She looked at him out of those oblique eyes, the amusement in them becomingdrier by the moment. "A sophist! Beware, lest I ask you who shaves the barber.Whom then are you planning to raise, master sophist? Women?"

"Madam," he said all at once, for the air was getting deadly still again, "theold Gods of Ilsig have been had. Had like a blind Rankan in the Bazaar. And it'stheir idiot mortal worshippers who've sold them this bill of goods. They'vefooled them into thinking that the things mortals do have to matter to thepowers of gods! Corpses buried under thresholds, necklaces cast in bells orforged into swords, a cow sacrificed here or a bad set of entrails there- It'srubbish! But the Ilsig gods sit languishing in their Otherworld because of itall, thinking they're powerless, and the Rankan gods swagger around and hitthings with lightning bolts and sire clandestine children on poor mortal maids,and think they own the world. They don't!"

Ischade blinked again, just once, that very conscious gesture.

Harran swallowed and kept going. "The Ilsigi gods have started believing intime, lady. The worship of mortals has bound them into it. Sacrifices at noon,savory smokes going up at sunset, the Ten-Slaying once a year-every festivalthat happens at a regular interval, every scheduled thing- has bound them. Godsmay have made eternity, but mortals made clocks and calendars and tied littlepieces of eternity up with them. Mortals have bound the gods! Rankan and Ilsigiboth. But mortals can also free them." He took a long breath. "If they've losttimelessness-then this spell can find it for Them again. For at least one ofthem, who can open the way for the others. And once the Ilsig gods are whollyfree of our world-"

"-They will drive out the Rankan gods, and the Beysib goddess too, and take backtheir own again?..." Ischade smiled-slow cool derision-but there was interestbehind it. "Mighty work, that, for a mortal. Even for one who spends so much ofhis time wielding those powerful sorcerer's tools, the cautery and the bone-saw.But one question, Harran. Why?"

Harran stopped. Some vague image of Ils stomping all over Savankala, of Shipripunching Sabellia's heart out, and his own crude satisfaction at the fact, wasall he had. At least, besides the image of maiden Siveni, warlike, impetuous,triumphing over her rivals-and later settling down again to the arts of peace inher restored temple-

And Ischade smiled, and sighed, and put her hood up. "No matter," she said.There was vast amusement in her voice-probably, Harran suspected, at theprospect of a man who didn't know what he wanted, and would likely die of it.Nothing confounds the great alchemies and magics so thoroughly as unclearmotives. "No matter at all," Ischade said. "Should you succeed at what youintend, there'll be merry times hereabouts, indeed there will. I should enjoywatching the proceedings. And should you fail..." The slim dark shoulders liftedin the slightest shrug. "At least I know where good quality mandrake's to behad. Good evening to you, master barber. And good fortune-if there is such athing."

She was gone. The wind got up again, and whining, ran away....

Of the greater sorceries, one of the elder priests had long ago said to Harran,in warning, "Notice is always taken." The still, dark-eyed notice that had comeupon Harran in the graveyard troubled him indeed. He went home that nightshivering with more than cold; and, once in bed, kicked Tyr perfunctorily out ofit and pulled Mriga in- using her with something more than his usual impersonaleffectiveness. No mere scratching of the itch tonight. He was looking,hopelessly, for something more-some flicker of feeling, some returning pressureof arms. But the lousiest Downwind whore would have suited his purposes ahundred times better than the mindless, compliant warmth that lay untroubledunder him or which jerkily, aimlessly wound its limbs about his. AfterwardHarran pushed her out too, leaving Mriga to crawl to the hearth and curl in theashes while he tossed and turned. For all the sleep he found in bed, Harranmight as well have been lying in ashes himself, or embers.

Ischade.... No good could come of her attention. Who knew if, for her ownamusement, she might not sell to some interested party-Molin Torchholder, saythe information that one lone, undefended man was going to bring back one of theold Ilsig gods in a few days? "Oh, Siveni..." he whispered. He would have tomove quickly, before something happened to stop him.

Tonight.

Not tonight, he thought in a kind of reluctant horror. That same horror made himstop and wonder, in a priest's self-examination, about its source. Was it justthe familiar repulsion he always felt at the thought of the old ruin on theAvenue of Temples? Or was it something else?

-A shadow on the edge of his mind's vision, a feeling that something was aboutto go wrong. Someone. Someone who had been watching him-

Raik?

All the more reason for it to be tonight, then. He was sure he had seen Raikstaggering into the barracks-probably to snore off another night of wineshops.Harran had thought to go back twice to the temple-once to retrieve the old rollbook, and then, after studying it, once to perform the rite. But even that wouldbe attracting too much attention. It would have to be tonight.

Harran lay there, postponing getting up into the cold for just a few secondsmore. Since that day five years ago when the Rankans served the writ on Irik, hehad not been inside Siveni's temple. For so long now I've been done withtemples. Going into one, now-and hers-do I truly want to reopen that old wound?

He stared at the skinny, twitching shape curled up in the ashes, and wondered."Every temple needs an idiot," the old master-priest had once said to Harran increaky jest. Harran had laughed and agreed with him, being just then in themiddle of an unmasterable lesson, and feeling himself idiot enough for anytwelve temples. Now-in exile- Harran briefly wondered whether he was stillliving in a temple; whether he had accepted the idiot because she was so likethe mad and poor who had frequented Siveni's fane in the days when there wasstill wisdom dispensed there, and healing, and food. Of wisdom and healing hehad little enough. And Mriga never complained about the food. Or anythingelse....

He swore softly, got up, got dressed. There, in the wooden box shoved under hissideboard, were the bones of the hand, wired and mounted into the correctgesture, with the ring of base metal on the proper finger; there was themandrake, hastily bound in cord twisted of silk and lead, with a silvered steelpin through its "body" to hold it harmless. Both hairpin and ring had come froma secondhand whore that Yuri had recently brought home for the barracks. Harran,last in line and mildly concerned that the woman might notice when her thingswent missing, had "considerately" brought her a stoup of drugged wine. Then heswived her until the wine took, lifted ring and pin, and slipped away-firstleaving her a largish tip where no one but she would be likely to find it.

So-almost set. He picked up the box, went over to the comer by the table for afew more things-a small flask, a little bag of grain, and another of salt, alump of bitumen. Then he checked around one last time. Mriga lay snoring in theashes. Tyr was curled nose-to-tail in a compact brown package under the bed,snoring too, a note higher than Mriga. Harran mussed the meager bedclothes andlumpy bolster more or less into a body shape, snatched up and flung over him hisold soot-black cloak, and made his way silently through the Stepsons'stableyard.