"Theron, Emperor of Ranke, General of the Armies and so forth, meet Abarsis,Slaughter Priest, former High Priest of Vashanka, former-"

"Former living ally," Abarsis cut in, smooth as a whetted blade, "and allystill, Theron. We've a problem, and it lies in Sanctuary. Speaking throughpriests is a matter for gods; my mandate is different. Tempus, whom we bothlove, must listen to gods, not priests, but on this occasion, I am... wellequipped..." His grin flashed as it had once in life: "... to interpret." Thenhe shifted and his gaze caught Tempus's and held: "The message is: the globes ofNisibisi power must be destroyed; all the gods will rejoice when it is done.Destroyed in Sanctuary, where there are tortured souls of yours and mine to bereleased. The favor is: grant Niko's wish in a matter of children ... yours andOurs."

Ours? There was no mistaking the upper-case tone Abarsis had used-a tonereserved for deific matters and one word 'spoken by the dead High Priest ofVashanka who had come so far to utter it. Liking the smell of things less andless, Tempus took a step backward and sat upon the table's edge, thinking, Forthis, he comes to me. Wonderful. Now what?

For Tempus, who could refuse a god and obstruct an arch-mage, knew, looking atAbarsis, that he could refuse this one nothing. It was an old debt, a mutualresponsibility stretching far beyond such trifles as life and death. It was amatter of souls, and Tempus's soul was very old. So old that, seeing Abarsis yetyoung, yet beautiful in his spirit and his honor in a way Tempus no longer couldbe, the man called the Riddler felt suddenly very tired.

And Tempus, who never slept-who had not slept since he had been cursed by anarchmage and taken solace in the protection of a god three centuries past-beganto feel drowsy. His eyelids grew heavy and Abarsis's words grew loud, echoingunintelligibly so that it seemed as if Theron and Abarsis spoke together in someroom far away.

Just before he collapsed on the table, snoring deeply in a sleep that would lastuntil the weather broke the following day, Tempus heard Abarsis say clearly,"And for you, Tempus, whom I love above all men, I have this special gift... notmuch, just a token: on this one evening, my lord, I have haggled from the godsfor you a good night's rest. So now, sleep and dream of me."

And thus Tempus slept, and when he woke, Abarsis was long gone and preparationsfor Theron, Tempus, and a hand-picked contingent to depart for Sanctuary werewell under way.

Trouble was coming to Sanctuary; Roxane could feel it in her bones. Thepremonition cut like a knife to the very quick of the Nisibisi witch, oncecalled Death's Queen, who now huddled in her shrouded hovel on Sanctuary's WhiteFoal River, beset from within and without.

Once she had been nearly all powerful; once she had been a perpetrator, not avictim; once she had decreed Suffering and marshalled Woe upon human cattle fromSanctuary's sorry spit to Wizardwall's wildest peaks.

But that was before she'd fallen in love with a mortal and paid the ancientprice. Perhaps if that mortal had not been Stealth, called Nikodemos, SacredBander and member in good standing ofTempus's blood-drenched cadre of Stepsons,it would not seem so foolish now to have traded in immortality for the abilityto shed a woman's tears and feel a woman's fleeting joy.

But Niko had betrayed her. She should have known; if she'd been a human womanshe would have-no man, and most especially no thrice-paired fighter who'd takenthe Sacred Band oath, would feel loyalty or honor toward a woman when itconflicted with his bond with men.

She should have known, but she hadn't even guessed. For Niko was the tenderestof souls where women were concerned; he loved them as a class, as he lovedfine horses and young children-not lasciviously, but honestly and freely.Now that she understood, it was an insult: She was no waif, no fuddle-headed twat, no inconsequential piece of fluff. And there was injury toadd to insult's sting: Roxane had given up immortality to love a mortal whowasn't capable of appreciating such a gift.

She had been betrayed by her "beloved" over a matter that should have beentowering only in its insignificance: the "life" of a petty mageling, a would-bewizard called Randal, a flop-eared, freckled fool who fooled now with forcesbeyond his ability to control.

Yes, Niko had dared to trick Roxane, to distract her with his charms while thisposturing prestidigitator, whom she'd thought to have for dinner, got away.

And now Niko lurked in priestholes, palaces, and princely bedrooms, protected byRandal (who had a Globe of Power similar to Roxane's own, and more powerful) andthe countermagical armor given Niko by the entelechy of dreams. Not once didsweet Stealth venture riverward, though his de facto commander, Straton of theStepsons, rode this way on evenings to visit another witch.

This other witch, too, was an enemy of Roxane's-Ischade the necromant, whom byrights the Stepsons should have hated more than they did Roxane, vilified intheir prayers as they nightly did Death's Queen.

There was some irony to that: Ischade, a tawdry soul-sucker with limited powerand unlimited lust, was a friend of the Stepsons, ally of the mercenary armythat was all that stood between Sanctuary and total chaos now that the town wasdivided into blood feuds and factions as the Rankan Empire's grasp grew weak andthe Rankan prince, Kadakithis, was barricaded in his palace with some salmoneyed Beysib slut from a fishy foreign land.

And Roxane, who'd been Death's Queen on Wizardwall and flown high, ruler of allshe once surveyed, was shunned by Stepsons and even by lesser factions in thetown-all but her own death squads, some truly dead and raised from crypts to doher bidding, some only a hair's-breadth away from mossy graves like One-Thumb,the Vulgar Unicorn's proprietor, a.k.a. Lastel, and Zip, guttersnipe leader ofthe PFLS (Popular Front for the Liberation of Sanctuary) rebels who couldn't getalong without her help.

And Snapper Jo, of course, her single remaining fiend-a warty, gray-skinned,wall-eyed beast, snaggle-toothed and orange-haired, whom she'd summoned from anearby hell to serve her-she still had Snapper, though lately he'd been takinghis spy's job of day-barkeep at the Vulgar Unicorn too much to heart, thinkingsilly thoughts of camaraderie with humans (who'd no more accept a fiend as oneof them than the Stepsons had accepted Roxane).

And she had her snakes, of course, a fresh supply, whom she could witch intohuman form for intervals (though Sanctuary's snakes weren't bred formasquerading and turned out small, sleepy in cold weather, and even more dullwitted than the northern kind).

Still, it was a pair of snakes-a butler-snake and a bodyguard-whom she called tobuild a fire in her witching room, to bring her chalcedony water bowl and placeit on a column of porphyry near the hearth, to stay and watch and wait with herwhile she poured salt into the water and words came from her mouth to make thesalt into her will and the water bowl into the open wounds in Sanctuary. Notwounds of flesh, but wounds of spirit-the arrogance of loyalty given andwithheld, the gall of greed, the acne of innocence, the lacerations of love, thepustules of passion which prickled such hearts as Straton's, as Randal's. asthose of the prince/governor and his flounder-faced consort, Shupansea (foolenough to keep snakes herself, thinking that Beysib snakes might be immune toNisibisi snake magic), and even as Niko's own consuming compassion for a pair ofchildren he wet-nursed like some useless Rankan matron.