"What the frog?" Zip breathed to Sync as the women, who could kill you byspitting on you, if rumor could be believed, starting disarming everyonemethodically, then binding their thumbs together behind their backs.

There were ten Bey with crossbows in the middle of the room; Zip kept watch onthem under his arms, which were spread above his head like everyone else's.

When Sync didn't respond, Zip whispered, "Well, Ranger, what now? If this is aresult of Randal's little 'introduction,' we're standing in an execution coffle:Bey-sibs don't go after guilty parties, they just round up a bunch of folks atrandom and slaughter them in the morning. And they don't make it pretty."

Sync shrugged as well as a man can with his hands propped on the wall above hishead and his feet spread-eagled: "I'm armed and dangerous; how about you?"

"Close enough, friend. I sure don't want my people to see me led like a bull tothe sacrificial slaughter. And if a woman kills you, your soul never finds itseternal rest."

"I didn't know that," Sync quipped.

"You know it now. Ready? Let's die with our privates intact-it ain't that muchto ask."

"Ready," Sync breathed. "On the count of three, we break for the back door." Heinclined his head to the right. "To make this work, we'll have to have a coupleof those Beysib bitches, so I'm going to start counting when they come to you:as soon as they touch you, grab an arm, jerk it in and grab the bitch, get achoke hold on-"

"Silence!" pealed a deep but assuredly female voice, and the whole place froze.

Zip thought, at first, that it was a Beysib voice, but in its wake came novenomous bite, no snake's fangs, no crossbow bolt through his spine. And in theentire room, nothing so much as moved.

Ducking his head. Zip verified what his ears told him: there was a familiartread on the stairs-the tap, tap, tap of Roxane's heels. And there was therustling of One-Thumb's muscular thighs as he descended the staircase besideher, his heavy breathing, and her soft low laugh.

These things could be heard so clearly because, throughout the Vulgar Unicorn,everything else was motionless: the Beysibs stood with mouths agape and weaponsat ready, but their eyes were glazed.

Customers in mid-cower were entranced between blinks; tears glittered unshed inserving wenches' eyes.

Only Sync and Zip, of the entire ground-floor crowd, were unaffected by Roxane'sspell.

And Sync was already pushing away from the wall, his sword drawn and a halfdozen Bandaran throwing-stars in his left hand. "Pork-all! What's going on here?Who the pork is she? What's happening?"

Zip straightened up. "Thanks, Roxane. That could have been dicey." Her beautydidn't affect him as it once had- her sanguine skin and drowning-pool eyescouldn't tempt him; but he couldn't let Sync see that fear had replaced the lusthe'd once felt for Roxane. Summoning all his bravado, he continued: "This here'sSync; he wanted to meet you, and One-Thumb too. He wants to join the Revolution.Isn't that right. Sync?"

"Right, right as rain." Sync was just a little bit intimidated, Zip thought. Buthe'd seen Roxane spellbind a man before, and he knew that Sync wasn't immune:the ranger's eyes never left hers.

Well, Zip thought, he asked for it. Maybe we will be allies, after all.

Then Roxane came up, taking both their hands, saying: "Come, gentlemen. I don'twant to hold this rabble entranced forever. One-Thumb and I will take youupstairs, and we'll let this slaughter recommence." She licked her lips: shelived on fear, death, and suffering; she was probably having a feast onsome psychic plane, just observing the Beysib about their vicious work.

For Sync and Zip, it was a lucky break: she wouldn't feel like teaching them anyof her more difficult lessons, Zip was willing-to bet-not tonight.

"Zip, my dear little monster, you've outdone yourself this evening." Shecaressed his face; above her shoulder One-Thumb's eyes met his with what mighthave been sympathy.

"This?" Zip gestured around, to the Bey and their hapless prey. "I didn't causethis. He did." Zip gestured to Sync. "He's got a mage on staff, and they workedup a little surprise for the Bey hierarchy, across town. This, I'll bet, is theBeysib reaction-or maybe just the beginning of it."

"It is, it is, indeed, just the beginning." Roxane was inebriated with whatevercarnage her soul-sucking talents had been treated to this evening. "A halfdozen, no less, of the high-ranking Bey bitches are dead, turned to waxenstatues in a Tysian mage's museum." She smiled. "And these sheep," her handencompassed the room, "soon will be dying the slow and horrible death of Beysibretribution."

She caressed Sync's hand, the one with the stars in it; he looked at her like astarving man at a laden feast-day table. "And," she continued, "since Zipassures me I've you and yours to thank, we'll have a long talk about our mutualfuture-I'm quite certain. Sync of the Rankan 3rd Commando, that we're going tohave one. I may even give you Randal's life, a gesture of appreciation, anindication that we can and will work well together, an introductory gift from meto you."

As if from a dream. Sync roused: "Right. That's very good of you, my lady. I'myours to command."

"I'm sure you are," Roxane agreed.

Zip knew Sync didn't realize how true what he'd said was likely to be. Not yet,he didn't.

"Would you mind," Sync asked Roxane as they moved among the frozen and thedoomed, "if I slit these Beysibs' throats on our way out? It's as fair as thechance the Bey will give these innocents, if I don't." The big soldier's eyessought Zip's.

Zip said, "It'll give the Revolution credibility."

Roxane paused, pouted, then brightened: "Be my guest. Fillet fish-folk to yourheart's content."

Behind her, One-Thumb muttered something about "the right slime for the job."

It didn't take long to slay the unknowing Beysibs. Zip helped Sync while thewitch and One-Thumb looked on.

When they were done, they wrote the initials of Zip's "Popular Front for theLiberation of Sanctuary" on the walls of the Vulgar Unicorn in Beysib blood.

By tomorrow, the PFLS's latest kill would be on everybody's lips.

Not bad. Zip thought to himself-not bad at all, for a start.

Then Roxane led the way up the Unicorn's stairs and through a door that had noright to open into the witching room of her Foalside hold, a lot farther than afew steps away from One-Thumb's bar in the Maze.

Three days had passed since the revolutionaries calling themselves the PFLS hadslaughtered too many Beysibs in the Vulgar Unicorn.

Sanctuarites were just daring to go abroad again, pale and haggard from fear anddisgust. First the cutthroats and the drunkards, then the vendors and the whoresreturned to the streets. Then, when it was clear that no Beysib squadrons werewaiting to swoop down and scoop them up, others ventured forth, and the townreturned to what had become normal: business as usual, with the occasionalpitched battle on a streetcomer or sniper in some shanty's eaves.

Hakiem was down on Wideway, selling what tales he could on the dock. Pickingswere slim because of his new apprentice, Kama, whose uncannily polished tale ofthe brave revolutionaries triumphing over the dreaded Harka Bey in the Unicorndrew endless crowds of thrill-seekers, while his own yams of giant crabs andpurple spiders weren't dangerous enough, or newsworthy enough, to compete thesedays.

Hakiem told himself he didn't really have reason to be piqued: he'd been givenmoney enough at the secret meeting beneath Marc's shop to cover twice what hemight be losing.