Moria gasped a breath. "Help him," she yelled as Cook came waddling out inpanic, one-handed Shiey, who was worse as a cook than she had been as a thief.But they knew wounds in this house. There were servants who knew a dozen usesfor a knife and a rope. She never looked back to see what Shiey did, only flewround the newel-post, never minding at all the pain of her sore foot. She hadonly the new and overwhelming fear that a shutter might be open, someone mightfind a way in even on the upper floor-

She reached the bedroom and froze in the doorway, dead-stopped against thedoorframe.

Not a sound came out of her throat. She was Moria of the streets and she hadseen corpses and made a few herself.

But the sight of a man who had lately made love to her lying dead on the floorin her bedspread-her heart clenched and loosed and sent a flood of nausea upinto her throat. Then she swallowed it down and ducked down low, got across theroom to get the shutters closed and bolted-for the window itself she did nottry.

Then she ran, past the dreadful death on the floor, out of that place and downthe stairs again for the comfort of Stilcho's presence, for the dead-alive manwho was the only ally she had left, and to the Stepson who had come running outof that upstairs room the same as she.

He was still lying on the hall floor, there beside the stairs, with Stilcho'scloak wadded under his head and Stilcho crouching over him. Stilcho looked up asshe came down the last steps, and his face and the face of the Stepson on thefloor were the same pale color.

"Name's Straton," Stilcho said. "Her lover."

"T-Tasfalen's d-dead," Moria said. She had almost said my lover, but that wasnot true, Tasfalen was only a decent man who had treated her better than any manever had, and who had died a fool. Of her doing, never this Straton's fault:Moria knew who she had left him with; and suddenly Moria the thief felt a pangof tears and the sting and ache of all her wounds. "What'll we do?" She leanedwith her arms about the bottom newel-post and stared helplessly at Stilcho andstared at the man who was dying on her hall rug. Stilcho had gotten the shaftbroken. The remnant of the arrow stood in the wound, with bloodstained fleshswelling it in tight. High in the ribs with bone to help lock it up and godsknew what it had hit. "0 gods, gods, he's done, isn't he?"

Stilcho held up the fletching-end of the arrow from beside him. It had beendipped in blue dye. "Jubal," he said.

She felt a twinge of chill. Jubal was another who had owned a piece of her soul,once. Before Ischade took her and set her in this house that no longer seemedsafe from anything. "You know how to pull it?" she asked.

"I know how. I don't know what I'm cutting into. Your staff-that cook of yoursran back in the kitchen after another knife. I need two to get on either side ofthis thing. I need waddings and I need hot oil. Can you get them moving backthere?"

"They've locked themselves in the cellar, that's where they are!" The silenceout of the servants' end of the house suddenly interpreted itself and filled herwith blind rage. She knew her staff. She flung herself from the newel-post andstarted down the hall.

And screamed as a light and a thunderclap burst into the drawing-room beyond thearch beside them. Wind hit her.

She turned and saw Haught there, Haught disheveled and without his cloak, andholding a pottery sphere in his hands, a sphere that by odd seconds seemed notto be there at all and at others seemed to spin and glow.

Haught grinned at them, a wolf's grin. And he let go the globe which hung wherehe had left it, in midair, spinning and glowing white and a thousand colors. Thelight fell on him and on her drawing room and paled everything. Then he tuckedit up again under his arm and ran one hand through his hair, sweeping it fromhis face in that child-gesture that was like the Haught she had known, theHaught who had shared her bed and been kind to her. Both of them stood there onthe same two feet, the mage she feared and the man who had given her gifts andloved her and gotten her and him into this damned mess.

Whatever it was he had gotten, it was not a natural thing and it was notsomething the Mistress meant him to have, Moria knew that by the look of it andof him. And she was cold inside and full of a despair so old it made her onlytired and angry.

"Dammit, Haught, what the hell are you into?"

He grinned at her. Delight radiated from him. And he looked from her to Stilchoto the man on the floor, the grin fading to curiosity.

"Well," he said, and came closer, his precious strange globe tucked up in hisarms. "Well," he said again when he looked down at Straton. "Look what we'vegot."

"You can help him." Moria remembered her foot and a touch of hope came to her."You can help him. Do something."

"Oh, I will." Haught bent down and laid one hand on the Stepson's booted ankle.And the Stepson's whole body seemed to come back from that diminished, shrunkenlook of something dead, to draw a larger breath and to run into pain when itdid. "How did this happen?"

She opened her mouth to say.

"That's all right," Haught said. "You've told me." He still had his hand on theStepson's ankle, and closed it down till his fingers went white. "Hello,Straton."

Straton's eyes opened. He made a small move to lift his head from the waddedcloak, and perhaps he saw Haught, before the pain got him and twisted his face."Oh, damn," he said, letting his head back, "damn."

"Damned for sure," Haught said. "How does it feel, Rankan?"

"Haught!" Moria cried, as the Stepson made a sound nothing human ought to make.She jerked with both hands at Haught's shoulders. "Don't! Haught!"

Haught stopped. He stood up, slowly, the globe still beneath his arm. And Moriaflinched in the first backward step, then stood her ground, jaw clenched,muscles shaking in the threat of this utter stranger who stared at her with eyesthat held nothing of the Haught she had known. There was something terribleinside. Something that burned and touched her inside her skull in ways that ranconstantly through her nerves.

"Oh, I know what you've done, I know everything you'll say, and what you reallythink. It's more than a little trying, Moria." He reached and brought a fingerunder her chin. "It can be a damned bore, Moria, it really can."

"Haught-"

"Ischade doesn't own you anymore. I do. I own you, I own Stilcho, I own thishouse and everything in it."

"There's a dead man in my bedroom! Dammit, Haught-"

"A dead man in your bedroom." Haught's mouth tightened in the ghost of an oldsmile. "You want me to move him?"

"0 my gods, no, no-" She backed away from Haught's hand. He could. He would. Shesaw that in his eyes, saw something like Ischade mixed with Haught's prankishhumor and a slave's dire hate. "0 gods, Haught-"

"Stilcho," Haught said, turning his face to him, "you've just acquired company."

Stilcho said nothing at all. His mouth was clamped to a hard line.

While upstairs something thumped, and that board that always creaked near thebed-creaked; and sent ice down Moria's back.

"Gods, stop it!"

"You don't want your lover back?"

"He's not my lover, he wasn't my lover, he was a poor, damned man She got herhands on, I just-I just-I was sorry for him, that's what, I was sorry for himand he was good, and I don't give a damn, Haught, I'm not your damn property,I'm not Hers, you can blast me to hell if you like, I've had all I'll take fromall of you!"

Her shouting died. Her fists were still clenched. She waited for the blow or theblast or whatever it was wizards did and knew she was a fool. But Haught's facestressed and it smoothed, and something flowed over her mind like tepid water."Congratulations," he said. "But you don't get those kind of choices. The worlddoesn't give them to you. / can. I have the power to do whatever I like. And youknow that. Stilcho knows it. You want power, Moria? If you've got a shred oftalent I can give you that. You want lovers, I can give you those, whateveramuses you. And I'll amuse you myself when the mood takes us. Maybe you'd likeStilcho. Ischade's probably taught him a lot of interesting things. I'm notjealous."