  who wish  that Sanctuary  will
become a  place of  justice and  order, will  know in  your heart  that you  are
responsible, because you knew what was here and let the others destroy it.'

'No, Myrtis. So long as I live, none of this shall be harmed.'

'There is no  other way. Do  you not already  have your orders  to levy a second
tax?'

He nodded.

'We have already begun to use the food stored in these basements. The girls  are
not happy; the merchants are not happy. The Street will die. The merchants  will
charge higher prices, and the girls will make their way to the streets. There is
nowhere else for them to go. Perhaps Jubal will take-'

'1  do not  think that  the Street  will suffer  such a  fate. Once  the prince
understands the true part  you and the others  play, he will agree  to a nominal
tax which would be applied to maintaining the defence of Sanctuary and therefore
be returned to you.'

Myrtis smiled to herself.  The battle was won.  She held his arm  tightly and no
longer fought the  effect of the  adulterated qualis in  her own emotions.  They
found an  abandoned officer's  quarters and  made love  on its bare wooden-slats
bed. and again when they returned to the parlour of the Aphrodisia House.

The night-candle had burned  down to its last  knob by the time  Myrtis released
the hidden bolt and let the Hell  Hound captain rejoin his men. Lythande was  in
the room behind her as soon as she shut the door.

'Are you safe now?' the magician asked with a laugh.

'I believe so.'

'The potion?'

'A success, as always. I have not been in love like this for a long time. It  is
pleasant. I almost do not mind knowing how empty and hurt I will feel as I watch
him grow old.'

'Then why use something like  the potion? Surely the catacombs  themselves would
have been enough to convince a Hell Hound?'

'Convince him of what? That the defences of Sanctuary should not be entrusted to
whores and courtesans? Except for your potion, there is nothing else to bind him
to the idea that we - that I  should remain here as I always have. There  was no
other way!'

'You're right,' Lythande said, nodding. 'Will he return to visit you?'

'He will care, but I  do not think he will  return. That was not the  purpose of
the drug.'

She opened the narrow glass-paned doors to the balcony overlooking the  emptying
lower rooms. The soldiers  were gone. She looked  back into the room.  The three
hundred  gold pieces  still lay  half-counted on  the table  next to  the empty
decanter. He might return.

'I feel as  young as I  look,' she whispered  to the unnoticing  rooms. 'I could
satisfy every man in this  house if I took the  notion to, or if anyone  of them
had half the magnificence of my Zaibar.'

Myrtis turned back to an empty room and went to sleep alone.

THE SECRET OF THE BLUE STAR
by Marion Zimmer Bradley

On a night  in Sanctuary, when  the streets bore  a false glamour  in the silver
glow of full moon, so that every  ruin seemed an enchanted tower and every  dark
street and square an island of mystery, the mercenary-magician Lythande  sallied
forth to seek adventure.

Lythande had but recently returned -  if the mysterious comings and goings  of a
magician can be called by so prosaic a name -from guarding a caravan across  the
Grey Wastes to  Twand. Somewhere in  the Wastes, a  gaggle of desert  rats - two
-legged rats with poisoned steel teeth  - had set upon the caravan,  not knowing
it was guarded by magic, and had found themselves fighting skeletons that howled
and fought with eyes of flame; and  at their centre a tall magician with  a blue
star between blazing eyes, a star that shot lightnings of a cold and  paralysing
flame. So  the desert  rats ran,  and never  stopped running  until they reached
Aurvesh, and the tales they told did Lythande no harm except in the ears of  the
pious.

And so  there was  gold in  the pockets  of the  long, dark, magician's robe, or
perhaps concealed in whatever,'dwelling sheltered Lythande.

For at the end, the caravan master had been almost more afraid of Lythande  than
he was of the bandits, a situation  which added to the generosity with which  he
rewarded the magician. According to custom, Lythande neither smiled nor frowned,
but remarked, days later, to Myrtis,  the proprietor of the Aphrodisia House  in
the Street of Red Lanterns, that  sorcery, while a useful skill and  filled with
many aesthetic delights for the contemplation of the philosopher, in itself  put
no beans on the table.

A curious remark, that, Myrtis pondered, putting away the ounce of gold Lythande
had bestowed upon her in consideration  of a secret which lay many  years behind
them both. Curious that Lythande should speak of beans on the table, when no one
but herself had ever seen a bite of food or a drop of drink pass the  magician's
lips since  the blue  star had  adorned that  high and  narrow brow. Nor had any
woman in the Quarter even been able to boast that a great magician had paid  for
her  favours, or  been able  to imagine  how such  a magician  behaved in  that
situation when all men were alike reduced to flesh and blood.

Perhaps Myrtis could have told if she would; some of her girls thought so, when,
as sometimes happened,  Lythande came to  the Aphrodisia House  and was closeted
long with its owner; even, on rare intervals, for an entire night. It was  said,
of Lythande, that the  Aphrodisia House itself had  been the magician's gift  to
Myrtis, after  a famous  adventure still  whispered in  the bazaar, involving an
evil wizard, two horse-traders, a caravan master, and a few assorted toughs  who
had prided themselves upon never giving gold for any woman and thought it  funny
to cheat an honest working woman. None of them had ever showed their faces -what
was left of them  - in Sanctuary again,  and Myrtis boasted that  she need never
again sweat to earn her living, and never again entertain a man, but would claim
her madam's privilege of a solitary bed.

And then, too, the  girls thought, a magician  of Lythande's stature could  have
claimed the most beautiful women  from Sanctuary to the mountains  beyond Ilsig:
not courtesans alone, but princesses  and noblewomen and priestesses would  have
been for Lythande's  taking. Myrtis had  doubtless been beautiful  in her youth,
and certainly she boasted enough of  the princes and wizards and travellers  who
had paid great sums for her love.  She was beautiful still (and of course  there
were those who said  that Lythande did not  pay her, but that,  on the contrary,
Myrtis paid the magician  great sums to maintain  her ageing beauty with  strong
magic) but her  hair had gone  grey and she  no longer troubled  to dye it  with
henna or goldenwash from Tyrisis-beyond-the-sea.

But if  Myrtis were  not the  woman who  knew how  Lythande behaved in that most
elemental of situations,  then there was  no woman in  Sanctuary who could  say.
Rumour said also that Lythande called up female demons from the Grey Wastes,  to
couple in lechery,  and certainly Lythande  was neither the  first nor the  last
magician of whom that could be said.

But on this  night Lythande sought  neither food nor  drink nor the  delights of
amorous entertainment; although Lythande was  a great frequenter of taverns,  no
man had ever yet seen  a drop of ale or  mead or fire-drink pass the  barrier of
the magician's lips. Lythande walked along the far edge of the bazaar,  skirting
the old  rim of  the governor's  palace, keeping  to the  shadows in defiance of
footpads and cutpurses, that  love for shadows which  made the folk of  the city
say that Lythande could appear and disappear into thin air.

