Dahos pointed. "The Great Chamber is down here. I will send a messenger into the room to request His Wor shy;ship's presence."

Kifflewit frowned. He thought about the layout of the temple that he'd worked out in his head, piecing together stories and scraps of overheard conversation.

"Meet in a hallway?" Phytos snorted. "High Priest, we will be received in ceremonial fashion, just as human emissaries."

"I'm afraid that won't be possible," Dahos said, smil shy;ing.

Phytos, Feelding, and Salomar pushed past the high priest. Salomar and Feelding reached for the heavy oak doors at the same time. Dahos was retreating up the ramp toward the temple's main entrance even as Kifflewit sprang from Phytos's pack.

"Stop them!" the kender shouted into the centaur leader's ear. "That's the door to the materbill's dungeon! See?" A slamming of the door confirmed that Dahos had run away. Kifflewit heard a bolt being drawn, then another.

The doors were cracked open. A huge golden paw snaked around the portal and raked Salomar across the torso. As Phytos backpedaled frantically, fire spewed through the doorway. The flames caught Feelding full in the face. Both centaurs dropped their clubs and their bows. Phytos, the kender clinging to his back, lunged toward his wounded friends, his bow ready.

"No! Run, Phytos!" Salomar gasped. "We two are lost. Go back to Fyr-Kenti glade. Tell the others. Prepare for war."

Phytos hesitated. Another gout of fire belched through the door, downing Feelding and Salomar. The materbill roared and leaped through. He tore into the two centaurs with claws and fangs.

Phytos whirled and pounded back up the hallway. A short distance from the double doors, he reared and struck the portal with both forelegs. The centaur pounded at the door with his club, then whirled and loosed a volley of blows with both hind legs.

Kifflewit fell from Phytos's back.

Then the centaur crashed through. He shook off shards of wood and splinters, then clattered through the opulent entryway past the tapestries, crashing out through the main entrance into the sunshine.

Kifflewit, hiding behind the broken door, saw the cen shy;taur bound to the top of the inner wall, teeter for a mo shy;ment on top, then vault over the outer wall to freedom.

A snarl brought the kender's attention back to his own precarious circumstances. The materbill, gorging on cen shy;taur, lifted its head and gazed up the hallway. As it chewed, it surveyed the kender and the route to freedom. It took a step toward the door.

Then a phalanx of temple guards, armed with spears and shields, entered the hallway. The materbill seemed to gauge this new enemy. The guards edged down the hall shy;way, holding up huge shields. The materbill retreated to the opposite side, behind the carcasses of the centaurs. The guards came closer. The leonine creature crouched. Then the first row of guards, shields before them, reached with their spears, nudging the dead centaurs toward the materbill. The materbill backed up slowly until it had moved back beyond the doorway. Then the guards slammed the doors to the materbill's quarters and barri shy;caded them.

Kifflewit Burrthistle dove out of sight behind the wreckage of the doors just as the High Theocrat appeared at the top of the hallway, flanked by Dahos. A dozen lesser priests crowded behind them. "What is this?" Hed-erick bellowed. "Unholy creatures in my Erolydon? By my own high priest's orders? Dahos, have you lost your mind?"

"I thought to rid us of the centaurs, Your Worship," Dahos replied. "I know that you…"

"By committing sacrilege?" Hederick screeched. "We'll have to reconsecrate the entire building! By the New Gods, Dahos, I should…"

Dahos waited, his face ashen. "But I used incense--"

he ventured, then swallowed hard. The guards grew silent and watchful.

Hederick drew in a shuddering breath. "No," he whis shy;pered. "I have need of you, High Priest. You are valuable to me-at the present, at least." He chewed his lower lip and raised his voice. "We will see if you can atone." "I will try, Your Worship," Dahos murmured. "You will oversee the reconsecration. Get to work immediately."

Dahos bowed and, at a trot, left the High Theocrat. Hederick surveyed his priests. Kifflewit peeked, unno shy;ticed, from the pile of boards. "The temple is defiled," the High Theocrat announced. "We will not return to the Great Chamber. We will reconvene on the shores of the lake immediately. Priests, move the spectators onto the back grounds. Guards, bring the prisoner to me there."

The guards marched past. The priests' robes swirled busily as the priests hurried to do Hederick's bidding.

In the confusion of robes and uniforms, one small kender went unnoticed. Soon Kifflewit Burrthistle was standing in the sunshine outside on the grass. Marble walls extended westward from the building to the lake, Beyond the walls to the north and south, vallenwoods and pines stood like sentinels. The gentle wind buffeted leaves and needles, creating a sound like a thousand people whispering.

Hundreds of people milled around Kifflewit. Although some spied him and clapped their hands over their coin pouches, no one cried out at the presence of a kender. They were outside the temple proper, after all, and Seeker rules forbidding kender and other unclean creatures applied only to the building itself.

Kifflewit Burrthistle slipped through a crowd to get a better view. Along the way, he picked up three coins, a copper bracelet, and a hand-mirror-putting them in his pockets for safekeeping. In the process, he realized he also carried several of the stones that Phytos had secreted in his pouch.

"They can't have been very important, for him to have gone off and left them like that," he said to himself. "Good thing I found them. If I ever run into him again …"

Hederick mounted a small stile. He had changed into a new ceremonial robe; the brown one had been sullied by the presence of the centaurs. He now wore deep blue vel shy;vet, with carmine and silver edging at the neck.

"What a pretty robe," Kifflewit whispered. "But it seems a bit hot for summer." Other topics were of greater consequence. For example, where was the Diamond Dragon? Tarscenian had said Hederick wore it around his neck, but no pendant swung against the blue velvet. "Must be inside," Kifflewit mumbled, leaning forward near a portly man in black. Yes, the kender decided, there might just be the faintest V of a thong beneath the mater shy;ial, with a swelling at the point of the V.

"Blessed Seekers," Hederick intoned, "I encourage you to enjoy the goddess Ferae's sunshine while I make sev shy;eral announcements and pass judgment on an unrepen shy;tant sinner."

The crowd waited expectantly.

"First," Hederick said, "you may know that the ground you are standing on will soon be the site of Erolydon's Ceremonial Pavilion, a splendid new structure created for worshipping the New Gods outdoors."

The crowd murmured. Hederick raised one hand and waited until the noise had diminished. "With that holy object in mind, my followers, I know you will rejoice at the opportunity to help provide the steel coins to raise the structure."

"What does that mean?" a woman whispered to her husband.

"He's raising our taxes again," the man whispered back.

Murmuring rose again from the crowd and this time did not die out when Hederick raised his hands. "The wood for the blessed pavilion will be the finest vallen-wood, of course."

"More of the sacred trees?" a man exploded from the center of the crowd. Two guards immediately pinioned him and hustled him back into the temple. Several marked his passage with haunted eyes.

The High Theocrat smiled. "I rejoice that you are now unanimous in your love for the New Gods. Surely the pantheons will bless you doubly for your latest gifts."