"Of course." Mor-am tried not to shake. "Wouldn't you want revenge?"

"Others have. You knew they would."

"But you want them brought out of the Downwind. And I do that for you." Heclenched his jaw, a grimace against the chattering of his teeth. "So maybe weget to the big names. I give you those-I deliver them to you just like thelittle ones. But that's another kind of price."

"Like your life, scum?"

"You know I'm useful. You'll find I can be more useful than you think. Not cash.A way out." His teeth did chatter, spoiling his pose. "For me and one other."

"Oh, I don't doubt you'll be cooperating. You know if the word gets out on thestreets how we got our hands on your friends-you know how long you'd last."

"So I'm loyal," Mor-am said.

"As a dog." The man thrust his hand back at him. "Here. Tomorrow moonrise."

"I'll get him." Mor-am subdued the shivering and sucked in a breath. "Wenegotiate the others."

"Get out of here."

He went, slow steps at first, and quicker, still with a tendency to shiver,still with a looseness in his knees.

* * *

But the man climbed the stairs of a building near that alley and made his ownreport.

"The slave is gone," one said, who in his silk and linen hardly belonged in theShambles, but neither did the quarters, that were comfortable and well-litbehind careful shutters and sealing of the cracks. Two of the men were Stepsons,who smelted of oil and light sweat and horses, whose eyes were alike and cold;three had the look of something else, a functionary kind of coldness. "Into theDownwind. I think we can conclude the answer is no. We have to extend ourmeasures. Someone knows. We take the hawkmasks alive and eventually we find theslaver."

"We should pull the slave in," another said. "No," said the first. "Toodisruptive. If convenient... we take him."

"This woman is inconvenient."

"We hardly need more inconvenience than we've had. No. We keep it quiet. Wedestroy no leads. We want this matter taken out-down to the roots. And thatmeans Jubal himself."

"I don't think," said the man from the street, "that our informer can be reliedon that far. That's the one who ought to be pulled in, kept a little closer ...encouraged to talk."

"And if he won't? No. We still need him."

"A post. Security. Get him into our steady employ and we'll learn whereall his soft spots are. He'll soften up fast. Just twist the screws now and thenand he'll do everything he has to."

"If you make a mistake with him-"

"No mistake. I know this little snake." A chair grated. One of the Stepsons hadput his foot on the rung, folded his arms with elaborate disdain forthe proceedings. "There are quicker ways," the Stepson said. No one saidanything to that. No one debated, but slid the discussion aside from it,arguing only the particulars and a slave who had finally run.

The bridge was always the worst part, coming or going. It narrowedpossibilities. There was one way and only one way, afoot, to come into theDownwind, and Mor-am took it, sweating, feeling his heart pounding, with alittle edge of black around his vision that might be terror or something in thekrrf that he had bought, that tunnelled his vision and made his heart feel likeit was starting and stopping by turns, lending an unreality to the whole night,so that he paused in the middle of the bridge and leaned on the rail, wishingthat he could heave up his insides.

Then he saw the man following-he was sure that he was following, a walker whohad also paused on the bridge a little ways down from him and delayed about somepretended business.

Sweat broke out afresh on him. He must not seem to see. He pushed himself awayfrom the rail and started walking again, trying to keep his steps even. Theshanties of Downwind lurched in his view under the moon, closer and closer, likethe crazy pilings of the fishing-dock beside it and the sway and flare ofsomeone's lantern near the water below. He found himself walking faster than hehad intended, terror taking over.

Others used the bridge. People came and went, a straggle of them passing him inthe dark, passing his pursuer and still he kept his steady pace. But one of themhad veered into his path and sent his hand twitching after his knife, comingrapidly toward him.

Moria. His heart turned over as he recognized his sister face to face with him."Walk past me," he hissed at her in desperation. "There's someone on my track."

"I'll get him."

"No. Just see who it is and keep walking."

They parted, expert mimery: importunate whore and disgusted stroller. He foundhis breath too short, his heartbeat pounding in his ears, trying to keep hiswits about him and to concoct lies Moria would believe, all the while terrifiedfor what might be happening behind him. There might be others. Moria might bewalking into ambush set for him. He dared not turn to see. He reached the end ofthe bridge, kept walking, walking, walking, toward the shelter of the alleys. Itwas all right then, he kept telling himself; Moria could take care of herself,would recross the river and find her own way home. He was in the alleys, in hiselement again, of beggars crouched by the walls and mud squelching underfoot.

Then one of the beggars before him unfolded upward out of the habitual wallbraced crouch, and from behind an arm encircled him, bringing a sharp pointagainst his throat.

"Well," a dry voice cackled, "hawkmask, we got you, doesn't we?"

Moria did not run. Gut feeling cried out for it, but she kept her pace, in thewaning hours of the night, with thunder rumbling in the south and flashinglightning in a threatening wall of cloud. It was well after moonset. Mor-am hadnot gotten home.

And there was a vast silence in the Downwind. It was not nature, which boomedand rumbled and advised that the streets and alleys of Downwind would be aswim.The street-dwellers were up seeking whatever scrap of precious board or canvasthat could be pilfered, carrying their clutter of shelter-pieces with them likethe crabs down by seamouth, making traffic of their own-It was none of thesethings; but it was subtle change, like the old man who always had the dooracross from their alley-door not being there, like no hawkmask watcher where heought to be, in the alley across the way; or again, in the alley second fromtheir own. They were gone. Eichan might have pulled them when their lair becameunsafe.

But Mor-am had been followed on the bridge, and that follower had not led herback to Mor-am, when she had turned round again after passing him. Panic ran hotand cold through her veins, and guilt and self-blame and outright terror. Shehad become alone, like that, in the space of time it took to walk the bridge andturn round again; and find that the follower did not lead her to Mor-am, or toanything; he himself had hesitated this way and that and finally recrossed thebridge.

Mor-am would be at home, she had thought; and he was not.

She kept walking now, casual in the mutter of thunder, the before-stormmovements of the street people, moving because if something had gone wrong,nowhere was really safe.

They hunted hawkmasks nowadays; and Eichan had cast them adrift.

There was one last place to go and she went to it, toward Mama Becho's.

The door still spilled light into the dark, where a few patrons sprawled, drunkand unheeding of the storm. Moria strode into it in a gust of wind, but thebodies sprawled inside in sleep were amorphous, heaped, drunken. There was nosign of Mor-am. A further, darker panic welled up in her, her last hope gone.