Tall and thin,  Lythande, above the  height of a  tall man, lean  to emaciation,
with the  blue star-shaped  tattoo of  the magiciaft-adept  above thin,  arching
eyebrows;  wearing a  long, hooded  robe which  melted into  the shadows.  Clean
-shaven, the face  of Lythande, or  beardless - none  had come close  enough, in
living  memory,  to say  whether  this was  the  whim of  an  effeminate or  the
hairlessness of a freak. The hair beneath the hood was as long and luxuriant  as
a woman's, but greying, as no woman  in this city of harlots would have  allowed
it to do.

Striding quickly along a shadowed  wall, Lythande stepped through an  open door,
over which the sandal of Thufir, god  of pilgrims, had been nailed up for  luck;
but the footsteps  were so soft,  and the hooded  robe blended so  well into the
shadows, that  eyewitnesses would  later swear,  truthfully, that  they had seen
Lythande  appear  from  the  air,  protected by  sorceries,  or  by  a  cloak of
invisibility.

Around the hearth fire, a group of men were banging their mugs together  noisily
to  the sound  of a  rowdy drinking-song,  strummed on  a worn  and tinny  lute 
- Lythande knew it belonged to the  tavern-keeper, and could be borrowed - by  a
young man,  dressed in  fragments of  foppish finery,  torn and  slashed by  the
chances of  the road.  He was  sitting lazily,  with one  knee crossed  over the
other; and when the rowdy song died away, the young man drifted into another,  a
quiet love-song from  another time and  another country. Lythande  had known the
song, more  years ago  than bore  remembering, and  in those  days Lythande  the
magician had borne another name and  had known little of sorcery. When  the song
died, Lythande had stepped from the shadows, visible, and the firelight  glinted
on   the   blue  star,   mocking   at  the   centre   of  the   high   forehead.

There was a little  muttering in the tavern,  but they were not  unaccustomed to
Lythande's invisible comings  and goings. The  young man raised  eyes which were
surprisingly blue beneath the black  hair elaborately curled above his  brow. He
was slender and agile, and Lythande marked the rapier at his side, which  looked
well handled, and the amulet, in the form of a coiled snake, at his throat.  The
young man said, 'Who are  you, who has the habit  of coming and going into  thin
air like that?'

'One who compliments your skill at song.' Lythande flung a coin to the tapster's
boy. 'Will you drink?'

'A minstrel never refuses such an invitation. Singing is dry work.' But when the
drink was brought, he said, 'Not drinking with me, then?'

'No man has  ever seen Lythande  eat or drinK,'  muttered one of  the men in the
circle round them.

'Why, then, I hold that unfriendly,' cried the young minstrel. 'A friendly drink
between comrades shared is one thing; but I am no servant to sing for pay or  to
drink except as a friendly gesture!'

Lythande shrugged, and the  blue star above the  high brow began to  shimmer and
give forth blue light.  The onlookers slowly edged  backward, for when a  wizard
who wore the blue star  was angered, bystanders did well  to be out of the  way.
The minstrel set down the lute, so it would be well out of range if he must leap
to his feet. Lythande  knew, by the excruciating  slowness of his movements  and
great  care, that  he had  already shared  a good  many drinks  with chance-met
comrades. But  the minstrel's  hand did  not go  to his  sword-hilt but  instead
closed like a fist over the amulet in the form of a snake.           '

'You are like no man I have ever met before,' he observed mildly, and  Lythande,
feeling inside the little ripple, nerve-long, that told a magician he was in the
presence of  spell-casting, hazarded  quickly that  the amulet  was one of those
which would not protect its master  unless the wearer first stated a  set number
of truths - usually three or five - about the owner's attacker or foe. Wary, but
amused, Lythande said, 'A true word. Nor  am I like any man you will  ever meet,
live you never so long, minstrel.'

The minstrel saw, beyond  the angry blue glare  of the star, a  curl of friendly
mockery in Lythande's mouth. He said, letting the amulet go, 'And I wish you  no
ill; and  you wish  me none,  and those  are true  sayings too, wizard, hey? And
there's an end of that. But although  perhaps you are like to no other,  you are
not the only  wizard I have  seen in Sanctuary  who bears a  blue star about his
forehead.'

Now the blue star blazed rage, but not for the minstrel. They both knew it.  The
crowd  around  them  had  all mysteriously  discovered  that  they  had business
elsewhere. The minstrel looked at the empty benches.

'I must go elsewhere to sing for my supper, it seems.'

'I meant  you no  offence when  I refused  to share  a drink,' said Lythande. 'A
magician's vow is  not as lightly  overset as a  lute. Yet I  may guest-gift you
with dinner and  drink in plenty  without loss of  dignity, and in  return ask a
service of a friend, may I not?'

'Such is the custom of my country. Cappen Varra thanks you, magician.'

'Tapster! Your best dinner for my guest, and all he can drink tonight!'

'For such  liberal guesting  I'll not  haggle about  the service,'  Cappen Varra
said, and set to the smoking dishes brought before him. As he ate, Lythande drew
from the folds of his robe a small pouch containing a quantity of sweet-smelling
herbs, rolled them into a blue-grey leaf, and touched his ring to spark the roll
alight. He drew on the smoke, which drifted up sweet and greyish.

'As for the service, it is nothing so great; tell me all you know of this  other
wizard who  wears the  blue star.  I know  of none  other of  my order  south of
Azehur, and I would be certain you did not see me, nor my wraith.'

Cappen Varra sucked at a marrow-bone  and wiped his fingers fastidiously on  the
tray-cloth beneath the meats. He bit into a ginger-fruit before replying.

'Not  you,  wizard, nor  your  fetch or  doppelganger;  this one  had  shoulders
brawnier by half, and he wore  no sword, but two daggers cross-girt  astride his
hips. His beard was black; and his left hand missing three fingers.'

'Us of the Thousand Eyes! Rabben  the Half-handed, here in Sanctuary! Where  did
you see him, minstrel?'

'I saw him crossing the bazaar; but he bought nothing that I saw. And I saw  him
in the Street of Red Lanterns, talking to  a woman. What service am I to do  for
you, magician?'

'You have done it.' Lythande gave silver to the tavern keeper - so much that the
surly man bade Shalpa's cloak cover him as he went - and laid another coin, gold
this time, beside the borrowed lute.                -

'Redeem your harp; that one will do  your voice no boon.' But when the  minstrel
raised his head in thanks, the magician had gone unseen into the shadows.

Pocketing the gold, the minstrel asked, 'How did he know that? And how did he go
out?'

'Shalpa the swift alone knows,' the tapster said. 'Flew out by the smoke-hole in
the chimney, for all I ken! That one needs not the night-dark cloak of Shalpa to
cover him, for he has  one of his own. He  paid for your drinks, good  sir; what
will you have?'  And Cappen Varra  proceeded to get  very drunk, that  being the
wisest thing to do when one becomes entangled unawares in the private affairs of
a wizard.

Outside in the street, Lythande  paused to consider. Rabben the  Half-handed was
no friend;  yet there  was no  reason his  presence in  Sanctuary must deal with
Lythande, or personal revenge. If it  were business concerned with the Order  of
the Blue Star,  if Lythande must  lend Rabben aid,  or the Half-handed  had been
sent to summon all the members of the Order, the star they both wore would  have
given warning.

