He threw himself into a roll and the knife soared above his head, though Li, plunging through the doorway, was very nearly not so lucky. He jerked back as the bright metal flashed just in front of his chest. "Mother to dogs!" he snarled in Shou. The Hooded's interpreter reached back to her belt.

"Hey!" shouted Tycho. He grabbed a cushion and flung it at her. She batted it aside, but the distraction was enough for Li to get through the door. He hurled himself at the Hooded with a shout.

“Yu Mao!"

The Hooded had a sword off the rack and came spinning around just in time of meet Li's blow. Metal clanged on metal. Li struck again, driving the Hooded back with a flurry of attacks. The Hooded's sword worked desperately; the gang boss was trying to get in some kind of counterstrike, but the blows Li was doling out were fierce and angry. The Hooded was forced into a desperate and constant defense.

His interpreter shrieked and turned to her master, but Tycho leaped into her and slammed her to the ground. Howling, she raked at him with her fingers. "Stop that!" he spat sharply. He grabbed her wrists and shoved them back over her head until he could pin them against the floor. She just snapped up at him with her teeth as he bent over her, forcing him to arc away or be bitten. He cursed, shifted her wrists so he could hold them with one hand and groped with the other for a piece of silk hanging from the wall. It tore free in an enormous sheet. Tycho cursed again, and tried wrapping the fabric around the young woman's hands and wrists. Anything to restrain this wildcat!

Every time he shifted his attention to her hands, she kicked. Every time he tried to pin her legs, she thrashed. The whole time she was howling and snapping. Teeth finally found his arm. Tycho yelped at the sudden pain and flung himself off of her. She twisted after him, but he pointed a hand at her and sang a sharp note.

Magic flowed, quick and dirty, and she staggered in a momentary daze. Tycho snatched up the long silk and wrapped it around her entire torso, pinning her arms against her sides and twisting the fabric sheath tight before she could recover. When she opened her mouth to let out another feral shriek, he jammed a trailing edge of the silk into it. "Bind me," he gasped, "what gutter did you crawl out of?" He kicked her feet out from under her and knocked her to the floor.

Across the room, the Hooded flinched at his interpreter's fall. His defense faltered for just a moment. Li drove his blade in. The Hooded twisted and the sharp metal sliced across his side. His foot shifted. He kicked up a cushion at Li. The Shou caught it with his sword. Fabric split and a storm of feathers exploded out. The Hooded gave a strange, muted cry and thrust his sword into the downy cloud.

Li spun out on the other side, sweeping his blade down. It hit hard just above the hilt of the Hooded's sword with a clear, sharp ring and slapped the weapon from his grasp. Li's sword flicked back to the other man's chest. The Hooded froze.

But so did Li. His face twisted. His eyes were fixed on the Hooded's masked face as if they were the only two people in the room-in the world.

Tycho stared at him. "Li?" he asked cautiously.

"Li?"

Memories played through Li's mind. Memories of his father's face as he showed him the letter from Tieh Fa Pan. Memories of the drawn faces of the silk families of Keelung as they mourned sons, daughters, sisters, and brothers lost in the lands of the west-with no idea of the truth behind that loss. Memories of the shame and righteous anger that had driven him the length of the Golden Way, of the stabbing agony of Cado's words in the cellar. He said get rid of you faster.

… Memories of watching Yu Mao on the day of his Blessing Ceremony, of playing with him in the garden, of lessons together, of trapping frogs and fireflies before the heir of Kuang grew too dignified for such things You're talking about murdering your brother, Tycho had said and he had insisted, Better me than a stranger; better me than no one at all. Courts, justice, tradition all agreed-but, in the end, his heart did not.

"I can't do it," Li hissed finally in Shou. His blade trembled. "Do you hear that, Yu Mao? I have ached for this halfway across the world and now… " Yu Mao said nothing, just stayed stone still. "Tycho," breathed Li. "Take off his hood."

The bard stepped away from the writhing form of Yu Mao's young woman, moved next to Yu Mao cautiously, and reached up and pulled off the leather hood.

Breath caught in Li's throat. Memories, love, and conflict all suddenly collapsed, shriveling like paper in a flame.

Round Western eyes. Thin, gold-brown hair. Pale skin. The man before him was not Yu Mao.

Li's arms and legs shook. His shoulders tensed. The muscles of his belly heaved and knotted. A voice-his- rasped in hollow agony.

The Hooded moved suddenly, grabbing at his sword arm and thrusting him away. An elbow lashed back and caught Tycho in the jaw. The bard cried out and staggered. Li barely noticed.

Not Yu Mao.

With a wild roar, he dropped his sword and grabbed the Hooded with his bare hands. Fingers knotted in the Westerner's tunic and pulled him close-Li snapped his head forward, smashing his forehead against the Hooded's. The Hooded swayed. Li lifted him off his feet and slammed him back into the nearest wall. "Where is my brother?" he howled. "Where is Yu Mao?" He clamped a hand tight around the Hooded's throat to hold him upright while he drove the other into his belly.

Tycho was like a mosquito hovering on the edge of his awareness, his voice an annoying whine. Li shrugged him aside and hammered his fist into the Hooded's belly again. The mosquito gasped and its whine changed to song. Light flashed suddenly between him and the Hooded. Li threw up his arm to shield his eyes and staggered back.

Hands grabbed him and gave him a sharp slap across the face.

"Li!" yelled Tycho. "Li, look at me!" Another stinging slap. "Look at me!"

Li blinked and focused. Tycho was hanging onto his shirt front. His face was white. The room was silent. Even the Hooded's interpreter had stopped her struggling. Li looked beyond Tycho.

The unmasked Hooded slumped motionless against the wall. Blood was trickling down from a cut on his forehead. Li swallowed hard. His anger ebbed a little and he glanced up at Tycho. He wasn't sure what he intended to say, but what came out was, "He's not Yu Mao."

"No,'"Iycho agreed. "He's not. Another couple of punches, though, and you might have killed him anyway."

Li's stomach lurched. "I wasn't going to. When I thought he was Yu Mao "

"I know," said Tycho. "I could tell. Let's see who he really is."

He let go of Li's shirt, went to the unconscious man, and pushed his head back against the wall. The pale face that turned up-eyes lolling half-open, mouth slack-was a ruin. And not from Li's fists. Scars marked his face. Some seemed deliberate. Two short horizontal lines stood out under each eye and a double row of round dots marched across his forehead. The massive scars that tore across his cheeks and drew his lips into a twisted sneer could hardly have been intentional, though. Tycho touched one then the other. "Something went straight through," he said. He peered into the man's mouth. "He's missing a lot of teeth.His tongue "He shuddered.

Li looked to the Hooded's interpreter. Seeing her master so savagely beaten had taken the fight out of her. He moved over and dragged her closer, tugging the makeshift gag out of her mouth. "What did that?" he asked.

"An arrow."

Tycho grunted. "He's lucky, then. Higher, lower, farther back, different angle-he'd be long dead. No wonder he wore a hood and needed someone to speak for him." He frowned and ran his fingers across the dotted lines on the man's forehead. "Li," he said slowly, "I think I've heard of him. They called him the Stitched Man. He was a pirate." He twisted around. "He sailed with Sowl"