And she laughed when he said nothing. 'That man of theirs -go outside. TellDolon's spy to keep to his own affairs tonight. Tell him - tell him maybe.' Shedimmed the lights, unwarded the door, a howl of wind and rain. Mor-am's facecontorted in fright. He ran out to do as he was told, limping still, but not somuch as before. She took back the spell: he would be limping in truth when hereached the watcher, would be the old Mor-am, in pain, to convince the Stepsons.And that also amused her.

She shut the door, walked through the small strange house, which at one timeseemed to have one room and disclosed others behind clutter - oddments, books,hangings, cloaks, discarded garments, bits of silk or brocade which had takenher fancy and lost it again, for she never wore ornament, only kept it for thepleasure of having it; and the cloaks, the men's cloaks - that was another sortof amusement. Her bare feet trod costly silk strewn on time-smoothed boards, andthick carpet of minuscule silk threads, hand knotted, dyed in rarest opalescentdyes - collected for a fee, provenance forgotten. Had someone plundered thehoard, she might not have cared or missed the theft - or might have caredgreatly, depending on her mood. Material comfort meant little to her. Onlysatiation - when the need was on her. And lately - lately that need hadquickened in a different way. One had affronted her. She had, in the beginning,dismissed the matter, clinging to her indolence, but it gnawed at her. She hadthought upon this thing, as one will think on an affront long after the moment,turning it from one side to the other to discover the motive of it, and she haddiscovered not malice, not anger, but insouciance, even humour on the part ofthe perpetrator, this witch, this northron demigoddess, be she what she was. Theaffront lay there a good long while, gnawing at the laissez-faire on which herpeace was founded - for, without that habit of laziness, she hungered moreoften; and that hunger led to tragedies.

Such a thing had happened because she was lazy, because there were costs ofpower she had never wished to pay. This witch slaughtered children, pluckingthem from her hands; and dropped the matter at her door. This witch went herway, indifferent, having fouled her nest, her eyes set on further ambitions, inprofessional disregard. This was worth, after thought, a certain anger; andanger eroded itself a place and grew. She ought, Ischade thought, to thank theNisi witch for this discovery, that there were other appetites, and one greatone which could assuage that moon-driven hunger that had held her, so, so long.

She understood - oh, very much of what passed in the streets, having been on thebridge, having been everywhere in Sanctuary, black-robed, wrapped in more thanrobes when she chose to be. The world tottered. The sea-folk intruded, assumingpower; Wizardwall and Stepsons fought, with ambitions all their own; Jubalplanned

- whatever Jubal planned; young hotheads dealt in swords on either side; deathsquads invaded uptown; while across the White Foal the beggar-king Moruth madehis own bid. All the while the prince sat in his palace and intrigued withthieves, invaders, all, a wiser fool than some; priests connived, gods perishedin this and other planes

- and Ranke, the heart of empire, was in no less disarray, with every lordconniving and every priest conspiring. She heard the rain upon the roof, heardthe thunder rattling the walls of the world and heard her own catspaw returningup the path. She shod herself, flung her cloak about her, opened the door onMor-am's rain-washed presence.

'Take a dry cloak,' she said, catching up a fine one, dark as hers. 'Man, you'llcatch your death.'

He was not amused; but she unwound the pain from him, cast one cloak aside, andadjusted the finer one about his newly straightened shoulders, tenderly as amother her son, looking him closely in the eyes.

'Gone?' she asked.

'They'll try to trick you.'

'Of course they will.' She closed the front door, opened the back, neverglancing at either. 'Come along,' she said, flinging up her hood, the wide wingsof her cape flying in the wind that swirled the random, garish draperies of thehouse like multicoloured fire. The gust struggled with the candles and thefireplace and failed to extinguish them, while mad shadows ran the walls, 'tilshe winked the lights out, having no more need of them.

Something rattled. Mradhon Vis opened an eye, in dark lit by the dying fire inits crooked hearth. Beside him Haught and Moria lay inert, lost in sleep, curledtogether in the threadbare quilt. But this sound came, and with it a chill, asif someone had opened a door on winter in the room, while his heart beat in thatblind terror only dreams can give, or those things that have the unreality ofdreams. He had no idea whether that rattle had been the door - the wind, hethought, the wind blowing something; but why this night-terror, this sicklysweat, this conviction it boded something?

Then he saw the man standing in the room. Not - standing - but existing there,as if he were part of the shadows, and light from somewhere (not the fire)falling on golden curling hair, and on a bewildered expression. He was young,this man, his shirt open, a charm hung on a cord about his neck, his skinglistening with wine-heat and summer warmth as it had been one night; whilesweat like ice poured down Mradhon's sides beneath the thin blanket.

Sjekso. But the man was dead, in an alley not so far from here. In some unmarkedgrave he was food for worms.

Mradhon watched the while this apparition wavered like a reflection in windblown water, all in dark, and while its mouth moved, saying something that hadno sound - as, suddenly, treacherously swift, it came drifting towards the bed,closer, closer, and the air grew numb with cold, Mradhon yelled in revulsion,waved his arm at it, felt it pass through icy air, and his bedmates woke,stirred in the nest -

'Mradhon!' Haught caught his arm, held him.

'The door,' Moria said, thrusting up from beside them, '0 gods, the door -'

Mradhon rolled, saw the lifting of the bar with no hands upon it, saw it totter- it fell and crashed, and he was scrambling for the side of the bed, thebedpost where his sword hung even while he felt the blast of rain-soaked air,while Haught and Moria likewise ' scrambled for weapons. He whirled about, hisshoulders to the wall, and there was no one there at all, but the lightningflashes casting a lurid glow on the flooded cobbles outside, and the doorbanging with the wind.

Terror loosened his bones, set him shivering; instinct sent his hand gropingafter a cloak, his feet moving towards the door, his sword in hand the while hewhipped the cloak about himself, towellike. He leapt out suddenly into the rainswimming alley, barefoot, trusting the corners of his eyes, and swung at once-tothat side that had anomaly in it, a tall shape, a cloaked figure standing in therain.

And then he was easy prey for anything, for that cloaked form, its height, itsmanner, waked memories. He heard a presence near, Haught or Moria at his back,or both, but he could not have moved, not from the beginning. That figure wellbelonged with ghosts, with witchery, with nightmares that waked him cold withsweat. Lightning flashed and showed him a pale face within the hood.

'For Ils' sake get in!' Moria's voice. A hand tugging at his naked shoulder.But it was a potential trap, that room, lacking any other door; whilesomewhere, somehow in his most secret nightmares he knew, had known, thatIschade had always known how to find him when she wished.