"Oh," she said, "oh," and "0 gods!"-when she brought her head up from thepillows and saw the dark figure standing in the doorway.

Ischade said not a thing. The air became charged and heavy, copper-edged.Tasfalen turned on an elbow. "Damn-" he said, and that was all, as if more thanthat had strangled somewhere in his chest.

Moria caught at her bodice, caught her clothing together against a chill in theair that breathed through from the hall. A scent of incense had come in, heavyand foreign, recalling the riverhouse so acutely that the present walls seemeddarkened and she seemed to be in that room, strewn with its gaudy silks andhangings and the spoils of dead lovers....

"Moria," Ischade said, in a voice that hardly whispered and yet filled all theroom. "You may go. Now."

It was life and not instant extinction. It was an order that sent her wrigglingamongst the sheets and her rumpled petticoats as if there were hot irons behindher. Tasfalen caught at her arm, and his fingers fell away as she reached theedge of the bed and her bare feet hit the floor.

Ischade moved out of the doorway, and extended a dark-sleeved arm toward herfreedom and the hall.

Moria fled in a cloud of her undone clothing, barefoot down the stairs, not forthe downstairs hall but for the door, for anywhere, o gods, anywhere in all theworld but this house, Her servants. Her law-

It was not where Ischade would have chosen to be-here, standing in a doorway, ina ludicrous Situation in her own house: because the uptown house was hers, andMoria one of her more expensive servants who had considerably exceeded herauthority.

This man who sat half-naked and staring at her-this lord of Sanctuary and Ranke,who lived his delicate life on the backs and the sweat of the downtown and theharbor and the ministerings of Ilsigi servants, this perfect, golden lord-shefelt him straining at the spell of silence she wove, saw him try to shift hiseyes away. But he was at once too arrogant to clutch the covers to him like afrightened stableboy and far too arrogant to be caught in the situation he wasin. She let the spell go.

"It's supposed to be an outraged husband," he said, from his disadvantage.

She smiled. For a moment the black edges cleared back from her mind. /'// walkout, she thought. There's more to him than I thought. I could even like thisman. But the power strained at her fingers, at her temples, the soles of herfeet and ran in red tides in her gut. She felt Strat's attention, somewhere,felt the essence of him trying to get at her, to tear at her and wound likesomething gnawing its own flesh to get at the iron that ringed it; Strat wouldfind her, he would kill himself finding her and that, for her, was her wound.She could walk out and find another victim, find anyone else, anywhere, staveoff the hunger an hour, a day, another few days....

Tasfalen patted the sheets beside him. "We might discuss the matter," he saidwith his own arrogant humor. And tipped the balance and sealed his fate.

She walked in, and smiled in a different, darker way. Tas-falen stared at her,the humor dying from his face, eyes quite fixed on hers in a mesmericfascination. His lust became evident.

Hers was uncontrollable.

Pavings tore Moria's bare feet, a dozen passersby stared in shock, and Moriaburst past a gaggle of old housekeepers on their way up from market. Apples andpotatoes tumbled and bounced after her on the pavement, old women yelled afterher, but Moria dived into an alley down a track she knew, ran dirty-puddledcobbles and squelched through mud and cut herself on glass and rubbish, mudspattering up on her satin skirts and silk petticoats, blood as well, while thebreath ripped in and out of her unlaced chest.

The old warehouse was there. She prayed Haught was. She flung herself againstthat door, bleeding on the step, pounded with both her fists. "Haught! Haught, obe here, please be here-"

The door opened inward. She gaped at the dead man's eye-patched face andscreamed a tiny strangled sound.

"Moria," Stilcho said, and grabbed her by the arms, dragged her across thethreshold and into the dark where Haught waited, in this only refuge they knew,the place Haught had told her to come if ever there was a time she had toescape. He was here.

And the change in him was so grim and so profound that she found herselfclinging to Stilcho's dead arm and pressing herself against him for dread ofthat stare Haught gave her.

"She," Moria said, and pointed up the hill, toward the house, "She-"

Only then in her terror did it sink in that she was half-naked from anotherlover's bed, and that it was rage which turned Haught's face pale and terrible.

"What happened?" Haught asked in a still, steely voice.

She had to tell him. Ischade's anger was worth her life. It was all their lives."Tasfalen," she said. "He-forced his way in. She-"

A dizziness came over her. No, she heard Haught saying, though he was not sayinga thing. She saw Tasfalen leaning over her in the bed, saw Ischade as a shadowin the doorway, felt all her terror again, but this time Haught was there, inher skull, looking out her eyes and running his fingers over Tas-falen's skinHaught's anger swelled and swelled and she felt her temples like to burst."Gods!" she cried, and: "Stop it!" Stilcho was shouting, his dead arms aroundher, holding her up while the blood loss from her wounded foot sent a chill upthat leg and into her knees. She was falling, and Stilcho was shouting: "Gods,she's bleeding, she's all over blood, for the gods' sake, Haught-"

"Fool," Haught said, and took her arm, gripping her wrist so hard the feelingleft her hand. The pain in her foot grew acute, became heat, became agony sogreat that she threw back her head and screamed.

The bay horse clattered up the street and sent fragments of apple and potatoflying, sent a clutch of slavewomen screaming and cursing out of its path, andStraton did not so much as turn his head. The ring had no need to be on hisfinger. He felt. He felt all of it, lust running in tides through his blood andblinding his vision so that he had only the dimmest realization what street hewas on or what house he had come to. He slid down from the saddle as the baycame right up on the walk and the jolt when his feet hit the ground was physicalagony, much beyond any pleasure, as if sex would never again be pleasure to him,as if it had always been pain masquerading as enjoyment and now he was on theother side of that line. He came up the steps, grabbed the latch with all hisstrength, expecting a locked door.

It gave way and let him in. A fat woman stood in the hall, mouth agape. He neverfocused on her, only lifted his eyes toward the stairs and the next floor andwent that way, knowing where he was going because there was at the moment onlyone focus in all creation. He grabbed the bannister and started up, blind in theshaft of sunlight that flooded in there through a high small window, and feelingthe pounding of his blood as if he breathed awareness in with every breath, likethe dust that danced in the light.

"Ischade!" he cried. It was a wounded sound. "Ischade!"

The woods were held in a terrible stillness. Janni stopped, having workedhimself to the edge again, that margin where the sunlight and the meadow began.But the sun was surely sinking. It was sinking rapidly, and the breeze hadstopped.

He looked down at the stream which always guided him and it was still. The waterhad stopped running at all, and stood invisible except for the sky-reflectionand the light-reflection on its surface, which showed the maze of interlockedand breathless branches overhead.