She kept a private den backstairs, that rag-piled, perfume-stinking boudoir withthe separate back door, out of which her Boys and Girls came and went on hererrands, out of which wafted the fumes of wine and expensive krrf-he livedopposite that door like the maw of hell, had been inside once, when he let hisroom. She had insisted on giving him a cup of wine and taking him to Her Roomwhen explaining the rules and the advantages her Boys' protection afforded. Shehad offered him krrf-a small sample, and given him to know what else she couldsupply. And that den continued its furtive visitors, and Tygoth to walk hispatrol, rapping on the walls with his stick, even in the rain, tap-tap, tap-tap,tap-tap in the night, keeping that alley safe and everything Mama owned in itsplace.

"Come backstairs," Mama would say when the money ran out. "Let's talk about it."Grinning all the while.

He knew the look. Like Elid's. Like-He drank to take a taste from his mouth,made the drink small, because his life was measured in such sips of hisresources. He hated, gods, he hated. Hated women, hated the bloodsucking lot ofthem, in whose eyes there was darkness that drank and drank forever.

There had been a woman, his last employer. Her name was Ischade. She had a houseon the river. And there was more than that to it. There were dreams. There wasthat well of dark in every woman's eyes, and that dark laughter in every woman'sface, so that in any woman's arms that moment came that turned him cold anduseless, that left him with nothing but his hate and the paralysis in which henever yet had killed one-whether because there was a remnant of selfwill in himor that it was terror of her that kept him from killing. He was never sure. Heslept alone now. He stayed to the Downwind, knowing she was fastidious, andhoping she was too fastidious to come here; but he had seen her first walkingthe alleys of the Maze, a bit of night in black robes, a bit of darkness no mooncould cure, a dusky face within black hair, and eyes no sane man should eversee. She hunted the alleys of Sanctuary. She still was there . . . or on theriver, or closer still. She took her lovers of a night, the unmissable, thenegligible, and left them cold by dawn.

She had sent him from her service unscathed-excepting the dreams, and hismanhood. She called him in his nightmares, promising him an end-as he had seenher whisper to her victims and hold them with her eyes. And at times he wantedthat end. That was what frightened him most, that the darkness beckoned like theonly harbor in the world, for a man without hire and patronage, for a Nisibisiwanted by law at home and stranded on the wrong side of a war.

He dared not become too drunk. The night Mama Becho ever thought he had all hismoney on him, which he had-Then they would go for him. Now it was a game. Theytested him, learned him and his resources, whether he was a thief or no, whatskills he had. So he still baffled them.

And watched the door. Desperately casual, pretending not to watch.

All of a sudden his heart lurched an extra beat and began to hammer in hischest, for the man he had been waiting for had just come through the door; andMradhon Vis sipped his wine and gave the most blunt disinterested stare that hegave to all comers, not letting his eyes linger in the least on this youngruffian, darkhaired, darkskinned, who came here to spend his money. The man camecloser, edged past his back, and sat down at the end of the same table, whichmade staring inconvenient. Mradhon feigned disinterest, finished his wine, gotup and walked away through the debris and out the open door, where drinkers anddrunks took the fresher air, leaned on walls or sprawled against them or sat onthe two benches.

So Mradhon took his place, his shoulders to the wall in the shadows, and stoodand stood until his knees were numb, while the traffic came and went in and outMama Becho's door, until soon Tygoth would take up his vigil in the alleyway.

Then the man came out again, reeling a little in satiation-but not that much,and not lingering among the loiterers by the door.

ii

The quarry passed to the right and Mradhon Vis leaned away from his wall,stepped over the sprawled legs of a fellow hanger-on and went after the youngman, along the muddy streets and alleyways. The wine had lost its effect on himin his waiting, but he pretended its influence in his step-he had learned suchstrategems in his residency in the Downwind. He knew the • ways thereabouts,every door, every turning that could take a body out of sight in a moment. Hehad studied them with all the care with which in other days he had studiedbroader terrain, and now he stalked this shanty maze, knowing just when his stepmight sound on harder ground, when his quarry, turning a corner, might chance tosee him, and where he might safely lag back or take a shorter way. He had notknown which way this man might go; but he had him now, and knew every way thathe might take, no matter which way he might turn. It had been a long waitalready-for this man, this current hope of his, who visited Becho's with money,who also liked his wine, and bought krrf in the back room.

He knew this man-who did not know him. Knew him from a place across the river,in the Maze, in a place where he had courted Jubal's employ, once in betterdays. And if there was a chance left to him, it was this. He had tracked thisman on another night and lost him; but this night he knew the ground, had setthe odds in his own favor in this hunt.

And the man-youth-was at least some part drunk.

The way crossed the main road, past a worse and worse tangle of hovels, past theflimsy shelters of the hopeless, the old, the desolate, and now and again adoorway where someone had taken shelter against the wind, eyes that saweverything and nothing in the dark, witnesses whose own misery enveloped themand left only apathy behind.

Down a side track and into an alley this time, and it was a dead end: the quarryentered it and Mradhon knew-knew the door there, as he knew every turn and twistof this street. He thrust himself around the corner, having heard the steps goon.

"You," Mradhon said. "Man."

The youth whirled, hand to belt, with the quick flash of steel in the blackness.

"Friend," Mradhon said. He had his own knife, in case.

If the young man's mind had been fumed, it was shocked clear now. He had sethimself in a knifeman's crouch and Mradhon measured it as too far for any simplemove.

"Jubal," Mradhon said ever so softly. "That name make a difference to you?"

Still silence.

"I've got business to talk with you," Mradhon said. "Suppose we do that."

"Maybe." The voice came tightly. The crouch never varied. "Come a littlecloser."

"Why don't you open that door and let's talk about it."

Another silence.

"Man, are we going to stand here for the world to watch? I know you, I'm tellingyou. I'm by myself. The risk is on my side."

"You stand there. I'll open the door. You go in first."

"Maybe you've got friends in there."

"You're asking the favors, aren't you? Where did I get you on my heel? Or wereyou waiting on the street?"

Mradhon shrugged. "Ask me inside."

"Maybe I'll talk to you." The voice grew reasoned and calm. "Maybe you just putaway that knife and keep your hands where I can see them." The youth insertedhis knife in the seam of the door and flipped up the latch inside, pushed itopen. The inside was dark. "Go first, about six steps across the room."

"Let's have a light first, shall we?"

"Can't do that, man. No one in there to light it Just go on."