Kama tossed her hair behind her shoulders. "Let's go to him now."

"Tomorrow," Molin averred. "He has other obligations tonight."

Prince Kadakithis took the tray from the Beysib priest. He was gracious, butfirm: no one besides himself was attending Shupansea. It was her wish; it washis wish; and it was time everyone got used to the idea that he gave orders too.The bald priest had seen too much upheaval in one day to argue successfully. Hebowed, gave his blessing, and backed out of the antechamber. The prince set thecareful arrangement of chilled morsels beside the bed and returned his attentionto the Beysa.

Streaks of opalescent powder shot across the bleached white imperialbedlinen. Brushing aside a blue-green swirl, Kadak-ithis resumed his vigil,waiting for her eyes to open and more than half-expecting that he'd made aterrible mistake. He smoothed her hair across the pillows; smiled; dared tokiss her breasts lightly as he'd never dared to do at any of the few othertimes they'd stolen moments alone together and jerked upright when he feltsomething move against the back of his neck.

The Beysa ran orchid-colored fingertips down his forearm. "We are alone, aren'twe?" she inquired.

"Quite," he agreed. "They've sent food up for us. Are you hungry?"

He reached for the dinner-tray and found himself restrained. Shupansea raisedherself up and began dealing with the clasps on his tunic.

"Kith-us, I have two half-grown children and you have had a wife and concubinessince you were fourteen. I surrendered my virginity in a ritual that waswitnessed by at least forty priests and relations-tell me the first time wasn'tjust as bad for you."

The prince blushed crimson.

"Very well, then. We're pawns. The cheapest whore has more freedom than I'vehad. But everything's in flux now. Even Mother Bey is affected. She says not tobe alone tonight; I don't think she can absorb your stormgod into herself as Shehas done with all our heroes and man-gods. I could choose to be with a priest orone of the Burek but I've chosen to be with you."

She stripped the loose tunic back from the prince's shoulders and pulled himtoward her. He resisted, fumbling with the accursed buckles on his sandals, thencommitted himself to the changes she promised.

It was night at last, with the darker emotions of the mortal spirit obscuringthe heavens as surely as the smoke and the eternal fog. Ischade extinguished hercandles and gathered her dark robes around her. She had planned and deliberatedas she had seldom done, choosing decision over reaction despite its risks andunfamiliarity.

She sealed the White Foal house with a delicate touch; if she failed, the dawnwould find nothing more than rotting boards rising from the overgrown marshes.The black roses opened as she passed them, giving her their arcane beauty forwhat might be the last time. With a caress she savored their death-sweet perfumeand sent them back where she had found them.

Across the bridge, deep within the better part of town, the bay horse consumedthe last of the ward-fire, leaving the Peres house naked to whatever moved inthe darkness. Ischade clung to the shadows with more than her usual caution; shewas not immune to mortal forms of death and there were others migratinginstinctively to the house now that its defenses had vanished. Crouched in adoorway, she lit a single candle and studied the wisps of magic rising throughthe ruins of Roxane's wards.

At her unspoken command the front door faded from its hinges. Ischade creptthrough, bristling with alertness and prepared to utilize every trick in hercarefully prepared arsenal. There was nothing to challenge or greet her as sheglided along the hallway, vanishing amid her numerous possessions.

She found the trail Straton's blood had made and followed it through to thekitchen. Stilcho's heroism had borne fruit; but Straton's safety was not heronly goal. Haught was here; the Nisi witch was here and she would not leaveuntil she had consigned both to hell and beyond.

Continuing her search, Ischade swept from room to room to the waist-thick beamsof the cluttered attic where her search had to end. Haught crouched outside thesphere, enraptured by the nether-world dazzle of the globe, his eyes as wide andglazed as any Beysib's. Shiey's cleaver lay in a twisted lump at his feet.Tasfalen sang with a dead man's voice, dragging one leg stiffly as he shambledaround the perimeter of the globe's light.

Tasfalen?

Ischade did not immediately comprehend the changes which had overtaken TasfalenLancothis. Had Haught somehow kept the globe? Had she simply imagined Roxane'staint on the corroded wards? Surely Tasfalen's flawed resurrection had been herone-time apprentice's work; Roxane's efforts were brutal but never so crude.Concealed by shadow and the skein of magic she had spun, the necromant daredbriefly to listen to the globe's song until she could piece the truth together.

She noted, even as Haught had noted, the carelessness which marked the Nisiwitch's failure to protect her mortal shell and recognized the same mysticillness from which she herself had only just recovered. For a fleeting momentIschade felt a sense of pity that one so powerful should be conquered by anaccumulation of minute errors. Then she set about weaving a gossamer web toground the globe's radiant energy in her focal possessions as fast asRoxane/Tasfalen could create it.

The faster the globe whirled, the stronger Ischade's binding threads became,until the whole house rattled and dust fell in flakes from the ancientroofbeams-and still the Nisi witch sang her curses into the artifact. Thenecromancer played out the last strand and stood up in the wash of blue light.

Tasfalen's dead eye gave no indication of recognition; Rox-ane was too deeplyenmeshed in her spell-casting to spare the energy for simple words. A shriek ofrage emanated from the globe itself as the Nisi witch launched her attack-ashriek that shattered abruptly as the power surged into Ischade's handiwork andmade the web brilliantly visible. Curls of smoke twisted up from the weakerfoci, but the web held. Ischade began to laugh, savoring her counterpart'sgrowing terror.

Roxane flailed helplessly with Tasfalen's rigor-stricken arms, struggling tofree herself from the power gnawing at her soul.

"The wards!" Roxane's disembodied voice howled above the globe's whine. "Nowards! He comes for me!"

The Globe of Power spun faster, first swallowing the witch's voice, thenswallowing her body within its cobalt sphere. Gouts of fire sprang up in thejoists and floorboards where Ischade's web had touched them. Ischade covered herhair with her cloak as she inched away from the conflagration swirling aroundthe globe. The Nisi witch was trapped, along with her accursed artifact; it wastime to see that Straton was safely away from the house and its outbuildings.Straton-she put his face in the forefront of her mind and looked toward thecomer where the stairs had been.

An orange nimbus surrounded the image Ischade formed of her lover. A demonicnimbus, she realized too late-after she had turned to face the throbbing cobaltsphere again. No wards, Roxane had screamed: no wards to keep Niko's demon atbay. It had one soul but it could claim many. Her foot scuffed against the roughplanks, but Ischade moved forward as it beckoned.

"Straton."

Haught kept himself small and low against the roofbeams. Insignificant-as he hadalways been as a dancer or a slave; beneath the notice of witches and,certainly, of demons. He saw the thing which had been Roxane flickeringbetween an awful emptiness and the dozen or more bodies the witch had takenduring her life. He saw Ischade think to escape-and fail, and lurchinescapably forward. But mostly he saw the globe hanging midway between Ischadeand the demon: motionless and, for the moment, ignored.