"Can't?" she said, disbelieving.

"Shouldn't, really. You see, I've got one of my own. I wouldn't want it to thinkI'd turned hostile. You should understand."

She did.

It was odd to work so closely with a rival mage of rival power. She wondered ifthere would be a price.

And there was, of sorts, though it did not fall on them directly.

When Randal had made the requisite passes with his hands and a flap in spacefell down and the globe lay revealed, Ischade's soul wrenched: she loved beauty,baubles, precious trinkets, and the power globe was all of those and more. Itwas the most beautiful, potent piece she'd ever seen. If not for Randal, hereand witness, even despite Strat she would have claimed it for her own.

When he got it out, the floorboards creaked and the roof above began to smoke.

She could see that it singed him and that he'd expected that, now with thetimbers above flaring like tarred torches.

In the ruddy light. Randal knelt down, and she did also, and he told her whatwords to speak.

Then he said, "Reach out and set it spinning-just a push with your palm willdo."

As she touched the globe, Ischade felt a shock more intense than any she'd knownfor ages-this was not a matter of raising dead or ordering the lives of lessermortals. This was a matter of power great enough to flout the gods.

And there was a bite to all Nisi magic, a corrosion different from her own. Sherocked back upon her heels, nearly mesmerized herself though nothing less couldhave done it to her.

Randal pulled unceremoniously at her elbow. "Up, my brave lady. Up and outbefore the beams fall down and roast us or she... comes back... somehow."

And then Ischade realized that her sense of Roxane's presence might be more thanjust echoes from the globe.

Quick as smoke she got her feet under her and ran, Randal beside her, toward anopen window.

Once they'd scrambled through, there was a roar as deep as any dragon's and thewhole house burst apart in flames.

And in the middle of the blaze Ischade could see the globe, still spinning,spitting colored fire of its own and spouting tongues of purer fire that lickedup towards the heavens.

Horses thundered, coming near.

Strat was there, lifting her up onto the bay's rump as if she were a child, andCrit did the same for Randal.

Neither asked if the task was done. All could see the globe, spinning brighter,whirling larger, consuming the lesser flame of burning wood and stone and thatchand blazing like a star.

The horses were glad to be reined back; the heat was singeing. You couldn't heara word or even the trumpets of mounts who hated fire as they reared and walkedbackwards on hind legs.

For it seemed, as the house collapsed, that the sky itself caught fire. Demonsof colored light slunk through that wider blaze and slipped away.

Wings of lightning beat against the firmament where a rising sun was dwarfed todullness by their light.

And down from purple lightning and clouds that came together, combusting to forma great cat-thing with hell-red eyes who swiped at it as it came, flew an eagle.

A flaming eagle, descending from the sky, chased by a giant cat of roiling cloudso black it swallowed all the heat, as if a house cat chased a sparrow in thedwelling of the gods.

The bird plummeted, wings bent. The cat struck, sent it spinning, struck again.

A scream like heaven rending issued from one, a growl like hell's bowelssettling came from the other.

And the bird tumbled, then righted, then darkened and streaked, shrinking, intothe lessening flame that had been the witch's house.

Ischade saw that bird dive among the timbers where a Globe of Power was nowmelted, fragments of white hot clay and parboiled jewels, and take a fragment inits beak and speed away.

When she looked away, she saw that Randal, face beaded with sweat and frecklesstanding out black as soot, had seen it too.

The mage gave an uneasy shrug and smiled bleakly. "Let's not tell them," hewhispered, leaning close. "Maybe it's not ... her."

"Perhaps not," Ischade replied, looking up at the smouldering sky.

The morning after the sky caught fire, Tempus was sitting with Niko when Randalcame to call.

"I'll see to him. Commander," said the mage, who touched his kris, from whichhealing water could be wrung.

Jihan had applied the powdered placenta of some unlucky cat, and Niko's eye washealing.

But these wounds would take a while, even with magic to help them.

And beside the stricken fighter, in the nursery, two children lay in sleep fromwhich no one had yet managed to rouse them.

That, Tempus knew, was really what Randal must do here. But he had to say,"Stealth and I have reaffirmed our pairbond. Can you tend him in goodconscience, with a minimum of magic?"

Randal himself had once been paired with Stealth, at the Riddler's order, andloved the western fighter still.

The mage looked down, then up, then squared his shoulders. "Of course. And thechildren, too... if I have- their father's permission?"

"Ask the god that; he's the stud, not me," Tempus snapped and stormed out.

He had a woman to rape to placate the god within him, a necromant to thank inperson, and a welcome to prepare for Theron, emperor of Ranke, when he arrived.

But Jihan found him before he could find a likely wench on the Street of RedLanterns. Her eyes were glowing and she squeezed his arm and wanted to know,"Just what kind of houses are these?"

He had half a mind to show her, but not the time: she'd come to get him tomediate between Crit and Strat in matters of command and to ask whether theycould all attend a "fete for returning heroes" being given by friends ofIschade's who lived uptown, and whether he'd noticed anything strange aboutStrat's bay horse.

And since he had troubles enough of his own, and Jihan was one, he agreed tocome with her, gave permission for the Band and Stepsons to attend the fete, andlied about the horse, saying he hadn't noticed anything strange about it at all.

"My lady-" Stilcho said, ever so quietly. The dead Stepson hesitated in thedoorway of the back room of the riverhouse. Hesitated longer. Ischade sat in thechair before the fire with her hands clasped between her black-robed knees andgazed there, the fire leaping and casting light on her face, on the brightscatter of cloaks and trinkets that made the house like some garish carnival.

And Ischade, a darkness in it, fire-limned. The wind rushed in the chimney. Thefire roared up with a dizzy sibilance. The candles burned brighter so thatStilcho flinched back. Flinched and flinched again in the other direction, forhe encountered a body behind him and a hard hand on his shoulder.

He turned and looked by mistake straight into Haught's dark Nisi eyes. A musclejumped in his jaw. His throat grew paralyzed. Haught's grip burned him, numbedhim; and there was no sound in all the world but the roar of the fire and nosight in the world but Haught laying a cautionary finger to his lips and drawinghim away, quietly.

Back and back into the tangle of silks and drapes and shadow that was that oversmall room he shared with Haught.

And in this privacy Haught seized his shoulders and put his back to the wall, inthe slithery touch of the silken hangings. Haught's eyes held his like aserpent's.

"Let me go," Stilcho said. The voice came through jaws that tried to freeze,that tried to turn to the cold unburied meat and bone that they were without Herinfluence. No pain, no agony. Just a dreadful cold as if something very solidhad come between him and his life-source. "L-let me g-g-go. She s-said-" Youweren't to touch me with magic-that was the part that stuck behind his teeth.There were just the eyes.