Yet it  would do  no harm  to make  certain. Walking  swiftly, the  magician had
reached a line of  old stables behind the  governor's palace. There was  silence
and secrecy  for magic.  Lythande stepped  into one  of the  little side alleys,
drawing up  the magician's  cloak until  no light  remained, slowly  withdrawing
farther and  farther into  the silence  until nothing  remained anywhere  in the
world -anywhere in the universe but the  light of the blue star ever glowing  in
front. Lythande remembered  how it had  been set there,  and at what  cost - the
price an adept paid for power.

The  blue  glow  gathered, fulminated  in  many-coloured  patterns, pulsing  and
glowing, until Lythande stood within the light; and there, in the Place That  Is
Not, seated upon a throne carved apparently from sapphire, was the Master of the
Star.

'Greetings to  you, fellow  star, star-born,  shyryu.' The  terms of  endearment
could  mean fellow,  companion, brother,  sister, beloved,  equal, pilgrim;  its
literal meaning was sharer of starlight. 'What brings you into the Pilgrim Place
this night from afar?'

'The  need for  knowledge, star-sharer.  Have you  sent one  to seek  me out  in
Sanctuary?'

'Not so, shyryu. All is well in the Temple of the Star-sharers; you have not yet
been summoned; the hour is not yet come.'

For every adept of the Blue Star knows; it is one of the prices of power. At the
world's end, when all  the doings of mankind  and mortals are done,  the last to
fall under the assault of Chaos will be the Temple of the Star; and then, in the
Place That Is Not, the Master of the Star will summon all of the Pilgrim  Adepts
from the farthest corners  of the world, to  fight with all their  magic against
Chaos; but until that day, they have such freedom as will best strengthen  their
powers. The Master of the Star  repeated, reassuringly, 'The hour has not  come.
You ace free to walk as you will in the world.'

The blue glow faded, and Lythande  stood shivering. So Rabben had not  been sent
in  that final  summoning. Yet  the end  and Chaos  might well  be at  hand for
Lythande before the hour appointed, if Rabben the Half-handed had his way.

It was a fair test of strength,  ordained by our masters, Rabben should bear  me
no ill-will... Rabben's presence in Sanctuary need not have to do with Lythande.
He might be here  upon his lawful occasions  - if anything of  Rabben's could be
said to be lawful;  for it was only  upon the last day  of all that the  Pilgrim
Adepts were pledged to fight upon the side of Law against Chaos. And Rabben  had
not chosen to do so before then.

Caution would be needed, and yet Lythande knew that Rabben was near ...

South and  east of  the governor's  palace, there  is a  little triangular park,
across from  the Street  of Temples.  By day  the gravelled  walks and  turns of
shrubbery are given over to predicants  and priests who find not enough  worship
or offerings  for their  liking; by  night the  place is  the haunt of women who
worship no goddess except  She of the filled  purse and the empty  womb. And for
both reasons the place is called, in irony, the Promise of Heaven; in Sanctuary,
as elsewhere, it is well known that those who promise do not always perform.

Lythande, who frequented  neither women nor  priests as a  usual thing, did  not
often walk here.  The park seemed  deserted; the evil  winds had begun  to blow,
whipping  bushes and  shrubbery into  the shapes  of strange  beasts performing
unnatural acts; and moaning  weirdly around the walls  and eaves of the  Temples
across the  street, the  wind that  was said  in Sanctuary  to be the moaning of
Azyuna in Vashanka's bed. Lythande  moved swiftly, skirting the darkness  of the
paths. And then a woman's scream  rent the air. From the shadows  Lythande could
see the frail form of a young girl in a torn and ragged dress; she was  barefoot
and her ear was bleeding where one jewelled earring had been torn from the lobe.
She was struggling in the iron grip  of a huge burly black-bearded man, and  the
first thing  Lythande saw  was the  hand gripped  around the  girl's thin,  bony
wrist, dragging her;  two fingers missing  and the other  cut away to  the first
joint. Only then - when it was no longer needed - did Lythande see the blue star
between the  black bristling  brows, the  cat-yellow eyes  of Rabben  the Half
handed!

Lythande knew him of old, from the Temple of the Star. Even then Rabben had been
a vicious man, his lecheries notorious. Why, Lythande wondered, had the  Masters
not demanded that he  renounce them as the  price of his power?  Lythande's lips
tightened in a mirthless grimace; so notorious had been Rabben's lecheries  that
if  he  renounced   them,  everyone  would   know  the  Secret   of  his  Power.
.

For the powers of an  Adept of the Blue Star  depended upon a secret. As  in the
old legend of the giant who kept  his heart in a secret place outside  his body,
and with  it his  immortality, so  the Adept  of the  Blue Star  poured all  his
psychic force into a single Secret; and the one who discovered the Secret  would
acquire all of that adept's power. So Rabben's Secret must be something else ...
Lythande did not speculate on it.

The  girl cried  out pitifully  as Rabben  jerked at  her wrist;  as the  burly
magician's star began to glow, she thrust her free hand over her eyes to  shield
them from it.  Without fully intending  to intervene, Lythande  stepped frem the
shadows, and the rich  voice that had made  the prentice-magicians in the  outer
court of  the Blue  Star call  Lythande 'minstrel'  rather than 'magician', rang
out: 'By Shipri the All-Mother, release that woman!'

Rabben whirled. 'By the nine-hundred-and-ninety-ninth eye of Ils! Lythande!'

'Are  there not  enough women  in the  Street of  Red Lanterns,  that you  must
mishandle girl-children in  the Street of  Temples?' For Lythande  could see how
young she was, the thin arms and  childish legs and ankles, the breasts not  yet
full-formed beneath the dirty, torn tunic.

Rabben turned on  Lythande and sneered,  'You were always  squeamish, shyryu. No
woman walks here unless she is for sale. Do you want her for yourself? Have  you
tired of your fat madame in the Aphrodisia House?'

'You will not take her name into your mouth, shyryu!'

'So tender for the honour of a harlot?'

Lythande ignored that. 'Let the girl go, or stand to my challenge.'

Rabben's  star  shot  lightnings; he  shoved  the  girl to  one  side.  She fell
nerveless to the pavement and lay without moving. 'She'll stay there until we've
done. Did you think she could run away  while we fought? Come to think of it,  I
never did see you with a woman,  Lythande - is that your Secret, Lythande,  that
you've no use for women?'

Lythande maintained  an impassive  face; but  whatever came,  Rabben must not be
allowed to pursue that  line. 'You may couple  like an animal in  the streets of
Sanctuary, Rabben, but I do not. Will you yield her up, or fight?'

'Perhaps I should  yield her to  you; this is  unheard of, that  Lythande should
fight in the streets over a woman! You see, I know your habits well, Lythande!'

Damnation of Vashanka! Now indeed I shall have to fight for the girl!

Lythande's rapier snicked from  its scabbard and thrust  at Rabben as if  of its
own will.

