Mid-Afternoon; Rotunda of the City Courts Building, in Sigil, the City of Doors:

«Ah,» said the centaur, looking over my shoulder «I see that you're painting.»

«Yes,» I replied from behind my easel.

«The hustle and bustle of what this city calls justice,» the centaur continued. «Prisoners hobbling by in chains. Litigants glaring at each other as they await trial. Judges in ermine passing sentence on ragged beggars. Certainly, this is fertile ground for an artist with an eye for irony… or tragedy… or simply the paradoxes of life. What is your theme, young man?»

«My theme?» I asked.

«What artistic statement are you making? How the law oppresses the powerless? Or perhaps, if you are an optimist, how the law, despite its flaws, is a majestic abstraction that reflects the best within us. Is that your statement?»

«My statement is I wish there weren't so many curlicues carved over the entranceway. My hand is falling asleep trying to copy them all.»

The centaur stared at me wordlessly.

«This painting,» I explained, «was commissioned by Guvner Hashkar, Chief Justice of the Courts and Factol for the Fraternity of Order. He said to me, Cavendish, dear fellow, the wife's got a cousin getting married next week. He's a right berk of a boy, but family is family, don't you know. Need to give a present and the wife says a painting would be just the thing. Just the thing, yes. Three feet by five should do admirably, and go easy on the reds, there's a good chap – the boy tends to faint if he gets too excited. Why not take a bash at a picture of the court rotunda? Could be inspiring. Just the thing for the breakfast nook. Just the thing, yes.»

«And you took this commission?» The centaur looked aghast. «You didn't spit in this man's face? You didn't lecture him about artistic integrity?»

«You don't lecture factols,» I replied. «If they ask you to do something annoying, you simply charge more. That's why I have a longer list of wealthy clients than any other painter in Sigil; I talk their language.»

The centaur gaped at me for another few seconds, then stomped away in disgust. I have to admit, if there's one thing centaurs are good at, it's stomping away.

Shrugging, I continued to copy the curlicues, trying to ignore the distractions around me; and let me tell you, the City Courts are full of distractions. For example, lined up in front of a door beside me stood a cornugon – one of those reptilian horrors from the Lower Planes, nine feet tall, insect wings, a prehensile tail like three yards of razorvine… well, you must have seen them around. This one was waiting stoically, reading a scroll that had almost no words but dozens of bright orange ink drawings of humans and demihumans being grilled over pillars of flame. To a cornugon, such a scroll might be anything from a bedtime story to a menu-planner.

In line behind the hell-monster, waiting just as patiently, was a deva from the Upper Planes: a handsome amber-skinned man, two feet taller than me and equipped with wings as big as the cornugon's. The deva's wings, however, were made from feathers of the purest gold. A single one of the feathers could have bought someone a nice night on the town… but as soon as my thoughts drifted to leaving work for the day, I botched one of the curlicues and had to dab away the error with turpentine.

Unlike the cornugon, the deva hadn't brought anything to read, but that didn't leave him bored. He simply fixed his eyes on the sky outside the door of the rotunda, and soon his face settled into an expression of rapturous contemplation of the heavens… which, if you ask me, was a waste of good rapture, since Sigil is shaped like a ring a few miles in diameter, and the only thing you can see in the sky above the court building are the grimy slums of the Hive district. Still, gazing up on those filthy streets didn't bother the deva; and he even managed to maintain his serene expression when the cornugon in front shifted its weight and flicked its scaly wings across the deva's nose.

For a brief moment, something inside me wanted to toss away my bland painting of the architecture and instead, work on capturing this little moment: creatures of heaven and hell, standing side by side and ignoring each other… or perhaps only pretending to. This little scene said something. I wasn't sure what it said, but you can't show an angelic being and a demonic one in the same picture without it being some kind of comment, right?

On the other hand… I hadn't been commissioned to paint a deva and a cornugon. If I suddenly decided to paint something that interested me, who knew where it would all end? Muttering something about gold handcuffs, I went back to work.

«Painting a picture, huh?» said a nasal voice by my elbow. «Do you really have to draw all those curlicues? Couldn't you kind of suggest them?»

I turned to see a gangly boy in his late teens squatting and squinting at my canvas. His skin was caramel brown, but his hair yellow blonde, hanging haphazardly around distinctly pointed ears. One of his parents must have been human, the other an elf; and neither side of the family could take much pride in the result. «Do I know you?» I asked, trying to sound forbidding.

«Hezekiah Virtue,» he replied, holding out a hand that was overly blessed with knuckles. Looking down at my paintbox, he read my name printed there. «Britlin Cavendish… well it's an honor to meet you.»

«You've heard of me?»

«Nope. But it's an honor to meet anyone in Sigil; I've only been here two days. Do you belong to a faction?»

I sighed. My jacket clearly displayed the «five senses» symbol of the Society of Sensation, and the symbol was repeated on my signet ring and the top of my paintbox. However, that obviously didn't mean anything to this Clueless child. «I have the privilege of being a Sensate,» I told him. «Our society is dedicated to savoring all the abundance the multiverse can offer.»

«Oh, my Uncle Toby told me about you guys,» he answered, his eyes growing wide. «You must have a lot of wild parties, right?»

«Wrong. One wild party in a lifetime usually exhausts that field of experience. Then we move on to more refined pursuits.»

«Oh.» Clearly, the boy had no idea what a refined pursuit might be. Then his face brightened, and he reached into a cloth bag he carried in one hand. «Have you ever tried swineberries?»

The name made me wrinkle my nose. «Swineberries?»

He pulled out a handful of greasy brown berries, each about the size of my thumb. They were flat and wrinkled, as if someone had stepped on them with spike-heeled boots. «I brought them with me from home,» the boy said. «My home plane. I'm not from around here. The berries aren't as fresh as they used to be, but they're still pretty good.» He popped one in his mouth and chewed vigorously. «You should try one.»

«Yes,» I admitted, «I should.» A Sensate never says no to a new experience, even if it turns out to be some boring new prune from the Prime Material Plane. I told myself if the taste proved to be as lackluster as I expected – swineberries! – at least I'd have something to joke about the next time I had dinner with my fellow Sensates.

Of course, I couldn't just pop the berry in my mouth and chew, like the boy did. You don't rush such things. You have to hold the berry lightly in your fingertips, testing the weight and texture in the fruit. Then you lift it to your nose and smell its bouquet – a light, sugary fragrance, with a teasing hint of musk. Then, and only then, do you slip it between your teeth and bite down gently… whereupon, you discover the sodding berry tastes like pure rock salt.