But when the disturbance at the outer gates penetrated to the slaver's oldapartments which he had made his own, rousting them out to seek its cause, hewas glad enough she'd remained.

The two of them had to shoulder their way through the gathered crowd ofStepsons, astir with bitter mutters; no one made way for them; none had come totheir commander's billet with news of what had been brought up to the gatehousein the dawn.

He heard a harsh whisper from a Stepson too angry to be careful, wondering ifTempus had sent Janni's team deliberately to destruction because Stealth hadrejected the Riddler's offered pairbond.

One who knew better answered sagely that this was a Mygdonian message, aNisibisi warning of some antiquity, and he had heard it straight from Stealth'sbroken lips.

'What did that?' Jihan moaned, bending low over Janni's remains. Tempus did notanswer her but said generally: 'And Niko?' and followed a man who headed offtowards the whitewashed barracks, hearing as he went a voice choked with griefexplaining to Jihan what happens when you tie a man spreadeagled over ananimal's burrow and smoke the creature out.

The Stepson, guiding him to where Niko lay, said that the man who'd brought themwished to speak to Tempus. 'Let him wait for his reward,' Tempus snapped, andquestioned the mercenary about the Samaritan who'd delivered the two Stepsonshome. But the Sacred Bander had gotten nothing from the stranger who'd rappedupon the gates and braved the angry sentries who almost killed him when they sawwhat burden he'd brought in. The stranger would say only that he must wait forTempus.

The Stepson's commander stood around helplessly with three others, friendsofNiko's, until the barber-surgeon had finished with needle and gut, then chasedthem all away, shuttering windows, barring doors. Cup in hand, then, he gave thebattered, beaten youth his painkilling draught in silence, only sitting andletting Niko sip while he assessed the Stepson's injuries and made black guessesas to how the boy had come by green and purple blood-filled bruises, rope burnsat wrist and neck, and a face like doom.

Quite soon he heard from Nikodemos, concisely but through a slur that comes whenteeth have been loosed or broken in a dislocated jaw, what had transpired: theyhad gone seeking the Alekeep owner's daughter, deep into Shambles where drugdens and cheap whores promise dreamless nights, found them at Ischade's, seenthem hustled into a wagon and driven away towards Roxane's. Following, for theywere due to see the witch at high moon in her lair in any case, they'd beenaccosted, surprised by a death squad •armed with magic and visaged like thedead, roped and dragged from their horses. The next lucid interval Niko recalledwas one of being propped against dense trees, tied to one while the Nisibisiwitch used children's plights and spells and finally Janni's tortured, drawn-outdeath to extract from him what little he knew of Tempus's intentions and Rankanstrategies of defence for the lower land. 'Was I wrong to try not to tell them?'Niko asked, eyes swollen half-shut but filled with hurt. 'I thought they'd killus all, whatever. Then I thought I could hold out... Tamzen and the other girlswere past help... but Janni -' He shook his head. 'Then they... thought I waslying, when I couldn't answer ... questions they should have asked of you - ThenI did lie, to please them, but she ... the witch knew...'

'Never mind. Was One-Thumb a party to this?'

A twitch of lips meant 'no' or 'I don't know'.

Then Niko found the strength to add: 'If I hadn't tried to keep my silence I'vebeen interrogated before by Nisibisi ... I hid in my rest-place ... until Janni- They killed him to get to me.'

Tempus saw bright tears threatening to spill and changed the subject: 'Yourrest-place? So your maat returned to you?'

He whispered, 'After a fashion ... I don't care about that now. Going to needall my anger ... no time for balance anymore.'

Tempus blew out a breath and set down Niko's cup and looked between his legs atthe packed clay floor. 'I'm going north, tomorrow. I'll leave sortie assignmentsand schedules with Critias - he'll be in command here - and a rendezvous forthose who want to join in the settling up. Did you recognize any Ilsigs in hercompany? A servant, a menial, anyone at all?'

'No, they all look alike... Someone found us, got us to the gates. Some traineesof ours, maybe - they knew my name. The witch said come ahead and die upcountry. Each reprisal of ours, they'll match fourfold.'

'Are you telling me not to go?'

Niko struggled to sit up, cursed, fell back with blood oozing from between histeeth. Tempus made no move to help him. They stared at each other until Nikosaid, 'It will seem that you've been driven from Sanctuary, that you've failedhere ...'

'Let it seem so; it may well be true.'

'Wait, then, until I can accompany -'

'You know better. I will leave instructions for you.' He got up and leftquickly, before his temper got the best of him where the boy could see.

The Samaritan who had brought their wounded and their dead was waiting outsideTempus's quarters. His name was Vis and though he looked Nisibisi he claimed hehad a message from Jubal. Because of his skin and his accent Tempus almost tookhim prisoner, thinking to give him to Straton, for whom all manner of men baredtheir souls, but he marshalled his anger and sent the young man away with apocket full of soldats and instructions to convey Jubal's message to Critias.Crit would be in charge of the Stepsons henceforth; what Jubal and Crit mightarrange was up to them. The reward was for bringing home the casualties, deadand living, a favour cheap at the price.

Then Tempus went to find Jihan. When he did, he asked her to put him in touchwith Askelon, dream lord, if she could.

'So that you can punish yourself with mortality? This is not your fault.'

'A kind, if unsound, opinion. Mortality will break the curse. Can you help me?'

'I will not, not now, when you are like this,' she replied, concern knitting herbrows in the harsh morning light. 'But I will accompany you north. Perhapsanother day, when you are calmer ...'

He cursed her for acting like a woman and set about scheduling sorties andsketching maps, so that each of his men would have worked out his debt toKadakithis and be in good standing with the mercenaries' guild when and if theyjoined him in Tyse, at the very foot ofWizardwall.

It took no longer to draft his resignation and Critias's appointment in hisstead and send them off to Kadakithis than it took to clear his actions with theRankan representatives of the mercenaries' guild: his task here (assessingKadakithis for a Rankan faction desirous of a change in emperors) wasaccomplished; he could honestly say that neither town nor townspeople nor effeteprince was worth struggling to ennoble. For good measure he was willing to throwinto the stewpot of disgust boiling in him both Vashanka and the child he hadco-fathered with the god, by means of whom certain interests thought to hold himhere: he disliked children, as a class, and even Vashanka had turned his back onthis one.

Still, there were things he had to do. He went and found Crit in the guildhostel's common room and told him all that had transpired. If Crit had refusedthe appointment outright, Tempus would have had to tarry, but Critias onlysmiled cynically, saying that he'd be along with his best fighters as soon asmatters here allowed. He left One-Thumb's case in Critias's hands; they bothknew that Straton could determine the degree of the barkeep's complicity quicklyenough.