'Still, once they were ashore, I could see they were men not greatly differentfrom us, so I stepped forth from my place of concealment and went to meet them.'

This brave deed that Hakiem took on himself had been born of a mixture ofimpatience, curiosity, and drink ... mostly the latter. While the storytellerhad indeed been at his watchpost since midday, he had also been indulging allthe while, helping himself to the wines left untended in the wharfside saloons.Thus it was that when the boat tied up at the wharf he was more sheets to thewind than its mother vessel had been.

The party from the boat advanced down the pier to the shore; then, rather thanproceed into town, it had simply drawn up in a tight knot and waited. Asminutes stretched on and no additional boats were dispatched from the fleet, itbecame apparent that this vanguard was expecting to be met by a delegationfrom the town. If that were truly the case, it occurred to Hakiem that theymight well still be waiting at sunrise.

'You'll have to go to the palace!' he had called without thinking.

At the sound of his voice, the party had turned their glassy-eyed stares on him.

'Palace! Go Palace!' he repeated, ignoring the prickling at the nape of hisneck.

'Hakiem!'

A figure in the group had beckoned him forward.

Of all things he had anticipated or feared about the invaders, the last thingHakiem had expected was to be hailed by name.

Almost of their own volition, his legs propelled him shakily towards the group.

'The first one I met was the one I least expected,' Hakiem confided to hisaudience. 'None other than our own Hort, whom we all believed to be lost at sea,along with his father. To say the least, I was astonished to find him not onlyamong the living, but accompanying these invaders.'

'By now you all have not only seen the Beysib, but have all grown accustomed totheir strange appearance. Coming on them for the first time by torchlight on adeserted pier as I did, though, was enough to panic a strong man ... and I amnot a strong man. The hands holding the torches were webbed, as if they had comeout of the sea rather than across it. The handles of the warriors' swordsjutting up from behind their shoulders I had seen from afar, but what I hadn'tnoted was their eyes. Those dark, unblinking eyes staring at me with thetorchlight reflecting in their depths nearly had me convinced that they wouldpounce on me like a pack of animals if I showed my fear. Even now, by daylightthose eyes can ...'

'Hakiem!'

The storyteller was pleased to note that he was not the only one who started atthe sudden cry. He had not lost his touch for drawing an audience into a story.They had forgotten the morning glare and were standing with him on a torchlitpier.

Fast behind his pride, or perhaps overlapping it, was a wave of anger at havingbeen interrupted in mid-tale. It was not a kindly gaze he turned on theinterloper.

It was none other than Hort, flanked by two Beysib warriors. For a moment Hakiemhad to fight off a wave of unreality, as if the youth had stepped out of thestory to confront him in life.

'Hakiem! You must come at once. The Beysa herself wishes to see you.'

'She'll have to wait,' the storyteller declared haughtily, ignoring the murmursthat had sprung up among his audience, 'I'm in the middle of a story.'

'But you don't understand,' Hort insisted, 'she wants to offer you a position inher court!'

'No, you don't understand,' Hakiem flared back, swelling in his anger withoutrising from his seat. 'I already am employed ... and will be employed until thisstory is done. These good people have commissioned me to entertain them and Iintend to do just that until they are satisfied. You and your fish-eyed friendsthere will just have to wait.'

With that, Hakiem returned his attention to his audience, ignoring Hort'sdiscomfiture. The fact that he had not really wished to start this particularsession was unimportant, as was the fact that service with the leader of theBeysib government-in-exile would undoubtedly be lucrative. Any storyteller, muchless Sanctuary's best storyteller, did not shirk his professional duty in themidst of a tale, however tempting the counter-offer might be.

Gone were the days when he would scuttle off as soon as a few coins were tossedhis way. The old storyteller's pride had grown along with his wealth, and Hakiemwas no more exempt than any other citizen of Sanctuary from the effects of theFace of Chaos.

Just south of Caravan Square and the bridge over the White Foal River, theNisibisi witch had settled in. She had leased the isolated complex - one threestoried 'manor house' and its outbuildings -as much because its grounds extendedto the White Foal's edge (rivers covered a multitude of disposal problems) asfor its proximity to her business interests in the Wideway warehouse districtand its convenience to her caravan master, who must visit the Square at allhours.

The caravan disguised their operations. The drugs they'd smuggled in were nomore pertinent to her purposes than the dilapidated manor at the end of thebridge's south-running cart track or the goods her men bought and stored inWideway's most pilferproof holds, though they lubricated her dealings with thelocals and eased her troubled nights. It was all subterfuge, a web of lies,plausible lesser evils to which she could own if the Rankan army caught her, orthe palace marshal Tempus's Stepsons (mercenary shock troops and 'specialagents') rousted her minions and flunkies or even brought her up on charges.

Lately, a pair of Stepsons had been her particular concern. And Jagat - herfirst lieutenant in espionage - was no less worried. Even their Ilsig contact,the unflappable Lastel who had lived a dozen years in Sanctuary, cesspool of theRankan empire into which all lesser sewers fed, and managed all that time tokeep his dual identity as east-side entrepreneur and Maze-dwelling barman uncompromised, was distressed by the attentions the pair of Stepsons were payin her.

She had thought her allies overcautious at first, when it seemed she would behere only long enough to see to the 'death' of the Rankan war god, Vashanka.Discrediting the state-cult's power icon was the purpose for which the Nisibisiwitch, Roxane, had come down from Wizardwall's fastness, down from her shroudedkeep of black marble on its unscalable peak, down among the mortal and thedamned. They were all in this together: the mages of Nisibisi; Lacan Ajami(warlord ofMygdon and the known world north of .Wizardwall) with whom they hadmade pact; and the whole Mygdonian Alliance which he controlled.

Or so her lord and love had explained it when he decreed that Roxane must come.She had not argued - one pays one's way among sorcerers; she had not worked hardfor a decade nor faced danger in twice as long. And if one did not serve Mygdon- only one - all would suffer. The Alliance was too strong to thwart. So she washere, drawn here with others fit for better, as if some power more than magicalwas whipping up a tropical storm to cleanse the land and using them to gild itseye.

She should have been home by now; she would have been, but for the hundred shipsfrom Beysib which had come to port and skewed all plans. Word had come fromMygdon, capital of Mygdonia, through the Nisibisi network, that she must stay.

And so it had become crucial that the Stepsons who sniffed round her skirts bekept at bay - or ensnared, or bought, or enslaved. Or, if not, destroyed. Butcarefully, so carefully. For Tempus, who had been her enemy three decades agowhen he fought the Defender's Wars on Wizardwall's steppes, was a dozen StormGods' avatar; no army he sanctified could know defeat; no war he fought couldnot be won. Combat was life to him; he fought like the gods themselves, like anentelechy from a higher sphere -and even had friends among those powers notcorporeal or vulnerable to sortilege of the quotidian sort a human might employ.