'Ha!  Do  you  think  Rabben  fights  street-brawls  with  the  sword  like  any
mercenary?' Lythande's sword-tip  exploded in the  blue star-glow, and  became a
shimmering snake, twisting back on itself to climb past the hilt, fangs dripping
venom as it sought to coil  around Lythande's fist. Lythande's own star  blazed.
The sword was metal again but twisted and useless, in the shape of the snake  it
had been, coiling back toward the scabbard. Enraged, Lythande jerked free of the
twisted metal, sent a spitting rain  of fire in Rabben's direction. Quickly  the
huge  adept covered  himself in  fog, and  the fire-spray  extinguished itself.
Somewhere outside  consciousness Lythande  was aware  of a  crowd gathering; not
twice in a  lifetime did two  adepts of the  Blue Star battle  by sorcery in the
streets of Sanctuary. The blaze of the stars, blazing from each magician's brow,
raged lightnings in the square.

On a howling wind  came little torches ravening,  that flickered and whipped  at
Lythande; they touched the tall form  of the magician and vanished. Then  a wild
whirlwind  sent  trees lashing,  leaves  swirling bare  from  branches, battered
Rabben to his knees. Lythande was bored; this must be finished quickly. Not  one
of the goggling onlookers in the  crowd knew afterwards what had been  done, but
Rabben bent, slowly, slowly, forced inch by inch down and down, to his knees, to
all fours, prone, pressing  and grinding his face  further and further into  the
dust, rocking back and forth, pressing harder and harder into the sand ...

Lythande  turned and  lifted the  girl. She  stared in  disbelief at  the burly
sorcerer grinding his black beard frantically into the dirt.

'What did you -'

'Never mind - let's get out of here. The spell will not hold him long, and  when
he wakes from it he will be angry.' Neutral mockery edged. Lythande's voice, and
the girl could  see it, too,  Rabben with beard  and eyes and  blue star covered
with the dirt and dust -

She scurried along in the wake of the magician's robe; when they were well  away
from the Promise of Heaven, Lythande halted, so abruptly that the girl stumbled.

'Who are you, girl?'

'My name is Bercy. And yours?'

'A magician's name is  not lightly given. In  Sanctuary they call me  Lythande.'
Looking down at the girl, the magician noted, with a pang, that beneath the dirt
and dishevelment she was very beautiful  and very young. 'You can go,  Bercy. He
will not touch you again; I have bested him fairly upon challenge.'

She flung herself on to Lythande's shoulder, clinging. 'Don't send me away!' she
begged, clutching, eyes filled with adoration. Lythande scowled.

Predictable,  of  course,  Bercy  believed,  and  who  in  Sanctuary  would have
disbelieved, that the duel  had been fought for  the girl as prize,  and she was
ready to give herself to the winner. Lythande made a gesture of protest.

'No -'

The girl narrowed her eyes in pity. 'Is  it then with you as Rabben said -  that
your secret is that you have been deprived of manhood?' But beyond the pity  was
a delicious flicker of amusement - what a tidbit of gossip! A juicy bit for  the
Street of Women.

'Silence!' Lythande's glance was imperative. 'Come.'

She  followed,  along the  twisting  streets that  led  into the  Street  of Red
Lanterns. Lythande  strode with  confidence, now,  past the  House of  Mermaids,
where, it was said,  delights as exotic as  the name promised were  to be found;
past  the  House  of Whips,  shunned  by  all except  those  who  refused to  go
elsewhere; and at last, beneath the face of the Green Lady as she was worshipped
far away and beyond Ranke, the Aphrodisia House.

Bercy looked  around, eyes  wide, at  the pillared  lobby, the  brilliance of  a
hundred lanterns, the exquisitely dressed  women lounging on cushions till  they
were summoned. They were finely dressed and bejewelled - Myrtis knew her  trade,
and how  to present  her wares  - and  Lythande guessed  that the ragged Bercy's
glance was one of envy; she had  probably sold herself in the bazaars for  a few
coppers or  for a  loaf of  bread, since  she was  old enough. Yet somehow, like
flowers covering a dungheap,  she had kept an  exquisite fresh beauty, all  gold
and  white, flowerlike.  Even ragged  and half-starved,  she touched  Lythande's
heart.

'Bercy, have you eaten today?'

'No, master.'

Lythande summoned the  huge eunuch Jiro,  whose business it  was to conduct  the
favoured customers  to the  chambers of  their chosen  women, and  throw out the
drunks and  abusive customers  into the  street. He  came -  huge-bellied, naked
except for a skimpy loincloth and a dozen  rings in his ear - he had once  had a
lover who was an earring-seller and had used him to display her wares.

'How may we serve the magician Lythande?'

The women on the couches and cushions were twittering at one another in surprise
and dismay, and Lythande could almost hear their thoughts; None of  us has  been
able  to attract  or seduce  the  great  magician, and this ragged street  wench
has  caught  his eyes?  And,  being  women, Lythande  knew  they  could see  the
unclouded beauty that shone through the girl's rags.

'Is Madame Myrtis available, Jiro?'

'She's sleeping,  0 great  wizard, but  for you  she's given  orders she's to be
waked at any hour. Is this -' no  one alive can be quite so supercilious as  the
chief eunuch  of a  fashionable brothel  - 'yours,  Lythande, or  a gift  for my
madame?'

'Both, perhaps.  Give her  something to  eat and  find her  a place to spend the
night.'

'And a bath, magician? She has fleas enough to louse a floorful of cushions!'

'A bath, certainly, and a bath-woman  with scents and oih,' Lythande said,  'and
something in the nature of a whole garment.'

'Leave it to me,' said Jiro expansively, and Bercy looked at Lythande in  dread,
but  went when  the magician  gestured to  her to  go. As  Jiro took  her away,
Lythande saw Myrtis standing in the doorway; a heavy woman, no longer young, but
with the frozen  beauty of a  spell. Through the  perfect spelled features,  her
eyes were warm and welcoming as she smiled at Lythande.

'My dear, I had not expected to see you here. !s that yours?' She moved her head
towards the door through which Jiro had conducted the frightened Bercy.  'She'll
probably run away, you know, once you take your eyes off her.'

'I wish I thought so, Myrtis. But no such luck, I fear.'

'You  had  better  tell  me  the whole  story,'  Myrtis  said,  and  listened to
Lythande's brief, succinct account of the affair.

'And if you laugh, Myrtis,  I take back my spell  and leave your grey hairs  and
wrinkles  open to  the mockery  of everyone  in Sanctuary!'                    .
. -

But Myrtis had known Lythande too  long to take that threat very  seriously. 'So
the maiden you rescued  is all maddened with  desire for the love  of Lythande!'
She chuckled. 'It is like an old ballad, indeed!'

'But what am I to  do, Myrtis? By the.paps of  Shipri the All-Mother, this is  a
dilemma!'      .                ^

'Take her  into your  confidence and  tell her  why your  love cannot  be hers,'
Myrtis said.

Lythande frowned. 'You hold my Secret, since I had no choice; you knew me before
I was made magician, or bore the blue star -'

'And before I was a harlot,' Myrtis agreed.

'But if I make this  girl feel like a fool  for loving me, she" will  hate me as
much as sheJeves; and I cannot confide in anyone I cannot trust with my life and
my power. All I have is yours, Myrtis, because of that past we shared. And  that
includes my power, if you ever should  need it. But I cannot entrust it  to this
girl.'

'Still she owes you  something, for delivering her  out of the hands  ofRabben.'
.

