"Tempus? He spends more time with his horses than he does here with me or theStepsons. I'd like to do more than talk to Tempus." Her smile grew broader whenshe mentioned the man who was, by Stormbringer's command, her lover, companion,and escort during her mortality. "The two of us alone could take the globe andthe witch...."

Molin felt a trickle of sweat run down his back. Jihan had taken the bait,embroidering his notions with her own, mortally incomprehensible, imagination.If he could not lure her back to plans he could shape and control, the exercisewould become a disaster of monumental proportions.

"Think of the Stormchildren, dear lady," he said in what was both his mostunctuous and commanding voice. "Think of your father. You can't leave thembehind-not even to travel with Tempus or to destroy the Nisibisi witch."

Jihan wilted. "I couldn't leave them." She patted Gy-skouras's golden curlsapologetically. "I must put those thoughts behind me." With her eyes closed, theFroth Daughter focused divine determination against mortal free will until hershoulders slumped in defeat. "I have so much to leam," she admitted. "Even thechildren know more than I do."

"When the Stormchildren are well again, then you will travel with them toBandara; you will leam everything that they learn. For now, though, only you cansense Roxane through her deceits and disguises. Tempus can devise a trap forher-but only you will know if she falls into it."

She brightened and Molin almost felt sorry for Tempus. The mercenary would haveno choice now but to close ranks within the Stepsons and concoct the tacticsnecessary to lure Roxane out of her hiding .place; no one, not even aregenerating immortal, could stand for long against Jihan's enthusiasm. Thepriest relaxed, then caught a flicker of movement at the comer of his eye. Nikohad pushed away from Seylalha's tenderness and was staring, with his oneunbandaged eye, off into nothingness. Perhaps he had heard them mention Bandara?Perhaps-? Molin shook his head, preferring not to think at all about any otherpossibility.

The hand that reached out of the darkness to grab Molin's shoulder had thestrength of an iron trap. It was only by yielding to its force, collapsing androlling through the mud, that the priest avoided becoming a prisoner of hisassailant. He scrabbled for balance, tearing a small knife free from the hem ofhis priest-robe's sleeve as he scanned the courtyard for some detectable soundor movement. Then he saw the silhouette and threw the knife aside; no fourfinger blade would deter Tempus for long.

"I've taken all I'm going to take of your schemes. Torch." The mud squished asthe big mercenary took a step forward. He leaned down and hoisted Molin to hisfeet by the front of his robe, then pressed him against the damp brick of thepalace wall. "I warned you once-that's more than you deserve."

"Warned me of what? Warned me that you're in over your eyes with capitalpolitics that have no meaning in this town? You want Sanctuary quiet when yourhigh-and-mighty usurping friends get here-well, what are you doing about it? Youstarted off well: you got Roxane's Nisi globe; drove her into hiding- but youhaven't done anything since." Molin's voice was cracking from the pressureTempus put against his breastbone but it could not be said that his courage hadfailed him as well.

"The streets will be quiet-I've seen to that."

"Straton saw to that. You can't take credit for the acts of a man who thinksyou've issued orders to have him killed by his partner, Riddler."

Tempus gave the priest one last, vicious shake, then released him to slide downthe wall to his proper height.

"But this scheme of Jihan's-of yours. Torch, it's beneath you, using her againstme like that. We've got all our vulner-ables in one place and the strength toguard them. It's no time to be traipsing through the countryside splitting ourforces."

"I'm a siege engineer, Riddler. I build walls and I tear them down. It took ourgolden-haired light-weight, Kadakithis, to point out how predictable our tacticshave become. I've got one idea for luring the bitch into the open-but I don'twant to try it. I was counting on Jihan's provoking you into coming up withsomething better."

"And if she doesn't?"

"I'll bum the portrait that little Ilsigi painter made of you, Roxane, andNiko."

"Vashanka's balls. Torch-you aren't afraid of anything, are you? We better talkthis through. Where've you got that painting now? Still here in the palace?"Tempus took Molin's arm, more gently this time, and led him toward the West Gateof the palace.

"It's where it's always seemed to be, Riddler," Molin said as he shook free ofthe other man's assistance. "But don't think that because you can see it you canreach it. Randal's taught me a bit about hiding things in plain sight."

They went through the gate in silence, not because of the tension between themthough it was as thick as the perennial fog-but because they were both awarethat the walls were the most porous part of the palace and that nothing privateshould be said in their shadow. They continued in silence, Tempus leading,through the better pans of town into the Maze and toward the Vulgar Unicomwhere, improbably enough, privacy was sacred.

"I'd leave that picture wherever you've hidden it if I were you, priest," Tempuswarned after he'd bellowed their orders toward the bar,

"Certainly it would be cleaner if the little ginger-man had painted a simplerpicture. I gather he's had more problems with things coming to life. He claimsnot to know at all what happens when his paintings cease to exist."

Molin looked at a recently replastered section of the wall, still noticeablyless grimy than the rest and completely unmarked by grafitti or knife gouges.Lalo had painted the soul of the tavern there once and a score of people haddied before it had been laid to rest again. Both men were thinking about thepainter's unpredictable art when a warty, gray arm thrust between them.

"Good beer. Special beer for the gentlemen^" the wall-eyed bouncer with thegarish orange hair said with a smile that revealed corroded, and not quitehuman, teeth.

Tempus froze and Molin, whose aplomb was sturdier, took the mugs.

"A fiend, I should think. Not quite what Brachis and his entourage will beexpecting when they order a drink. If we're lucky they'll blame it on the beer,"Molin commented as the acid, lifeless brew crossed his lips.

"Hers," Tempus said and hid his face behind his hands. After a moment he raisedhis eyes. "And nobody notices. Roxane's fiend is ladling the Unicorn's swill andno one bloody notices'"

"A living fiend, my friend. You've been away too long. In this part of townbeing alive, in your own life, is all that really matters."

Tempus sighed. He drained the crudely made mug and motioned for another round.Now that he had adjusted to the smoky light, Molin could see that the Riddler'seyes were bloodshot and the skin around them was bruised from exhaustion.

"I should kill you for that, too," Tempus said, rubbing his eyes, making themredder. "A bad habit, you said. There's a magician-The Dream Lord, Askelon; mybrother-in-law- he overstepped himself at the Festival of Man, as you may haveheard. Been exiled to Meridian by greater powers than his own. Usually I don'thave to worry about him but now, thanks to you, he's always right there at thecomer of my mind, waiting to get into my dreams."

"He gets into everyone else's dreams and they're none the worse for it,Riddler."