He was bound by oath to Theron, to the necromant Ischade in solemn pact, toStormbringer in another, and to Enlil, patron god of the armies now thatVashanka was metamorphosing into something else within the body of Gyskouras,their common son. And he'd spent an interval with the Mother Goddess of thefishfaces in which he'd learned that Mother Bey had lusts as great as anynorthern deity.

So he alone, acquainted with so many of the players intimately and capable ofstanding up to more-than-human actors, was competent to negotiate a settlementamong the heavens through supernal avatars and earthly rulers, therepresentatives of their respective gods.

This task was complicated, not helped, by Kadakithis's impending marriage to theBeysib ruler, as it was obstructed, not advanced, by Theron's arrival here andnow, when all was far from well and men had brought their hells to life bymeddling with powers they did not understand.

So he didn't care, he decided, what happened here, beyond his personal goals: toprotect the souls of his Stepsons and those who loved him, to reward constancywhere it had been demonstrated (even by mages and necromants), to clear hisconscience so far as possible before he trekked back north, where the horsesstill grazed in Hidden Valley and the Successors on Wizardwall would welcome himback to what had become the closest thing to home he could remember.

But to do that, he must see Niko on the mend and on his way back to Bandara; hemust do what Abarsis had counseled, and more.

He must get rid of that thrice-cursed pillar of fire burning with renewed fervoruptown, and spewing fireballs and attracting lightning and spitting bolts intothe sea, before a storm blew up from the disturbance.

For if a storm came riding the wake of all this chaos, then Jihan's powers wouldbe restored, and Tempus would be sad dled with the Froth Daughter for eternity.

Now he had a chance to slip away without her and let her father, the mightyStormbringer, keep His word: find Jihan some other lover.

So he was hurrying, as he reined the Tros toward dockside where the Rankan lionblazon flapped in a sea-wind too strong not to be promising wild weather.

And the Tros, scenting the sea and his mood, snorted happily, as if inagreement: the Tros would as soon be quit of Jihan, who curried him to within aninch of his life daily, as would he.

And if a storm would bring the dust to ground, and all the magic of Nisiantiquity with it, then that was not his problem- not if he played his cardsright.

For once, Crit was grateful for the witchy weather that plagued Sanctuary worsethan all the factions fighting here.

"Getting Strat" was not going to be the easiest thing he'd ever done, but hewasn't arguing that the job was his to do: Ace was his partner; their souls weretoo bound up to chance letting Strat die with any strings on him, no matterwhich witch was holding the end of them.

And Strat wasn't going to die in flames, not in some burning house that wouldn'tburn down but only burned on and on like no natural fire.

Not that common sense was saying otherwise: crouched at the heat's end, wherewaves of burning air licked his face despite the water he was palming over itintermittently. As he stared at the flaming funnel waiting for a plan to comeclear, Crit reflected that his Sacred Band oath made no distinction betweennatural and unnatural peril. He hadn't swom to stand by Strat, shoulder toshoulder, until death separated them if it must, only in cases where it wasconvenient, or magic wasn't involved, or Strat was behaving as a rightman ought,or the problem didn't involve an urban war zone and the possibility of beingroasted alive.

The oath was binding, under any circumstances.

Watching the fiery tornado, like nothing he'd ever seen but the waterspouts ofwizard weather or the cyclone that had fought in the last battle on Wizardwall,he was trying to determine whether it had a pattern to its burning and itswriggling, whether the lightning spewing from the cloud above was dependable asto target or random, and in general just how the hell he was going to get inthere.

Because Strat was in there. Everything pointed to it; Randal was sure of it; noransom demands had come forth from the PFLS. His orders were to fetch Strat andKama.

Kama could wait until all the hells froze over and Sanctuary sank into the sea,for all he cared. He'd had an affair with Tempus's daughter, true: he waswilling to pay for his indiscretion, not complaining. But Strat was his partnerStrat came first.

If they'd had arguments, then that was normal-they'd have them again... overwomen especially. It went with pairbond, and he'd beat Strat silly if he had to,to win his point. As soon as he had the porking bastard back where he could pullrank, they'd settle things.

But you couldn't settle anything with a dead man, unless he became undead likethe freakish bay horse who was partially present, trotting around the Pereshouse on ghostly hooves, its coat looking as if it reflected the flamingwhirlwind around which it circled-or was a part of it. The horse wasinsubstantial, sort of. But if he could catch it, maybe he could ride it up theback stairs.

Strat had ridden it. And the horse and Crit were both here for the same reason:Strat.

He decided to follow the horse on its rounds and forsook the cover of jumbledstone, remnants of the Peres's garden wall, behind which he'd been crouching.

The heat waves emanating from that spinning horror of flame struck him withawesome force; he could feel his eyelashes singe and his lips start to blister.Head down, following echoing hoofbeats as much as the flickering glimpses hecould get of this "horse," he edged along in its wake.

If the house would just bum down, like any normal fire did once a fire hadconsumed its fuel, things would be so simple: he could begin mourning.

He'd thought of just considering the whole unsightly and unnatural mess as afuneral pyre, calling for reinforcements, and making the Peres estate Strat'sbier. They'd say the rites, play some funeral games, he'd put everything heowned up as prize or sacrifice.

But he couldn't do that, not until he knew for certain that Strat really wasdead, and wholly dead: not likely to be resurrected by Ischade.

For that was what he feared the most: that the necromant wouldn't be content tolet Ace stay dead, that she'd pine for her lover and eventually call him up fromashes, make him an undead like poor Janni, who was somewhere in the cone of thefire-Crit couldn't imagine how or why, but he could see, if he squinted, thedead Stepson, fully formed and unconsumed, doing something that looked likebathing under a waterfall, but doing it in a heat that would melt bone inseconds.

Crit had learned, fighting magic and sometimes fighting it with magic, not toask questions if he didn't want to hear the answers. So he left the matter ofJanni to those who ought to tend it: to Ischade, who'd raised his shade after aproper Sacred Band funeral; to Abarsis, who'd come down from heaven and escortedJanni's spirit on high, and done it where the whole Band could see it. If therewas an argument about propriety here, it was between the necromant and the ghostof the Slaughter Priest: it wasn't a matter for a decidedly unmagical fighterlike himself. If Janni hadn't once been Niko's partner and a Sacred Bander, itwouldn't have been the business of any Stepson what Ischade had done. As thingsstood, all you could do, if you were so inclined, was pray for Janni's soul.