Lythande said, 'I will think about it; and now make haste to bring me food,  for
I am  hungry and  athirst.' Taken  to a  private room,  Lythande ate  and drank,
served by Myrtis's own  hands. And Myrtis said,  'I could never have  sworn your
vow - to eat and drink in the sight of no man!'

'If you sought  the power of  a magician, you  would keep it  well enough,' said
Lythande. 'I am  seldom tempted now  to break it;  I fear only  lest I break  it
unawares; I cannot drink in a tavern  lest among  the women there might be  some
one of  those strange  men who  find diversion  in putting  on the garments of a
female; even here I  will not eat or   drink among your women,  for that reason.
All power depends on the vows and the secret.'

'Then I cannot aid you,' Myrtis said,  'but you are not bound to speak  truth to
her; tell her you have vowed to live without women.'

'I may do that,' Lythande said, and finished the food, scowling.

Later Bercy  was brought  in, wide-eyed,  enthralled by  her fine  gown and  her
freshly washed hair, softly curling about her pink-and-white face and the  sweet
scent of bath oils and perfumes that hung about her.

'The girls here wear such pretty clothes, and one of them told me they could eat
twice a day if they wished! Am I pretty enough, do you think, that Madame Myrtis
would have me here?'

'If that is what you wish. You are more than beautiful.'

Bercy said boldly, 'I would rather  belong to you, magician,' and flung  herself
again on Lythande, her hands clutching and clinging, dragging the lean face down
to hers. Lythande, who rarely  touched anything living, held her  gently, trying
not to reveal consternation.

'Bercy, child, this is only a fancy. It will pass.'

'No,' she wept. 'I love you, I want only you!'

And then, unmistakably, along the  magician's nerves, Lythande felt that  little
ripple, that warning thrill of tension which said: spell-casting is in use.  Not
against Lythande. That could have been countered. But somewhere within the room.

Here, in  the Aphrodisia  House? Myrtis,  Lythande knew,  could be  trusted with
life, reputation, fortune, the  magical power of the  Blue Star itself; she  had
been tested before this. Had she altered enough to turn betrayer, it would  have
been apparent in her aura when Lythande came near.

That left only the girl, who was clinging and whimpering, 'I will die if you  do
not love me! I will die! Tell me  it is not true, Lythande, that you are  unable
to love! Tell me it is an evil lie that magicians are emasculated, incapable  of
loving woman ...'

'That is certainly an evil lie,' Lythande agreed gravely. 'I give you my  solemn
assurance that I have never been emasculated.' But Lythande's nerves tingled  as
the words  were spoken.  A magician  might lie,  and most  of them did. Lythande
would lie as readily as any other, in a good cause. But the law of the Blue Star
was this: when questioned directly on  a matter bearing directly on the  Secret,
the  adept might  not tell  a direct  lie. And  Bercy, unknowing,  was only  one
question away from the fatal one hiding the Secret.

With a  mighty effort,  Lythande's magic  wrenched at  the very  fabric of  Time
itself; the girl stood motionless, aware  of no lapse, as Lythande stepped  away
far enough to read her aura. And yes, there within the traces of that  vibrating
field was the shadow of the blue star. Rabben's: overpowering her will.

Rabben. Rabben  the Half-handed,  who had  set his  will "on  the girl,  who had
staged and contrived the whole thing, including the encounter where the girl had
needed rescue; put the girl under a spell to attract and bespell Lythande.

The law of the Blue Star forbade one adept of the Star to kill another; for  all
would be needed to fight  side by side, on the  last day, against Chaos. Yet  if
one adept could prise forth the secret of another's power ... then the powerless
one was not needed against Chaos and could be killed.

What could  be done  now? Kill  the girl?  Rabben would  take that,  too, as  an
answer;  Bercy had  been so  bespelled as  to be  irresistible to  any man;  if
Lythande sent her away untouched,  Rabben would know that Lythande's  secret lay
in that area and would never rest in his attempts to uncover it. For if Lythande
was untouched by this sex-spell to make Bercy irresistible, then Lythande was  a
eunuch, or a homosexual, or ...  sweating, Lythande dared not even think  beyond
that. The Secret was safe only if never questioned. It would not be read in  the
aura; but one simple question, and all was ended.

I should kill  her, Lythande thought.  For now I  am fighting, not  for my magic
alone, but for my secret and for my life. For surely, with my power gone, Rabben
would lose no time  in making an end  of me, in revenge  for the loss of  half a
hand.

The girl was still motionless, entranced.  How easily she could be killed!  Then
Lythande recalled an old fairy-tale, which  might be used to save the  Secret of
the Star.

The light flickered as  Time returned to the  chamber. Bercy was still  clinging
and weeping, unaware  of the lapse;  Lythande had resolved  what to do.  and the
girl  felt  Lythande's  arms  enfolding her,  and  the  magician's  kiss on  her
welcoming mouth.

'You must love me or I shall die!' Bercy wept.

Lythande said, 'You shall be mine.' The soft neutral voice was very gentle. 'But
even a magician is vulnerable in love, and I must protect myself. A place  shall
be made ready  for us without  light or sound  save for what  I provide with  my
magic; and you must swear that you will not seek to see or to touch me except by
that magical light. Will you swear it by the All-Mother, Bercy? For if you swear
this, I shall love you as no woman has ever been loved before.'

Trembling, she whispered, 'I swear.' And Lythande's heart went out in pity,  for
Rabben had used her ruthlessly; so  that she burned alive with her  unslaked and
bewitched love for the magician, that she  was all caught up in her passion  for
Lythande. Painfully,  Lythande thought;  if she  had only  loved me. without the
spell; then I could have loved ...                     ,.

Would that I could trust her with my secrete But she is only Rabben's tool;  her
love for me is  his doing, and none  of her own will...  and not real... And  so
everything which would  pass between them  now must be  only a drama  staged for
Rabben.

'I shall make all ready for you with my magic.'

Lythande went and confided to Myrtis what was needed; the woman began to  laugh,
but a single  glance at Lythande's  bleak face stopped  her cold. She  had known
Lythande since long  before the blue  star was set  between those eyes;  and she
kept the Secret for love of Lythande. It wrung her heart to see one she loved in
the grip of such suffering. So she said, 'All will be prepared. Shall I give her
a drug in her  wine to weaken her  will, that you may  the more readily throw  a
glamour upon her?'

Lythande's voice held a terrible  bitterness. 'Rabben has done that  already for
us, when he put a spell upon her to love me.'

'You would have it otherwise?' Myrtis asked, hesitating.

'All the gods of Sanctuary - they laugh at me! All-Mother, help me! But I  would
have it otherwise; I could love her, if she were not Rabben's tool.'

When all was prepared,  Lythande entered the darkened  room. There was no  light
but the light of the Blue Star. The girl lay on a bed, stretching up her arms to
the magician with exalted abandon.

'Come to me, come to me, my love!'

'Soon,' said Lythande, sitting beside  her, stroking her hair with  a tenderness
even Myrtis  would never  have guessed.  'I will  sing to  you a love-song of my
people, far away.'

She writhed in erotic ecstasy. 'All you do is good to me, my love, my magician!'

