Linsha had been riding hard and fast through heavy woods with a patrol of Dark Knights close behind when Windcatcher swerved to avoid something lying on the ground, and Linsha found herself flat on her back, winded and furious. The something proved to be an owl about eighteen inches high, delicately patterned with creamy bars and spots, flapping in agony with a broken wing. In spite of the danger behind her, Linsha couldn’t bear to leave the owl without help. She bundled the bird into her cloak and took off running after her panicked horse. Chuckling a throaty owl laugh, Varia had squirmed out of the wrapping, revealed a miraculously cured wing, rounded up the horse, and scared off the Dark Knights with a spine-tingling chorus of demonic screams, barks, yowls, and maniacal screeches. Then she led Linsha out of the woods and had been with her ever since. It was only later that Linsha learned the talking owls often used such tactics to test the mettle of possible companions.

The owl bobbed her round head a few times and said, “I would have been back earlier except Lady Karine left a message. You are to check in with Lady Annian immediately.” Linsha felt a stab of annoyance. “Now? What’s so important?”

“I did not see her, just the message.”

Linsha’s annoyance turned to mild apprehension. What could be so important that the commander of the undercover Knights of Solamnia needed her to meet with her contact immediately? Usually Lady Karine preferred to keep contact to a minimum with all her Knights-for their safety and hers.

“What did she leave?”

“A dead chipmunk on her window ledge.”

Linsha’s eyebrows rose. “A chipmunk?” Lady Karine, one of the few people who knew of Varia’s existence, had suggested using the owl as a messenger and had devised a system using some of Varia’s favorite delicacies. A chipmunk meant “Come at once. Most secret.” Despite her usually cool and regal demeanor, Varia did not seem to mind “playing pigeon for the spies,” as she called it. In fact, Linsha thought the owl fancied the intrigue. To Varia, it was just a game played by humans.

To Linsha, the game could turn all too deadly, and no matter how tired or hot she was, a dead chipmunk on the window ledge of a certain house was an order she could not ignore.

She rolled off the bed to her feet. Her guard’s uniform was too damp and too conspicuous to wear, so she pulled out an old short-sleeved blue tunic, dry pants, and soft boots to wear. She also slipped her daggers into her belt and strapped on her sword.

“Hurry back,” Varia called. The owl was ensconced on her favorite perch by the window, where she could watch the street. But she wasn’t watching street this noon. Body hunched and eyes closed, the owl settled down for a nap.

Smothering a yawn and a grumble, Linsha slid past the vigilant Elenor, back on her ladder, and slipped into a narrow back alley. In moments she swaggered into the pedestrian traffic on a busy street three blocks away and melted into the crowd.

Linsha’s contact, Lady Knight Annian Mercet, like Linsha, preferred to have her domicile outside the city walls where the chances of escape were greater. She ran a small perfume shop ideally situated between a bathhouse and a jeweler near the Street of Courtesans. Her shop was small but well known in Sanction, and her business, like so many others, prospered in the growing fortunes of the city.

When Linsha reached the perfumer, she stopped outside. Before her lay a small open courtyard formed by a low stone wall. Inside sat a domed oven, an open fire, and several braziers tended by one very busy youth. As Linsha watched, he thrust a heavy clay pot of resin into the oven and dashed around to stir pots on the braziers. She inhaled the rich fragrances of spices, heated fats, herbs, and oils that issued from the pots. Annian did not need a sign to advertise her wares. All she had to do was fire her braziers to heat the oils and scents and open her door.

Linsha went inside the workshop. Glancing at the shelves that lined the walls, she saw countless vials, pots, stoppered jars of stone and glass, and exquisite hand-blown bottles filled with liquids of every color. A woman was busy grinding spices with a pestle and mortar at the back of the store.

“I’m looking for something to repel chipmunks,” Linsha said loudly.

The woman chuckled, a deep, throaty sound of amusement. She broke off her grinding and dusted her hands. When she stood up, she towered nearly a head taller than Linsha. Slender, fair-haired, and pale-skinned, the woman hardly looked the part of a Solamnic Knight, and that was part of her success as an operative.

“I’m afraid my wares are to attract, not repel. If you’re interested in an unguent for those calluses on your hands, I have just the thing.” She pulled a squat stone jar of glossy black from a shelf and placed it on a counter. Casting a quick glance out the door to check on her apprentice, she rubbed some sweet-smelling unguent on Linsha’s hand.

“The Circle wants to see you. The sooner, the better,” she said softly.

Linsha tried but could not entirely stifle a groan. The Clandestine Circle, the commanders and planners of the Solamnic covert operations, never met their agents face-to-face unless it was imperative. In all the years she had been in Sanction, she had never met them. The fact that they wanted to see her now was not reassuring.

“Do you know why?” she asked Annian with foreboding.

The Knight shook her head. Straightforward and practical, Annian rarely wasted words. “Need-to-know basis only. They just told me to send you. Same place.”

Linsha nodded once and thoughtfully rubbed the unguent into her skin. “Nice. I’ll take some.” She smiled a brief grimace. “It reminds me of my mother’s roses.”

While the transaction was made and Karine wrapped the jar in a small cloth bag, Linsha asked, “Have you heard about the ship full of dead men that crashed into a galley at the south pier?”

“One of my customers mentioned it earlier. It caused quite a stir.”

“I wonder what was wrong with them…” Linsha’s voice trailed off and she shivered.

Lady Annian handed her the bag. “I hear you impressed the governor and his commander.”

Linsha’s eyebrows lifted. “How do you know?”

An enigmatic smile danced on Annian’s pale face. “I have my contacts.”

Shaking her head, Linsha took her purchase outside, past the fires and the sweating apprentice, and walked into the street. The noon sun shone hot and fierce, like a dragon’s eye, and the heat had grown oppressive. Already the people were slowing down and street traffic was beginning to thin out. Reluctantly she turned her steps back toward the stable. Once again she bridled her startled mare and rode out into the streets. Instead of entering the inner city, she skirted the wall and rode north into the outlying district where many of the city laborers and dock workers lived. The housing was poorer here and consisted mainly of apartments and little houses crowded together. But even here, in what used to be a huge slum, city services kept the streets clean, water was available in city fountains, the houses were in good repair, and the inhabitants looked healthy and busy. There were fewer taverns and gaming houses on this side of the city and more small businesses. Most of the city’s population of kender lived here, too, on a lively broad avenue aptly named Kender Street. Perhaps half a mile from Kender Street, the neighborhoods came to an abrupt end in a strip of small orchards and gardens, and the road turned to a dirt path that led out into open fields and gently rolling hills of the vale.

Just to the north of the road sat the refugee camp run by the mystics of the Temple of Huerzyd. The camp was built on the far side of the city wall on the long slope of a hill that rose to meet the great ridge jutting out from Mount Grishnor. It had been established years before to handle the influx of refugees fleeing from the terror of the dragon overlords, and over time it had gained an air of permanence. Newcomers in need of shelter and aid were sent to the camp and, under the auspices of the temple, were given a chance to build a new life in Sanction. Under Lord Bight’s rule, anyone was welcome as long as that person obeyed the city laws and did not harass the citizens. That open-door policy had drawn folk from all over Ansalon, and while it created interesting problems for the city council, it also gave Sanction an open-minded, multicultural population.