"You'll see to this." He pointed his finger at the most curious of the lot; withtheir bald skulls, bulging eyes, billowing tunics, and pantaloons, the Beysibmen all looked alike to him. He seldom thought of them as individuals.

The Beysib he had addressed cleared his throat nervously and the one at thefront of their triangular formation pushed himself slowly to his knees. "Thepriests of All-Mother Bey serve only Her transcending aspects. We... that is.You, the Regum Bey, do not serve the Avatar," he explained.

Torchholder leaned forward to grip the other man's pectoral ornament. Reversingit with a quick snap, he used the golden chain as a simple garrotte. "The Beysawill be hungry. My prince will be hungry," he said in the soft, intense voicehis own people had come to fear.

"It has never been so," the Beysib protested, his face darkening as the Rankanpriest hauled him to his feet.

"There is a first time for everything. This could be the first time you visitthe kitchens or it could be the first time you die...." Molin gave the pectoralanother quarter turn.

It was true that the Beysib could show white all around their eyes even whenthey were staring. The priest gasped and clung to Torchholder's wrist with bothhands. "Yes, Lord Torch-holder."

The mosaic floor of the hypocaust room was hidden under icy, ankle-deep water.Isambard removed his one-and-only pair of sandals and tied them together overhis shoulder before stepping into it. With his lantern held high he movedcautiously, knowing there had been snakes down here once and not knowing if thecold water would stop them.

"Most Reverend Lady Jihan?" he inquired into the darkness, addressing her as hewould have addressed Molin's long-absent wife.

Silence.

"Most Reverend Lady?" he repeated, sloshing a few steps further.

They were all heaped together on the pallet where they had tied the demonpossessed mercenary, Nikodemos: Jihan, Tem-pus, Randal, and possibly Nikodemoshimself-Isambard couldn't be sure in this light. They weren't dead, or not allof them anyway, because someone was snoring.

"Great Vashanka-Giver of Victories; Gatherer of Souls- abide with me on Yourbattlefield."

Lantern rattling in his hand, the acolyte moved forward. He cleared one of thegreat columns that continued upward all the way to the Hall of Justice. A faintlight reflected off the water- a faint blue light such as his lantern couldnever cast. His heart seized with panic and his gut tumbling with fear, Isambardturned around.

A column of ice loomed midway between the bodies and the far wall. Within it ablue sphere the size and height of his head throbbed; water cascaded to thefloor with each rising pulse. The light grew brighter, calling to him. He walkedtoward it: one step, two steps, three-and put his foot down squarely on thesharpened clasp of Tempus's discarded cloak. The pain jolted him backward andbackward and broke the spell.

He had left the room before he had time to scream.

Roxane had been within the Globe of Power longer than was prudent especiallysince her bond with life was through Tasfalen-who was dead and already beginningto ripen. With her reacquisition of a globe, the Nisi witch was powerful beyondcomparison but even she could not do all the things which Sanctuary's situationrequired at once. She had a demon hounding her now, as well as all the otherenemies she had accumulated since the first battles were fought alongWizardwall. The strain of uprooting her soul so many times was starting to show.She was getting careless-being gone so long, leaving a freshly claimed sack ofbones like Tasfalen without ensuring that it was life-worthy.

Haught, who was frequently foolish but never careless, knelt beside Straton'sunconscious body on the floor of the Peres house kitchen. The interrogationHaught had promised his new mistress/master was going worse than slowly. In hisdelirium, the Stepson made no distinctions between truth and imagination;wandering, his mind had given Haught no more than tantalizing hints aboutIschade or Tempus-plus a throbbing headache.

He comprehended smaller healings like the slash on Moria's foot; he could tamperwith the magic of his betters as he had when he'd exerted his control overStilcho but he lacked the complex magical vocabulary necessary to contenddirectly with the inertia of a dead or mortally wounded body. He had failed withTasfalen; the Rankan noble's body had turned a pasty shade of blue and itsstiffness, when Roxane returned, would be far more serious than muscle cramps.But Tasfalen had been Haught's first attempt; he had already learned from thosemistakes-and Straton was not dead.

The would-be witch studied Tasfalen's silver-white eyes. A touch from the globeand he'd have the power to mend Strat's body enough that the Stepson would nolonger have his retreat into delirium and imagination. He'd unwind the man'ssecrets like so much silk from a cocoon and present his mistress/master with aportion of it.

Just a touch.

A piece of Haught swiped out toward the Globe of Power like a child dragging afinger through the icing on a cake. He had enough to heal and a bit to hide forthe future but he hesitated. The wards were wrong: weakened, eroded, vanishing.He reached a little farther and had a vision of an equine face surrounded byward-fire; consuming the ward-fire-

"Impudent slime! Ice water! Damn her! And you-"

The voice was Tasfalen's but the inflection was all Nisi and malice. The witchswung a clublike open hand at him, striking with the force of a Wizardwallavalanche. Haught heard his spine crack against the far wall and felt the bloodstreaming from his nose and mouth.

She does not love you, a nameless voice rose out of Haught's memory. Rememberyour/other: a wind-filled husk of flayed skin when the Wizardwall masters hadfinished with him. Haught shook the blood from his hand and healed as the witchranted, cursed, and swallowed the globe.

Haught was against the cupboard where Shiey kept the knives. Silently he calledone to his sleeve and held it against his forearm when he meekly rose andfollowed his mistress/master from the room. He said nothing about the wards orhis vision.

Stilcho crept back up the stairway to the dark landing where Moria waited.

"It's now or never," he told the quiet woman, grateful he could not see her facewhen he found her wrist and led her back down the stairs.

There were two stairways leading to the kitchen of the Peres house: one came upfrom the larder and pantries in the basement, the other ascended to theservant's quarters under the eaves. Both had been occupied. Stilcho opened thedoor to face the malevolent leer of the household's cook, Shiey. He knew thatface-the last face his missing eye had seen-and it turned his bowels to ice. Hisresolve and his courage vanished; Moria's hand fell from his trembling fingers.

"We're taking Straton to the stables," Moria said in a soft but firm whisper asshe stepped out of Stilcho's shadow. She had her own fears of these servantswhom the beggar-king Moruth had provided for the house and she had learned howto hide those fears long ago. "You and you," she pointed to the burliest pair,"take his feet." She looked up to Stilcho.

Giving the one-handed cook a lingering glower, the one-eyed man took position atthe Stepson's shoulders.

"We'll get him into the lofts, if we can. And we'll wait for the help that'sgoing to be coming-from everywhere."

"An' if'n it don't?" Shiey demanded.

"We bum the stables around us."