Lythande felt the blankness of utter despair. She was beautiful, and she was  in
love. She lay in a  bed spread for the two  of them, and they were  separated by
the breadth of the world. The magician could not endure it.

Lythande sang,  in that  rich and  beautiful voice;  a voice  lovelier than  any
spell;

		'Half the night is spent; and the crown of moonlight
		 Fades, and now the crown of the stars is paling;
		 Yields the sky reluctant to coming morning;
		 Still I lie lonely.'

Lythande could see tears on Bercy's cheeks.

		'I will love you as no woman has ever been loved.'

Between the girl  on the bed,  and the motionless  form of the  magician, as the
magician's robe fell heavily to the  floor, a wraith-form grew, the very  wraith
and fetch, at first,  of Lythande. tall and  lean, with blazing eyes  and a star
between its brows and a body white and unscarred; the form of the magician,  but
this one triumphant in virility, advancing on the motionless woman, waiting. Her
mind fluttered away in arousal,  was caught, captured, be-spelled. Lythande  let
her see  the image  for a  moment; she  could not  see the true Lythande behind;
then, as her eyes closed in  ecstatic awareness of the touch, Lythande  smoothed
light fingers over her closed eyes.

'See - what I bid you to see!

'Hear - what I bid you hear!

'Feel - only what I bid you feel, Bercy!'

And now  she was  wholly under  the spell  of the  wraith. Unmoving, stony-eyed,
Lythande watched as her lips closed on emptiness and she kissed invisible  lips;
and moment by moment Lythande knew what touched her, what caressed her. Rapt and
ravished by illusion that brought her again and again to the heights of ecstasy,
till she cried out in abandonment. Only to Lythande that cry was bitter; for she
cried out not to Lythande but to the man-wraith who possessed her.

At last she lay  all but unconscious, satiated;  and Lythande watched in  agony.
When she opened her eyes again, Lythande was looking down at her, sorrowfully.

Bercy stretched up  languid arms. 'Truly,  my beloved, you  have loved me  as no
woman has ever been loved before.'

For the first and last  time, Lythande bent over her  and pressed her lips in  a
long, infinitely tender kiss. 'Sleep, my darling.'

And as she sank into ecstatic, exhausted sleep, Lythande wept.

Long  before she  woke, Lythande  stood, girt  for travel,  in the  little room
belonging to Myrtis.

'The spell will hold. She will make all haste to carry her tale to Rabben -  the
tale of Lythande, the incomparable lover! Of Lythande, of untiring virility, who
can love a maiden  into exhaustion!' The rich  voice of Lythande was  harsh with
bitterness.

'And long before you return to Sanctuary, once freed of the spell, she will have
forgotten you in many other lovers,' Myrtis agreed. 'It is better and safer that
it should be so.'

'True.' But Lythande's voice broke. 'Take care of her, Myrtis. Be kind to her.'

'I swear it, Lythande.'

'If only she could have  loved me' - the magician  broke and sobbed again for  a
moment; Myrtis looked away, wrung with pain, knowing not what comfort to offer.

'If only she  could have loved  me as I  am, freed of  Rabben's spell! Loved  me
without pretence! But I  feared I could not  master the spell Rabben  had put on
her ... nor trust her not to betray me. knowing ...'

Myrtis put her plump arms around Lythande, tenderly.

'Do you regret?'

The question was ambiguous. It might have meant: Do you regret that you did  not
kill the girl? Or even: Do you regret your oath and the secret you must bear  to
the last day? Lythande chose to answer the last.

'Regret? How can I regret?  One day I shall fight  against Chaos with all of  my
order; even at the side of Rabben, if he lives un-murdered as long as that.  And
that  alone must  justify my  existence and  my secret.  But now  I must  leave
Sanctuary, and who knows  when the chances of  the world will bring  me this way
again? Kiss me farewell, my sister.'

Myrtis stood on tiptoe. Her lips met the lips of the magician.

'Until we meet again, Lythande. May She attend and guard you for ever. Farewell,
my beloved, my sister.'

Then the magician Lythande girded on her sword, and went silently and by  unseen
ways out of  the city of  Sanctuary, just as  the dawn was  breaking. And on her
forehead the glow of the Blue Star was dimmed by the rising sun. Never once  did
she look back.

THE MAKING OF THIEVES' WORLD
by Robert Lynn Asprin

It was a dark and stormy night...

Actually, that Thursday night before Boskone '78 was a very pleasant night. Lynn
Abbey,  Gordy  Dickson,  and  I  were enjoying  a  quiet  dinner  in  the Boston
Sheraton's Mermaid Restaurant  prior to the  chaos which inevitably  surrounds a
major science fiction convention.

As  so often  happens when  several authors  gather socially,  the  conversation
turned  to  the subject  of  writing in  general  and specifically  to  problems
encountered and pet peeves. Not to be outdone by my dinner companions, I  voiced
one  of my  long-standing gripes:  that whenever  one set  out to  write heroic
fantasy,  it was  first necessary  to  re  -invent the  universe  from  scratch
regardless  of  what had   gone before.  Despite the  carefully Grafted Hyborean
world of Howard or even  the delightfully  complex town ofLankhmar  which Leiber
created, every author was  expected to beat his  head against the writing  table
and devise a world of his own. Imagine, I proposed, if our favourite   sword-and
-sorcery characters  shared  the  same settings   and time -frames.  Imagine the
story potentials. Imagine the tie-ins. What if...

What if Fafhrd and  Mouser had just finished  a successful heist. With  an angry
crowd on their heels,  they pull one of  their notorious doubleback escapes  and
elude  the  pursuing throng.  Now  suppose this  angry,  torch-waving pack  runs
headlong into Conan, hot and tired from  the trail, his dead horse a day's  walk
behind him. All he wants is a jug of wine and a wench. Instead, he's  confronted
with a lynch mob. What  if his saddlebags are full  of loot from one of  his own
ventures, yet undiscovered?

Or what ifKane and Eiric took jobs marshalling opposite armies in the same war?

Why, I proclaimed, the possibilities are endless. Pouring a little more wine,  I
admitted that one of my pet projects under consideration was to do a  collection
of fantasy stories featuring not one,  but an array of central characters.  They
would all  share the  same terrain  and be  peripherally aware  of each  other's
existence as  their paths  crossed. The  only problem:  my writing  schedule was
filling up so fast I wasn't sure when or if I'd ever get a chance to write it.

More wine flowed.

Gordy sympathized eloquently, pointing out  that this was a problem  all writers
encountered as they  grew more and  more successful. Time!  Time to fulfil  your
commitments and still be able to write the fun things you really want to  write.
As an example, he pointed out that there were countless story potentials in  his
Dorsai universe, but that  he was barely able  to find the time  to complete the
Childe Cycle novels, much less pursue all the spin-offs.

More wine flowed.

The ideal thing,  Lynn suggested, was  to be able  to franchise one's  ideas and
worlds out to other authors. The danger there, Gordy pointed out, was the danger
of losing  control. None  of us  were particularly  wild about  letting any Tom,
Dick, or Harry play around with our pet ideas.

More wine flowed.

Anthologies! If  we went  to an  anthology format,  we could  invite authors  to
participate, as well as having final say as to the acceptability of the  stories
submitted.

