"I was out there this morning," Niko heard, bent down over his horse's left hindhoof, checking for splinters caught in its shoe; "heard your team lost a member,but not who. Pissass weird weather, these days. You know something I shouldknow?"

"Possibly." Niko, putting down the hoof, brushed dust from his thighs and stoodup. "Once when I was wandering around the backstreets of a coastal city-nevermind which one-with an arrow in my gut and afraid to seek a surgeon's help therewas weather like this. A man who took me in told me to stay off the streets atnight until the weather'd been clear a full day-something to do with dead adeptsand souls to pay their way out of purgatory. Tell your friends, if you've gotany. And do me a favor, fair exchange?" He gathered up his reins and took ahandful of mane, about to swing up on his horse, and thus he saw Hanse's fingersflicker: state it. So he did, admitting that he was lost, quite baldly, andasking the thief to guide him on his way.

When they had walked far enough that Shadowspawn's laughter no longer echoed,the thief said, "What's wrong? Like I said, I was out at the barracks. I'venever seen him scared of anything, but he's scared of that girl he's got in hisroom. And he's meaner than normal-told me I couldn't stable my horse out there,and not to come around-" Shadowspawn broke off, having said what he did not wantto say, and kicked a melon in their path, which burst open, showing the teemingmaggots within.

"Maybe he'd like to keep you out of troubles that aren't any of your business.Or maybe he estimates his debt to you is paid in full-you can't keep comingaround when it suits you and still be badmouthing us like any other Ilsig-"

A spurt of profanity contained some cogent directions to the Vulgar Unicorn, andsome other suggestions impossible to follow. Niko did not look up to see Hansego. If he failed to take the warning to heart, then hurt feelings would keep himaway from Niko and his commander for a while. It was enough.

Directions or no, it took him longer than it should have to find his way.Finally, when he was eyeing the sky doubtfully, trying to estimate the latenessof the hour, he spied the Unicorn's autoerotic sign creaking in the moist,stinking breeze blowing in off the harbor. Discounting Hanse, since Niko hadentered the close and ramshackle despair of the shantytown he had seen not onefriendly face. If he had been jeered once, he had been cursed a score of times,aloud and with spit and glare and handsign, and he had had more than his fill ofSanctuary's infamous slum.

Within the Unicorn, the clientele did not look happy to see a Stepson. A silenceas thick as Rankan ale descended as he entered and took more time to dispersethan he liked. He crossed to the bar, scanning the room full of local brawlers,grateful he had neglected to shave since the previous morning. Perhaps he seemedmore fearsome than he felt as he turned his back to the sullen, hostile crowdjust resuming their drinking and scheming and ordered a draught from thebartender. The big, overmuscled man with a balding head slapped it down beforehim, growling that it would be well if he drank up and left before the crowdbegan to thicken, or the barkeep would not be responsible for the consequences,and Niko's "master" would get a bill for any damage to the premises. The look inthe big man's eyes was decidedly unfriendly. "You're the one they call Stealth,aren't you?" the bar-keep accused him. "The one who told Shadowspawn that one ofthe best kills is a knife from behind down beside the collarbone, and with asword, cut up between your opponent's legs, and in general the object is neverto have to engage your enemy, but dispatch him before he has seen your face?"

Niko stared at him, feeling anger chase the disquiet from his limbs. "I know youIlsigs don't like us," he said quietly, "but I haven't time now to charm youinto a change of mind. Where's One-Thumb, barkeep? I have a message for him thatcannot wait."

"Right here," smirked the aproned mountain, tossing his rag onto the barsink'schipped pottery rim. "What is it, sonny?"

"He wants you to take me to the lady-you know the one." Actually, Tempus hadinstructed Niko to tell One-Thumb about Askelon's intention to confront Cime,and wait for word as to what the woman wanted Tempus to do. But he wasresentful, and he was late." I have to be at the Mageguild by sundown. Let'smove."

"You've got the wrong One-thumb, and the wrong idea. Who's this 'he'?"

"Bartender, I leave it on your conscience-" He pushed his mug away and took astep back from the bar, then realized he could not leave without discharging hisduty, and reached out to pick it up again.

The big bartender's thumbless hand curled around his wrist and jerked himagainst the bar. He prayed for patience. "And he didn't tell you not to come inhere, bold as brass tassels on a witch-bitch whore? He is getting sloppy, orhe's forgotten who his friends are. Why didn't you come round the back? What doyou expect me to do, leave with you in the middle of the day? I-"

"I was lucky I found your pisshole at all, Wriggly. Let me go or you're going tolose the rest of those fingers, sure as Lord Storm's anger rocks even this godridden garbage heap of a peninsula-"

Someone stepped up to the bar, and One-Thumb, with a wrench of wrist, went toserve him, meanwhile motioning close a girl whose breasts were mottled gray withdirt and pinkish white where she had sweated it away, saying to her that Nikowas to be taken to the office.

In it, he watched the man called One-Thumb through a one-way mirror, andfidgeted. Eventually, though he saw no reason why it happened, a door he hadthought to be a closet's opened behind him, and a woman stepped in, clad inIlsig doeskin leggings. She said, "What word did my brother send to me?"

He told her, thinking, watching her, that her eyes were gray like Askelon's, andher hair was arrestingly black and silver, and that she did not in any wayresemble Tempus. When he was finished with his story and his warning that shenot, under any circumstances, go out this evening-^not, upon her life, attendthe Mageguild fete, she laughed, a sweet tinkle so inappropriate his spinechilled and he stiffened.

"Tell my brother not to be afraid. You must not know him well, to take histerror of the adepts so seriously." She moved close to him, and he drowned inher storm-cloud eyes while her hand went to his swordbelt and by it she pulledhim close. "Have you money, Stepson? And some time to spend?"

Niko beat a hasty retreat with her mocking, throaty laughter chasing him downthe stairs. She called after him that she only wanted to have him give her loveto Tempus. As he made the landing near the bar, he heard the door at the stairs'top slam shut. He was out of there like a torqued arrow-so fast he forgot to payfor his drink, and yet, when he remembered it, on the street where his horsewaited, no one had come chasing him. Looking up at the sky, he estimated hecould just make the Mageguild in time, if he did not get lost again.

4

Thinking back over the last ten months, Tempus realized he should have expectedsomething like this. Vashanka was weakening steadily: something had removed thegod's name from Kadakithis' palace dome; the state cult's temple had provedunbuildable, its grounds defiled and its priest a defiler; the ritual of theTenslaying had been interrupted by Cime and her fire, and he and Vashanka hadbegotten a male child upon the First Consort which the god did not seem towant to claim; Abarsis had been allowed to throw his life away without regardto the fact that he had been Vashanka's premier warrior priest. Now thefield altar his mercenaries had built had been tumbled to the ground beforehis eyes by one of Abarsis' teachers, an entelechy chosen specifically tobalance the beserker influence of the god. And he, Tempus, was imprisoned inhis own quarters by a Froth Daughter in an all-too-human body intent onexacting from him recompense for what his sister had denied her.