I ama blade of silver, a sickle of ice. Ghe sighed, intoning his old assassin's mantra, hurtling across the space between two rooftops. He bounded up and over a ridgebeam, fell uncontrolled down the steep, opposite side as new fire entered his wounds. Fetching up against a parapet, he grasped the shaft protruding from his chest and yanked it out. The arrow squirmed in his hand, and he saw it as a line of darkness, like burning incense. Just holding it stung his hand, and he tossed it away, wondering if he had ever known of such weapons before this day.

He ran on across the rooftops, feet slapping on roof tiles, the black scales of the sleeping night dragon. When he was certain his pursuit was outdistanced, he stopped to withdraw the second dart from his leg; this was easy enough, for the missile had somehow eaten a nearly fist-size hole in his thigh.

He continued to weaken, even with the arrows removed. By the time he reached the wall surrounding the palace, he was dizzy, stumbling. He heard a surprised shout from one of the imperial sentinels, and then he was over, plummeting toward the street. He struck it clumsily, one leg twisting horribly beneath him. Had he been merely Human, he knew he would never have survived the fall at all, but even so, he felt things tearing.

Sobbing in frustration, he struggled to hands and knees and began to crawl.

No! he snarled inwardly, and then “No!” forced from his panting mouth. “No crawling.” He staggered up again and sagged against a wall. There were several shouts from atop the looming darkness of the palace, and so, gritting, he stumbled off down the street.

On the next corner, he met a woman, perhaps sixteen, and he took her life immediately, greedily. Her eyes never even registered shock, glazing over whatever thoughts she had been entertaining, the faint smile on her lips frozen as well. Ghe proceeded across the city like that, feeding as he went, leaving a score of dead behind him. It was like trying to fill a cracked pot; the new strength leaked from him as soon as it entered, and he knew he was leaving a trail of corpses any fool could follow.

Worse, he realized that he didn't know where he was. He had allowed some animal part of him to rule, and that was stupid, stupid, for any animal, no matter how strong, could be hunted and killed by the weakest man, so long as he was clever. The Ahw'en and the Jik were more than clever. He reeled about on the night-dark street, searching for some clue to his whereabouts. His wounds ached, and the life of his latest victim leaked from his yawning mouth. He leaned against a stoop to gather in his breath.

“What is wrong with you?” a small voice asked. Ghe turned in surprise, and his hunger urged him to reach to where the voice was and take sustenance. Ghe fought the impulse, focusing his sharp eyes instead. A child sat on the stoop, gazing at him with large, ebony eyes.

“Hezhi?” he gasped.

“No,” the child answered. “That isn't my name.”

It wasn't she, of course. In fact, it was a boy, and some years younger than Hezhi.

“Boy,” he whispered, “how can you see me in this darkness?”

“I can't see anything” the boy replied. “I've never seen anything. But I can hear you.”

“Oh.” It was difficult, fighting the urge to kill. But he had questions to ask. “Perhaps you can tell me,” he managed. “Where am I?”

“You sound hurt,” the boy said. “You smell funny.”

“Please. Just tell me.”

“This is Southtown, just along Levee Way. The River is behind me. Can't you smell him?”

Ghe closed eyes. He could. Of course he could.

“ I can smell him. I can hear him, too.”

“Hear him?”

“He sings to me. He woke me up tonight.”

“Did he?” Ghe was growing impatient, but something stayed his hand yet.

“And I dreamed. I dreamed of vision. I dreamed I could see.”

“What?”

“Yes,” the boy went on. “I dreamed some beast ate me, but he did not chew me up. He just swallowed me whole, and I could see through his animal eyes.”

Ghe had heard enough. He could no longer concentrate on the boy's words. He reached out hungrily, tore the pulsing strands of light from their fragile moorings. The boy gave a little cry, a shudder, and fell forward into the street.

He did not chew me up, the boy's words seemed to repeat themselves, and Ghe, despite his furious need, paused.

What would happen to these little bundles if he did not devour them? He remembered the Jik he had killed, days ago, how the heartstrands had drifted off, a seed that might become a ghost, but which more likely the River devoured. As he considered this, the boy's life began to tug toward the River, and Ghe followed.

It wasn't long before he could feel the water, his lord. This part of Southtown was mostly abandoned because the marsh had invaded it, and the mud streets were filled with standing water. He sloshed through the quagmire and instantly felt strength returning, hunger abating somewhat. His thoughts sharpened, cut from his brain through the flesh of the beast.

The little ghost was still tugging at its leash, trying to bleed into the River water, but Ghe kept hold, considering. The River had sent him this child; for what purpose? Experimentally, he pulled the knot of spirit into him, but not to the furnace in his heart. Instead he discovered a sort of empty space, one that he had not known existed. The ghost settled in there, tied itself to his own strands and, though it faded, remained. Ghe felt, then, a new sort of strength. Incremental, to be sure, but it was a strength he knew would not fade. The boy's memories were there, too, for him to use. He leafed through them as through a book, the years of darkness in Southtown, a hunger of its own sort. Memories to replace his own lost ones. And he felt the fear, the surprise of death, though it was retreating, replaced by awe and wonder. For what was left of the boy was part of Ghe, and Ghe could see.

Ghe reached the levee and strode over it, found the vastness of his lord beyond, waded in until he was submerged. In the water of the River, he had no need of breath, and as his wounds finally healed, he considered what he had done, what it meant.

What if he had not eaten that first monster, there beneath the Darkness Stair? Would its strength be slave to him now, bound to him as this boy was? How stupid he had been! The River meant for him to bind, not merely to feed. He could be not one, but legion, fill himself with a whole court, and he would be their emperor. That was where his real strength lay. Still he would be cautious, still the priesthood might find some way to kill him. But now he was more than he had been, and he would be much more still. Content for the moment, he rested, knowing his lord would hide him, even from those who followed.

BEFORE dawn he found an abandoned house, nearly consumed by the fringe of the Yellow-Haired Swamp. He watched the dawn flush the waving, waist-high grasses that spread out south for as far as he could see, bordered only by the River on his left and a string of huts trailing its western fringe. Someone had told him—he could not, of course, remember who—that before he was born, this part of the swamp had been a checkered expanse of rice paddies, and in those days Southtown had enjoyed a certain mild prosperity, its inhabitants working the fields and keeping some measure of the crop for themselves. The River had flooded, however, not hugely but enough to silt up the fine network of paddies, and whatever lord owned it had decided the rice wasn't worth his trouble, not with cheaper rice coming up-river by the ton on barges from the Swamp Kingdoms. The swamp had been allowed to have the fields.

The house that now sheltered him reflected that earlier, more affluent year. It had been raised on sturdy cypress posts, and its floor had once been polished, traces of smooth sheen still noticeable in a few places. It had two stories, though now the roof was gone and birds nested in the upper story, whose rafters were gently collapsing in like the ribs of a corpse. The posts had shifted and begun to sink, and the floor sloped at a noticeable angle, bird droppings covering most of the once beautiful planks. Such, in sum, was Southtown.