Gordy ordered a bottle of champagne.

Of course, he observed, you'll be  able to get some top-flight authors  for this
because it'll be fun. They'll do it more  for the love of the idea than for  the
money.

I remarked on the ease with which  'our' idea had become 'my' anthology. As  the
weight of the project had suddenly come to rest on my shoulders, I asked whether
he intended to assist or at least contribute to the anthology. His reply set the
classic pattern for nearly all the contributors to Thieves' World: I'd love  to,
but I don't have the time. It's a lovety idea, though.

(Five minutes  later) I  just thought  of a  character who  would fit  into this
perfectly.

(Fifteen minutes later ... thoughtful  stare into nothingness converting into  a
smug grin) I've got my story!

During this last exchange, Lynn was  saying very little. Unbeknownst to me,  she
had mentally dealt herself out  of the project when Gordy  proposed 'established
writers only'. At that point in time, she had in her suitcase the manuscript for
Daughter of the Bright Moon, hoping to find an interested editor at Boskone. She
was  far  from being  'established'.  It is  to  her credit,  however,  that she
successfully hid her disappointment at being excluded, and accompanied Gordy and
me as we finished the last of the champagne and went'trolling for editors'.

It may seem to you that it was rather early to try to find a publisher for  such
a  nebulous work.  That's how  it struck  me at  the time.  Gordy pointed  out,
however, that if we could find an editor and nudge him into an appraisal of  the
dollar value of the idea, I would have a better feel for what my budget would be
when I went to line up my authors.  (The fact that this made sense to me  at the
time will serve as an indication of  the lateness of the hour and the  amount of
wine we had consumed.)

To this end, we devised a subtle tactic.  We would try to find an author and  an
editor in  the same  room. preferably  in the  same conversation.  We would then
pitch the idea to  the author as a  potential contributor and see  if the editor
showed interest.

We found such a duo and launched into our song and dance. The editor yawned, but
the author thought it was  a great idea. Of course,  he didn't have the time  to
write anything ... Then he thought of a character! That's how John Brunner  came
on board.

The next  morning, the  effects of  our dinner  wine dissipated  and I  began to
realize what I had let myself in for. A brand-new author, barely published,  and
I was going to try to edit an anthology? Soliciting contributions from the  best
in the field,  yet! That revelation  sobered me up  faster than a  bucket of ice
water and a five-day hotel bill.

Still, the ball was already rolling, and I had story commitments from Gordy  and
John. I might as well see how far things could go.

FRIDAY: I  ambushed Joe  Haldeman over  a glass  of lunch.  He thought  it was a
terrific idea,  but he  didn't have  any time.  Besides, he  pointed out, he had
never  written heroic  fantasy. I  countered by  reminding him  of his  stay in
Vietnam, courtesy of the  US Army. Surely, I  pressed, there must be  one or two
characters he  had encountered  who would  fit into  a sword-and-sorcery setting
with minimal rewriting. His eyes cleared. He had his character.

SATURDAY: I finally found out what was bothering Lynn and assured her of a place
on the Thieves' World roster. I was confident she would be 'established'  before
the anthology came-out, and even if she wasn't, I knew she could produce a solid
story. No, I don't have  a crystal ball. Lynn and  I both live in Ann  Arbor and
share workspace when we're writing. As  such, 1 had been reading the  manuscript
of Daughter of the Bright Moon as she was writing it, and knew her writing style
even before the editors saw it. (My prophecy proved correct. Ace/Sunridge bought
her  manuscript, and  a major  promo campaign  is currently  underway. The  book
should be on the stands when you see this anthology.)

SUNDAY: Wonder  of wonders.  Over cognac  at the  Ace dead-dog  party, Jim  Baen
expresses a solid  interest in the  anthology ... if  'I succeed in  filling the
remaining slots  with authors  of an  equal quality  to those already committed.
Leaving the party, 1 encounter Jim Odbert in the hall and do a little  bragging.
He brings me down to earth by asking about the street map. I hadn't even thought
about  it, but  he was  right! It  would be  absolutely necessary  for internal
continuity. Thinking fast, I commission him on the spot and retire, harbouring a
nagging  hunch  that this  project  might be  a  bit more  involved  than I  had
imagined.

Back in Ann  Arbor, I face  the task of  filling the remaining  openings for the
anthology. My magic  wand for this  feat is a  telephone. Having been  a fan for
many years, I have had passing  contact with several prominent authors, many  of
whom don't know that I'm  writing now. I figure it  will be easier to jog  their
memories over the phone than trying to do the same thing by letter.

The problem now is ... who? Solid authors ... that's a must. Authors who know me
well enough that they won't  hang up when I call.  Authors who don't know me  so
well that they'll hang up when I call.

Andy! Andy Offutt. Our  paths had crossed several  times at cons, and  I know we
share a mutual admiration of Genghis Khan.

Andy doesn't have any time, but is super enthusiastic over the idea and has  his
character. Yes,  that's all  one sentence.  If anything,  I've condensed  it. If
you've ever talked to Andy on the phone, you'll understand.

Next will  be Poul  Anderson. Poul  and I  know each  other mostly by reputation
through Gordy  and through  a medieval  re-enactment organization  known as  the
Society  for Creative  Anachronism, Inc.  Sir Bela  of Eastmarch  and Yang  the
Nauseating. Hooboy, do we know each other. In spite of that, Poul agrees to do a
story for me ... if he gets the time ... in fact, he has a character in mind.

The  list  is  growing.  Confident now  that  the  impressive  array of  authors
submitting stories will offset my own relative obscurity, 1 go for a few who may
not remember me.

Roger Zeiazny was Pro Guest of Honour at a convention in Little Rock,  Arkansas,
where I was Fan Guest of Honour. He remembers and listens to my pitch.

I spoke briefly with Marion Zimmer Bradley about the sword-work in Hunter of the
Red Moon - when we passed in the hall at a Wester-Con in Los Angeles - two years
ago. She remembers me and listens to my pitch.

Philip Jose Farmer and I have seen each other twice: once in Milwaukee and  once
in Minneapolis. Both times we were at opposite ends of a table with half a dozen
people crowded between us. He  acknowledges the memory, then listens  in silence
for fifteen minutes while I do my spiel. When I finally grind to a halt, he says
okay  and  hangs up.  I  find out  later  that this  is  his way  of  expressing
enthusiasm. If he hadn't been enthusiastic, he would have said no and hung up.

By this time it's Minicon. Jim Odbert  passes me a set of maps. Then  he, Gordy,
Joe, Lynn, and I  sit around half the  night discussing the history  of the city
and the surrounding continent. A set of house rules is devised and agreed  upon:
(1) Each contributor is to send me a brief description of the main character  of
his/her story.  (2) These  descriptions will  be copied  and distributed  to the
other contributors. (3)  Any author can  use these characters  in his/her story,
providing they're not killed off or noticeably reformed.

I run all this through a typewriter and mail it out to all the contributors.  It
occurs to me that this isn't nearly as difficult as I had feared. My only  worry
is that the mails might slow communication with John Brunner in England, causing
him to be late with his submission. Except for that everything was going fine.

