"My lady," Tasfalen whispered once, "what's wrong? What's happening here?"

"I can't say," she whispered back; while Ischade said something else to Tempus,which made less sense than before. Of a sudden she realized they were speakingsome foreign tongue.

And there was no laughter. There was sudden quiet all about the table. No wordfrom Straton or the man next to him. Critias. The men nearest caught thatcontagion and it spread down the table. Wine stayed untouched.

"It's sufficient," Ischade said at last. "Your pardon." And rose.

Tempus got to his feet. Straton was next. The whole company began to rise, andMoria thrust herself from her seat, tangling her legs and the skirts and theresisting fabric of the chair until Tasfalen's arm steadied her. She stood therewith her heart pounding in terror no wine could numb, suffered Ischade's directglance, suffered a moment that Ischade put out a hand, lifted her chin with adelicate forefinger and stared her straight in the eyes.

"M-m-mis-"

"How fine you've become," Ischade said, and there was hell in that look, thatsent a weakness through her bones and her sinews and made her sway againstTasfalen. Ischade let her go then, and nodded to the lord Tasfalen, as Stratoncame and took her arm. She walked toward the door with Straton, while everyonestayed standing and the confused kitchen started sending out another course.

A low murmur went past their backs. Slowly Tempus settled to his chair again. Itwas going to go on. She was left with these men after all. Moria sank back toher chair with the last strength in her legs and smiled desperately at Tasfalen.

Ischade walked for the door, paused to gather her cloak from the bannister ofthe stairs, and let Straton drape it about her shoulders. "Thank you," she said,and walked on toward the door. Stopped abruptly as he followed. She looked backat him and felt her whole frame shudder with the effort of calm, with the effortto keep her face composed and her movements natural. "I said," she told himcarefully, "that I needed time to myself. Don't touch me-" As he reached hishand toward her.

"I hod to come, dammit!"

"I said not!"

"Who is that man?"

She saw the madness in his eyes. Or it reflected hers, which pounded in herveins and grew to physical pain. He caught her arms and she flung up her headand stared him in the eyes until the hands lost the strength in their grip. Butthe pain grew; became madness, became the thing that killed.

She shoved him back, violently, walked with quick steps to the door and heardhis steps behind her. She turned before he reached her.

"Stay away!" she hissed. "Fool!"

And jerked the door open and fled, into the wind, and on it.

It was spring in the lush forests far to the south of Sanctuary. Trees andshrubs put forth their leaves; delicate flowers swayed on gentle winds and,beneath a swag of ivory blossoms, a mongoose sneezed violently. He sneezed asecond time and for a moment he was not a mongoose but something larger,something with huge, flapping ears. Then he was a mongoose again- preening histhick, musteline fur; fluffing out his tail and casting coy glances at thefemale a leap and a bound away. The female chattered her response and they wereoff along the branches, across a stream and ever further from the magical trapRandal had laid for her.

The Tysian mage had conjured and cast to exhaustion looking for her. She was thefinest mongoose alive: the largest, the fastest, the boldest, and the mostintelligent. She had, at least, evaded every snare he'd set from his power-webin distant Sanctuary until, in desperation, he'd transferred his essence to theforest to pursue her in person-or, rather, in mongoose. She was also, asmongooses measured such matters, the most wildly attractive creature in theforest. Giving himself over to mongoose instincts was doing Randal's vow ofchastity no good at all. If he didn't lure her into the charmed sphere soon he'dforget himself completely and settle down to the business of begetting.

Forgetting Sanctuary and everything it stood for was not an entirelyunattractive notion-especially when her tail flicked across his nose and he waslost enough in mongoose-ness that he didn't sneeze. Roxane was missing; Ischadewas irrational and bloated with power; the Stormchildren were moribund with avenom the snake-worshiping Beysib did not understand pooling in their veins; adead god's high priest had been revealed to be a Nisibisi warlock-and those wereonly Randal's magic-tainted concerns. The mage had, however, one concern thatstood above all the rest; which made him secure against momentary lust and drewhim, and her, back to the grove where a circle of stones glowed a faint blue.Nikodemos, the impossible Stepson whom Randal worshiped with a chaste, ferventlove, was trapped at the focus of every dangerous incongruity prowling Sanctuaryand anything that might help Niko was worth every risk Randal might have totake.

She had caught him when they reached the grove. They were rolling across thegrass when they pierced the sphere and hurtled through nothingness back to thepalace alcove where the body of Randal slumped over an embossed Nisibisi Globeof Power. The transfer back into himself was all the more uncomfortable for themongoose teeth digging into his neck and the pottery crags of the Wizardwallmountains pressing against his breastbone. Randal slipped from the world backinto nothingness and sheer panic. He had almost regained himself when a weightednet slapped over him.

"The cage, Molin. Damn you, the cage before she eats through my damned neck!"

"Coming up." The erstwhile high priest of Vashanka brandished a wicker-and-wirecage while magician and mongoose thrashed on the table.

Having the cage was not the same as having the unrequited mongoose in the cage.Both men were bloodied and torn before the bolt was thrown.

"You were supposed to have the cage ready."

"And you were supposed to be back before sundown- sundown yesterday, I mightadd."

"You're my assistant, my apprentice. Apprentices are like children: Childrendon't make decisions; they do as they're told. And if I tell you to have thecage ready-you have the cage ready no matter when I return," the magiciancomplained, daubing at the wounds on his neck.

The men stared at each other until Randal looked away. Molin Torchholder was tooaccustomed to power to be any man's apprentice.

"I thought it best to save the globe after you and she knocked it off itspedestal," he explained, nodding toward the table where an unremarkable potterysphere rested against a half-emptied wine glass.

Randal slumped back against the wall. "You touched an activated Globe of Power,"he mused. He possessed the globe and still hesitated before touching it, but thehigh priest simply picked it up. "You could have been killed-or worse," Randaladded as an afterthought. His fingers wove glyphs that made the globe firstshimmer, then vanish into that way-station between realities magicians calledtheir "cabinets."

"I've made my way doing what had to be done," Molin said when the process wascomplete. "You've led me to believe that the destruction of that globe couldunbind the planes of existence. I can see that, at its heart, the globe isnothing but a piece of poorly made pottery. Perhaps it was necessary to usemagic to destroy it, as you and Ischade did with Roxane's, but, perhaps, simplyfalling off the pedestal would be as effective a destruction. I could not takethe risk of experiment; I moved the globe."