Tasfalen's nostrils flared. The face seemed hollowed. "I want a drink," Roxanesaid. "I'm parched."

"Moria," Haught said.

"I'm not your damned servant!"

"I'll get it," Stilcho said, and got up from beside the unconscious Stepson andwent for the drawing room.

"Moria," Haught said. "Don't be a total fool." His hand caressed her shoulderbut he never looked her way. "Lover's quarrel," he said to Roxane.

"Who are you?" Roxane asked, and Haught stiffened; his hand stopped its motionand Tasfalen's face went hard and careful.

"Answer enough?" Haught asked. "You knew my father. We're almost cousins."

Roxane/Tasfalen said nothing to that. But the expression became thoughtful, andthen something else again, that sent a shiver up Moria's Ilsigi spine. The faceof the man she had lately made love with began to take on different lines, flushwith lifelike color, and settle into expressions alien to its personality.

Stilcho brought the drink in a glass, from the carafe and service on the drawingroom sideboard. Tasfalen reached for it; Roxane took it and lifted it with alingering suspicion in the look she turned toward Haught. Then she sipped at itcarefully, and let go a small sigh.

"Better," she said. "Better." And finished the glass and gave it to Stilcho. Sheput out her male hand in the next instant and stayed him in his departure, thenturned the hand as if it had suddenly interested her as much as Stilcho. Thefingers ran up the fabric of Stilcho's sleeve. And he stared back with a hard,revolted stare. Of a sudden Tasfalen's face broke into Tas-falen's grin, and asmall short laugh came out. "Well." Then the hand dropped and the face turned tothem again with the eyes aglitter. "You hold onto that globe so tightly-cousin.You're young, you're handling something you're only half able to use, and you'revulnerable, my young friend. This house is Ischade's property. Anything she'sever handled is a focus she can use; and this is a place she owns, youunderstand me. I felt your wards when I came through them, a nice little bit ofwork for what they are, but that streetwalking whore isn't what she was, either.Now do we put something around this house she'll have trouble breaking, or do wejust stand here playing power games? Because she's on her way here, you canbelieve me that she is."

Haught tucked the pottery globe the more tightly in his arms, then slowlyreached out and set it in the air between them. It spun and glowed and Moriaflinched away, her arm flung up between herself and that thing. It hummed andthrobbed and hung there defying reason; it beat like a heart as it spun, and herown hurt in her chest; her tangled hair lifted on its own with a prickling eerielife, her silken, muddy-hemmed petticoats crackled and stood away from her bodywith a life of their own. All their hair stood up like that, Tasfalen's,Stilcho's, Haught's, as blue sparks leapt from Tasfalen's outstretched hand,from Haught's fingertips, flying against the globe and spattering outwardagainst the walls, lining the crack of the door, whirling up the stairs and intothe drawing room and everywhere. From somewhere in the cellars and the rear ofthe house there was a general outcry of panic; it had gotten to the servants.

The sound became pain. It throbbed in time to the pulse. It screamed with a highthin shriek like wind and became her own scream. "No," she cried, "make itstop-"

Strat moved. It was the hardest thing he had ever done, torn muscles and swollenflesh tensing round the shaft in his chest; something else tore, and the swirlof light spotted with black and went all to gray, but he knew where his enemystood and he had coordination enough to brace his good hand against the floor,draw up the opposite leg while the pain turned every move weak and fluttery,muscles shaking and weak: one good push, his foot behind the damned Nisi's leg-

He shoved, with all that was in him. Haught screamed; he thought that was thescream he heard, or it was his own.

Tasfalen's hands clutched the globe. Tasfalen's face grinned a wolf's grin"There, wizardling."

Moria made herself as small as she could against the side of the stairs: sheshut both eyes, expecting a burst of fire, and opened one, between her fingers.Haught and the witch stood facing each other, Stilcho was down on his knees bythe writhing Stepson, but no fire flew.

"You've a bit to leam," Tasfalen said. "Most of all, a sense of perspective. ButI'm willing to take an apprentice."

From Haught, a long silence: then, quietly: "Is it mistress or master?"

Tasfalen's right eyebrow jerked in wrath. Then a grin spread over his face. "Oh,I like you well, upstart. I do like you." The pottery globe vanished fromhis/her hands. "First lesson: don't leave a thing like that in reach."

"Where is it?" There was the ghost of panic in Haught's voice, and Tasfalen'sgrin widened. Male hand touched male chest.

"Here," Tasfalen said. "Or as close as hardly matters. I learned that trick of aBandaran." He-Moria shuddered: it was impossible to look at that virile body andthink she- walked closer and stood looking down at the Stepson, who lay whiteand still by Stilcho's knee. "Ischade's lover. Oh, you are a find, aren't you?And you're not going to die on us, oh, no, not a chance of that-"

"... A chance of that," a strange voice said; and another, hated: "I've nointentions of it. Not with what he knows."

"He has uses other than that. Her lover, after all. It has to play havoc withher concentration. Even if personal pride is all that bothers her."

"Oh, it's more than that." A grip closed on Strat's wrist, lifted that, let goand lifted the other, the wounded hand, with a pain that drove Strat far underfor a moment; he came back with the feeling of someone's hands on him, roughlyprobing among his clothing. "Ah. Here it is."

"Hers?"

"I gave it to him. It should have come to you. In your other life."

He thought what it was then. He would have kept the ring. He was sorry to loseit. He had been a fool. He was sorry for that too. Play havoc with herconcentration.

With what he knows.

He understood that well too. He had asked the questions for years. His turn now.He thought of a dozen of his own cases and had no illusions about himself. Hetried to die. He thought of it as hard as he could. Probably his own cases hadthought the identical thought at some stage.

"He wants to leave us," the one voice said. A feathery touch came at Strat'sthroat, over the great artery. "That won't do." A warmth spread out from it, hisheart sped, a hateful, momentary surge of strength, like a tide carrying him upout of the dark. "Wake up, come on. We're not even started yet. Open the eyes.Or just think about what I'd like to know about your friends. Where they are,what they'll do-it's awfully hard, isn't it, not to think about a thing?"

Crit. 0 gods. Crit. Was it you after all?

"We can take him into the kitchen," one suggested. "Plenty of room to work inthere."

"No," a woman cried.

"Let's not be difficult, shall we? There's a love. Go wash. You'd rather betaking a bath than stay for this, wouldn't you? You do look a mess, Moria."