Vaananen looked him in the eye and said, "For years I have been striving to pay your debt-your father's debt-legitimately and legally. I have wrestled the Kingpriest, losing under his self-serving rules. But all the rules are broken now. Go in peace. Your collar will tell Fordus who you are."

The druid produced two books from beneath his cot. He handed them to Vincus, who turned the vol shy;umes over in his hands, then opened one.

On the frail, brittle pages was a story in the elusive Lucanesti script, of gods and goddesses, of Istar and inheritances and the rightful ruler. Vincus could read little of it. The other was a copy, but still written in Lucanesti.

"The one is too fragile to travel," the druid observed. "Here is a copy. Old words upon new parchment, as much as is legible. Take it with you. One will ask for it soon, and you will know it is right to give the book to that person."

Vaananen placed the book and some food, along with a dagger and some odd seeds, in a small hide bag, and pressed it into Vincus's hand.

"You have served well, Vincus," the druid con shy;cluded, as Vincus moved away, still puzzled. An odd note of finality crept into Vaananen's voice. "Well done."

Vincus descended through the spreading branches, climbing away from the words.

He stood at the edge of the Marketplace as the fes shy;tival closed for the night. One of the merchants-an enormous wine seller from Balifor-walked wearily from lantern to lantern, slowly darkening his brightly lit booth.

Vincus stepped into the shadows as the merchant passed. Uneasily, he fingered his silver collar. The druid's magic still stung.

It was too much, this task Vaananen had set before him. Until now, his work for the druid had been easy and intriguing-find this, listen to that, carry rumor and gossip and the whispers of officers back to Vaananen's quarters. And in return, Vaananen made sure Vincus received the best food and lightest duties.

What the druid did with the information could be anything, and it could be nothing. Whatever hap shy;pened had been none of Vincus's business or care, until now. This thing fretted at him.

He leaned against a marble wall that formed the southernmost edge of the Slave Market. On the day the Temple had bought him-a lone boy of eleven, he had stood in the square between two auctioned Que-Kiri warriors and been sold for the debts of a larcenous father-nobody had supposed him a spy in the making.

If they had only known! The strange, bright-eyed boy in their midst, inexplicably mute, had come to be trusted with the keys to a dozen chambers, to the library and the upper room of the Tower, where the Kingpriest spoke to his counsel. They had given him books and scrolls to carry and sort and store.

They never knew when he had learned to read.

Vincus's smile was veiled by the dark of the alley. They had always underestimated him-all except Vaananen, that is, whose bidding he had followed over the last year. He scooped up a fistful of sand from the base of the wall, scattered it into the shad shy;ows, covering his tracks. Out in the lamplit square, the vintner stored the last of the wine barrels in his rickety oxcart and, with a soft, guttural command to the huge animal, steered the vehicle into the dark.

Vincus rose slowly. The square was empty now. But tomorrow the vendors would return, and the day after, and for five days after that, unless the impossible actually happened. Unless the mythical rebels, who were scarcely more than a fleeting, unpleasant dream amid the chanting and ritual of the Tower nights, stepped into the waking world, closed down the festival, captured the Tower, and liberated Istar.

Liberate. It made Vincus smile again-that confi shy;dent, foolish word. Oh, he had heard talk from the other servants that, if Fordus seized the city, there would be freedom for many who now were enslaved. Each would receive a handful of silver, a cart, or a tun of ale-depending on the version of the rumor.

But the elder slaves, the ones who remembered the old Kingpriest and the times before the Siege on Sor shy;cery, said that freedom talk always arose, drifting like smoke into the corners of the city, when a new leader threatened old power. The grayheads did not believe in Fordus, did not believe in a coming freedom.

After all, they had seen the years, seen Kingpriest and liberator come and go. And they still wore the collars-brass, copper, or silver-and the slave trade continued to boom in Istar.

Now the square was empty, the lanterns shut and darkened. With a cautious glance toward the torchlit Tower, the young man crossed the open Market shy;place, headed toward the School of the Games and the ramshackle houses that lay in the western slums of the city.

There he had grown up, his friends and compan shy;ions the child thieves and pickpockets of Istar. They would receive him back, and he could lose himself in the narrow streets and alleys, where neither Istar-ian Guard nor clergy nor the Kingpriest himself would bother to look.

It would be like it was before.

Vincus slipped past the Welcoming Tower, past the great Banquet Hall to where the streets nar shy;rowed and darkened, the older wooden buildings leaning in on each other like wind-felled trees, the faint scent of the harbor lost in the sharp stink of tan shy;nery and midden.

Pale faces peered out of the darkened windows. An old woman in an upper story lifted her hand in a warding sign. Someone in the mouth of an alley, cloaked and bent, hissed at him as he passed.

He knew better than to stop or even look back. This was a part of the city untouched by the festival, by the priests or the merchants or the guards.

These were the ones whom Fordus would liberate.

Vincus quickened his steps. He was south of the arena now, somewhere south of the School of the Games. At a decent hour, he could have located hinv self by the sound of the crowd at the gladiatorial combats, could have told the street name and the nearest alley by the echoing roar. But it was far past a decent hour now, and dark.

He was not exactly sure where he was. It had been longer than he remembered. Things had changed.

He found himself on a commercial street-a shabby line of storefronts on the slum's edge. A dozen or so darkened buildings, boarded and barred, lined a road that led to a small, circular court, in the center of which stood a broken foun shy;tain, littered with ashes and refuse and crawling with rats. No doubt the night had turned toward morning, for every shop hung in uneasy quiet except a small pub, the Sign of the Basilisk, outside of which three torches sputtered and popped, casting a blood-red light on the fountain square and streaking the storefronts with long shadows.

A solitary watchman, lantern in hand, passed from storefront to storefront. Vincus slipped back into the shadows until the lantern weaved into the darkness and vanished. Laughter from the Basilisk broke uneasily in the close, humid air, and from somewhere in the vaulted shadows of the buildings there came the unmistakable sound of wingbeat, the harsh cry of a bird.

Cautiously, Vincus stepped into the torchlight. The Basilisk was as good a place as any to start-a run-down pub, not far from his childhood haunts. There might be someone here who would remember him-certainly someone would remember his father. And once he had made the connection, had touched on old friendships and older memories …

There would be a safe place for him somewhere in the city's intricate, anonymous alleys. This was his big chance.

As he watched the door of the pub, it swung open. Four young men walked out of the smoky light and into the square. One of them, a lean, wiry type dressed in a tattered gray tunic, shielded his eyes against the torchlight and returned Vincus's stare.

"Y'got an eyeful, pup?" he shouted. He was well into his cups, and the wine blurred his thick street accent.