Then the fun began ...

Andy,  Poul,  and  John all  send  me  notes in  varying  degrees  of gentleness
correcting my grammar and/or word usage in the flier. They are willing to accept
without confirmation  that my  spelling was  intended as  a joke.  These are the
people I'm supposed to be editing! Riiiiight!

Poul sends me a copy of his essay, 'On Thud and Blunder', to ensure the  realism
of the setting, particularly the economic  structure of the town. He also  wants
to know about the judicial system in Sanctuary.

Andy  wants to  know about  the deities  worshipped, preferably  broken down  by
nationality  and  economic  class of  worshippers.  Fortunately,  he includes  a
proposed set of gods, which I gleefully copy and send to the other contributors.
He heads his ten-page letters with 'To Colossus: The Asprin Project'. It  occurs
to me that with his own insight as an anthology editor, this could be more truth
than humour.

To make my  job a little  easier, some of  the authors start  playing poker with
their character sketches: 'I won't show  you mine till you show me  yours.' They
delay submitting their sketches until they  see what the other authors turn  in.
One of these is Gordy.  Remember him? He's the one  who got me into this  in the
first place. He's the one who 'had his character' before there was an anthology!
Terrific!'

John Brunner submits his story - a full year before the stated deadline. So much
for transatlantic delays. I haven't  gotten all the character descriptions  yet.
More important, I haven't gotten the advance money yet! His agent begins to prod
gently for payment.

Roger reappraises his time commitments and withdraws from the project. Oh, well.
You can't win them all.

Poul wants to know about the architectural style of Sanctuary.

Andy and Poul want to know about the structure and nationality of names.

A call  comes in  from Ace.  Jim Baen  wants the  manuscript a full three months
ahead of the contracted deadline. I point out that this is impossible - the  new
deadline would give  me only two  weeks between receiving  the stories from  the
authors and  submitting the  complete manuscript  to New  York. If I encountered
difficulties with any of the stories or if any of the submissions came in  late,
it would disrupt the schedule completely. They point out that if I can meet  the
new schedule, they'll make it their  lead book for the month it's  released. The
avaricious side of me is screaming, but I stick to my guns and repeat that  it's
impossible  to guarantee.  They offer  a contract  for a  second Thieves'  World
anthology, suggesting that if a couple  of stories are late, I can  include them
in the  next book.  Under attack  now both  from my  publisher and my own greedy
nature, I roll my eyes heavenward, swallow hard, and agree.

A new note is rapidly dispatched to the contributors, politely reminding them of
the approaching deadline.  Also included is  Gordy's character sketch  for Jamie
the Red  which he  had finally  submitted under  mild duress  (his arm will heal
eventually).

Andy calls and wants to know the prince's name. I haven't given it any  thought,
but am willing to negotiate.  An hour later, I hang  up. It occurs to me  that I
haven't written my story yet.

Gordy notifies me that he can't get  his story done in time for the  first book.
Terrific! With Gordy and  Roger both out of  the first volume, it's  starting to
look a little short.

Andy's story comes in, as does Joe's and Poul's.

Andy's  story includes  a discussion  with Joe's  One-Thumb character.  Joe has
killed One-Thumb off in his story. A minor sequencing problem.

Poul's story has Cappen Varra going  off on an adventure with Gordy's  Jamie the
Red. Gordie's Jamie the Red story won't be in the first book! A major sequencing
problem! Oh, well. I owe Gordy one for talking me into editing this monster.

I look at the stories already in the  bin and decide that the first draft of  my
story needs some drastic rewriting.

A note  arrives from  Phil Farmer.  He had  sent me  a letter  months ago, which
apparently never arrived, withdrawing  from the project. (It  hadn't!) Realizing
that withdrawing  at this  late date  would leave  me in  a bad  spot, he is now
rearranging his writing schedule in order to send me 'something'. Of course,  it
will be a little late. I am grateful, but panicky.

Lynn finishes her story and starts to gloat. I threaten to beat her head in with
my Selectric.

Ace calls again. They want additional information for the cover copy. They  also
want a word count. I explain the situation as calmly as I can. Half-way  through
my explanation, the phone melts.

Ma Bell fixes  my phone in  record time (I  am rapidly becoming  their favourite
customer), and  I hurriedly  call Marion  to ask  for a  rough word-count on her
unsubmitted  story. She  tells me  she sent  me a  letter which  must not  have
arrived. (It  didn't.) She  tells me  she'll have  to withdraw  from the project
because of time pressures in her other writing commitments. She tells me to stop
gibbering and say something. I calm myself and explain I'd really like to have a
story from her. I explain I really need her story. I mention that her  character
is on the cover of the book. She observes that the water gushing from the  phone
is threatening to flood her living room  and agrees to try to squeeze the  story
into her writing schedule ... before she flies to London in two weeks.

With steady hand but trembling mind, I call Ace and ask for Jim Baen. I  explain
the situation: I have six stories in hand (yes, I finally finished mine) and two
more on the way ... a little late  ... maybe. He informs roe that with just  six
stories the book  will be too  short. He wants  at least one  more story and  an
essay from  me about  how much  fun it  was to  edit the  anthology. To  calm my
hysterics, he suggests  I commission a  back-up story in  case the two  en route
don't arrive in time. I point out that there are only two weeks remaining before
the deadline. He concedes that with such a limited time-frame, I probably  won't
be  able  to get  a  story from  a  'name' author.  He'll  let me  work  with an
'unknown', but the story had better be good!

Christine DeWees is  a kindly, white-haired  grandmother who rides  a Harley and
wants to be a writer. Lynn and I have been criticizing her efforts for some time
and have repeatedly encouraged her to submit something to an editor. So far, she
has resisted our proddings, insisting that she would be embarrassed to show  her
work to a professional editor. I decide to kill two birds with one stone.

In my most disarming 'nothing can go wrong' tones, I give my spiel to  Christine
and  pass her  a Thieves'  World package.  Three hours  later, my  phone rings.
Christine loves the character ofMyrtis, the madam of the Aphrodisia House and is
ready to do a story centring around  her. I stammer politely and point out  that
Myrtis is one of Marion's characters  and that she might object to  someone else
writing her characters. Christine cackles and tells me she's already cleared  it
with Marion  (don't ask  me how  she got  the phone  number!), and everything is
effervescent. Two days later, she hands me the story, and I still haven't gotten
around to looking up 'effervescent' in the dictionary.

With seven stories now  in hand, I declare  Thieves' World I to  be complete and
begin writing  my 'fun  fun' essay.  The stories  from Marion  and Phil can wait
until the second book.

Then Marion's story arrives.

Marion's story interfaces so nicely with  Christine's that I decide to use  them
both in the first book. Rather than  cut one of the • other stories,  the volume
is assembled with  intros, maps, eight  stories, and essay,  crated, and shipped
off to New York.

Endo volume one! Print it!

The whole whirlwind process of editing this monster child was only vaguely as  I
had imagined it would be. Still, in hindsight, I loved it. With all the  worries
and panics,  the skyhigh  phone bills  and the  higher bar  bills, I loved every
minute. I find myself actually looking forward to the next volume ... and that's
what worries me!