And a hand touched his right shoulder, squeezed, and rested there-Stilcho'shand, warm and with the pulse of mortal blood in it so strong Crit fancied hecould feel it coursing.

"That's right," said Stilcho softly through a mouth hardly scarred, "I'm aliveagain. Don't ask-"

Crit's question, "How?" hung in the air until Stilcho volunteered, "It's justtoo complicated. Stepson. Ask about Strat, that's what you're here for... or atleast that's what he's here for." Stilcho jerked a thumb toward the bay horse,head low, snuffling, taking slow, careful steps toward a shadow that might be aprostrate man with a woman crouched by his side.

"That's right, Stilcho-Strat. That's all I want. Not you or your witch woman."It was Ischade there, hulking over Strat- it must be. Ischade's ghost-man andghost-horse, and the nec-romant herself, ringing Strat round with magic.

Crit considered seriously for the first time the possibility that he was goingto die here. He didn't believe for a moment that Stilcho was "alive" in the waythat Crit-or Strat, please gods-was alive.

He said to Stilcho, "That's him, then? He's alive, if he can't control hisbowels. I'll just take him and be-"

A voice from the shadowed loft said, "Shit, Stilcho, he'll kill me," as a handwhich was also Strat's reached up feebly to stroke the ghost-horse's questingmuzzle and the horse started to bow down again, not realizing that Strat was toobadly wounded to mount, no matter how easy the ghost-horse tried to make it.

Crit found that he was blinking back tears. Unreasonably, he wanted to sit downcrosslegged where he was, let things take their course-even if it meant burningto death in this damned loft with a partner too sick to be moved but well enoughto remember that Crit had shot at him.

Crit said, "I wouldn't-couldn't. I busted my butt getting here, Strat," but itcame out hoarse and low and he said it to the straw scattered on the loft'sfloor at his feet.

The woman was trying to help Straton, who didn't realize he couldn't get on thathorse by himself.

Crit sheathed his sword and put his hands in the air, then walked over to theplace where the ghost-horse nuzzled its master encouragingly.

Strat, half-prone, was staring at him. The big fighter's hand was clutched tohis chest or belly-Crit couldn't tell from all the blood in the way.

"Strat... Ace, for pity's sake, let me help you," Crit said, bending down on oneknee, empty hands outstretched.

The ghost-horse neighed impatiently and butted Straton's shoulder. Behind thepair, the woman stood-the woman named Moria from the Peres estate, but dressedin street rags so that he hardly recognized her.

Stilcho said, "Strat, maybe you'd better... it's not going to be safe here muchlonger. They can take care of you better than we-"

"Stilcho," Moria hissed, "come away. It's for them to talk out."

"Talk?" Strat laughed and the laugh choked him, so that he gurgled and wiped hismouth with a hand that came away bloody. "We just did."

The wounded fighter reached with his bloody hand to take one of Crit's. "Well,Crit, you going to watch, or you going to give me some help?"

"Strat..." Crit embraced his partner, oblivious of might-be enemies about him,searching for harm, testing strength, mouthing harsh words that covered too muchemotion; "You stupid bastard, when I get you fixed up I'm going to beat somesense into you."

And Strat said, "You do that," just about the time the bay horse trumpetedjoyously as he felt Strat's weight on his back and Crit began the arduousprocess of leading the mounted, wounded man out of the stable's attic to safetyat least of the sort a Sacred Band partner could provide.

Fire raged inside Ischade, now that she had quenched it in her clothing and herhair. It might have been her wrath that caused the houses across the alleys oneither side of her to flame up as she passed-uptown alleys she'd traveled beforeand now again on her way to Tasfalen's velvet stronghold.

An ache and a fury was in Ischade and perhaps it spread around her. But perhapsit was just the pillar of flame and the young fires it set, so that betteruptown streets (where Sanctuary's troubles never spread and rebels never sped)were a smoking labyrinth like some upscale version of the Maze.

Rebels skulked here now, and peasants, looting: Wrigglies, arms laden withpilfered, sooty treasure, jostled her, saw whom they bumped, and slunk away.

She saw rape and nearly stopped to feed-these mortal murderers wasted the bestpart of their victims, let the manna go, let the essence, precious soul andenergy, escape. Ischade was weakened by the struggle in Peres's, somewhat.Somewhat. But not too much.

She moved on, through a day mercifully veiled in clouds and soot and a storm nowrising off the sea. She wondered, as the sky blackened with thunderheads boilingup, if the storm was natural or summoned-then thought it didn't matter: it wasconvenient, either way.

She saw an enclosed Beysib wagon, overturned by brigands. Bald heads of Beysibmales littered the environs like playballs from some devil's game, theiraccustomed torsos near but not attached. She saw what fate was dealt a pair ofBeysib women. and wondered what the rebels thought to gain. If they kept theirwar to downtown, they might win it. Up here, they asked for retribution thatwould last for generations.

Amid pathetic cries, she stopped awhile, and closed her eyes-trusting to acloaking spell to hide her. When she moved on, she was emboldened, strengthened,but sick at heart: for her to be reduced to scavenging was demeaning. But wardid what it willed.

Thunder wracked the streets and she looked upward, grateful for the lowering,stormy dark but wary: she'd finish what she started, unless the stormgodsintervened. She owed Tempus something. And she owed Haught a different thing.

She had her word to make good. She had her interests to secure. She had work todo before retiring to the White Foal's edge.

It was not painless for Ischade, this sneaking to Tasfalen's in the daylight.Janni, one others, was still trapped in the cone of flame, where Stormbringerand demons argued, where Rox-ane had been and now was not.

What would Tempus, who wanted the souls of his soldiers freed of strings andtortures, make of Janni's plight? Hardly an honorable rest, in his terms. But apiece of bravery, in hers, the like of which she'd never seen.

All for Niko, or for something more abstract? she wondered as she foundTasfalen's gate and then his steps and her thoughts turned to Haught and Roxaneand what lay ahead, as she dealt with locks of natural and other kinds, anddoors likewise doubled, and, as the last portal opened to her will, a raindropstruck her cheek, and then another, and thunder rolled.

The storm would ground the dust and douse the fires and she knew it was toogreat a luck for Sanctuary, the most luckless town she'd ever seen. She knewalso that, inside the flaming pillar back at the Peres's, evil was held at bayby one whose name could not be spoken but could be approximated: Stonn-bringer,the Weather-Gods' father-Stormbringer, whose daughter Jihan was close at hand.

And then there was no time to put it all together: there was a ring on thefinger of Haught which she could see with her inner eye.

This she stroked and called home to her. Its spell, still strong, would bringthe scheming apprentice-if he was not already here.

In the ground hall full of shadows she paused. The door behind her closed at agust's whim. The slam it made was daunting.

Her hackles rose-she hadn't thought of the ring Haught had until she'd entered.Was it her will, or only her perception, that saw him here?