'What do you want?' he asked.

'Come to the bridge,' the witch said. 'Meet .me there.'

He had gazed once into those eyes. He could not forget. He stood there with therain pelting him, with his feet numb in icewater, his shoulders numb under theforce of it off the eaves. 'Why?' he asked. 'Witch, why?'

The figure was blank again, lacking illumination. 'You have employ again,Mradhon Vis. Bring the others. Haught - he knows me, oh, quite, quite well.'Twas I freed him, after all; and he will be grateful, will he not? For Moriaindeed, this must be Moria -1 have a gift: something she has misplaced. Meet mebeneath the bridge.'

'Gods blast you!'

'Don't trade curses with me, Mradhon Vis. You would not proft in the exchange.'

And with that the witch turned her back and walked away, merged with the night.Mradhon stood there, chilled and numb, the sword sinking in his hand. He feltdistantly the touch against him, a hand taking his arm - 'For Ils' sweet sake,'Moria said, 'get inside. Come on.'

He yielded, came inside, chilled through, and Moria flung shut the door, barredit, went to the fire and threw a stick on it, so that the yellow light leapt upand cast fleeting shadows about the walls. They led him to the fire, set himdown, tucked the blanket about him, and finally he could shiver, when he hadgotten back the strength.

'Get my clothes,' he said.

'We don't have to go,' Moria said, crouching there by him. She turned her headtowards Haught, who came bringing the clothes he had asked for.' We don't haveto go.'

But Haught knew. Mradhon took the offered clothes, cast off the sodden blanket,and began to dress, while Haught started pulling on his own.

'Ils save us,' Moria said, clutching her wrap to her. Her eyes looked bruised,her hair streaming wet about her face. 'What's the matter with you? Are you bothout of your minds?'

Mradhon fastened his belt and gathered up his boots, having no answer that madesense. In some part of him panic existed, and hate, but it was a further andcooler hate, and held a certain peace. He did not ask Haught his own reasons, orwhether Haught even knew what he was doing or why; he did not want to know. Hewent in the way he would draw his hand from fire: it hurt too much not to.

And with scalding curses at them both, Moria began getting dressed, calling onthem to wait, swearing impotence on them both in Downwind patois, in terms eventhe garrison had lacked.

'Stay here,' he said, 'little fool; you want to save your neck? Stay out ofthis.'

He said it because somewhere deep inside he understood a difference between thiswoman and the other, which he had never fully seen, that Moria with her thinsharp knife was on his side and Haught's because they were fools themselves, andthree fools seemed better odds.

'Rot you,' Moria said, and when he took his muddy cloak and headed for the door,when Haught overtook him in the alley, Mradhon heard her panting after, stillcursing.

He gave her no help, no sign that he heard. The rain had abated, sunk to asteady drizzle, a dripping off the eaves, a river down the cobbled alley, whichsluiced filth along towards the sewers and so towards the bay where the foreignships rode, insanity to heap upon the other insanities that life was here, wherethe likes of Ischade prowled.

If he could have loved, he thought, if he could have loved anything, Moria,Haught, known a friend outside himself, he might have made that a charm againstwhat drew him now. But that had gone from him. There was only Ischade's coldface, cold purposes, cold needs: he could not even regret that Moria and Haughtwere with him: he felt safe now only because she had summoned them together, andnot called him alone, not alone into that house. And he was ashamed.

Moria came up on his left hand, Haught on his right, and so they took thatstreet under the eaves of the Unicorn and passed on by its light, by itsshuttered, furtive safety that did not ask what prowled the streets outside.

'Where?' Dolon asked, at his desk, the sodden watcher standing dripping on thefloor before him. 'Where has he gotten to?'

'I don't know,' the would-be Stepson said: Erato, his partner, was still out. Hestood with his hands behind him, head bowed. 'He -Just said he had a message totake, to carry for her. He said her answer was maybe. I take it she wasn't sureshe could do anything.'

'You take it. You take it. And where did they go, then? Where's your left-handman? Where's Stilcho? Where's our informer?'

'I -' The Stepson stared off somewhere vague, his face contracted as if atsomething that just escaped his wits.

'Why didn't you do something?'

'I don't know,' the Stepson said in the faintest, most puzzled of voices. 'Idon't know.'

Dolon stared at the man and felt the flesh crawling on his nape. 'We're beingused,' he said. 'Something's out of joint. Wake up, man. Hear me? Get yourself adozen men and get out there on the streets. Now. I want a watch on that bridgenot a guard, a watch. I want that woman found. I want Mor-am watched. Finesse,hear me? It's not a random thing we're dealing with. / want Stilcho back. Idon't care what it takes'

The Stepson left in all due haste. Dolon leaned head on hands, staring at themap that showed the Maze, the streets leading to the bridge. It was not the onlything on his desk. Death squads. A murder uptown. Factions were armed. Thebeggars were on the streets. And somehow every contact had dried up, frozensolid.

He saw things slipping. He called in others, gave them orders, sent them toapply force where it might loosen tongues.

'Make examples,' he said.

The streets gave way to one naked rim along the White Foal shore, an opennessthat faced the rare lights of Downwind, across the White Foal's rain-swollenflood. The black water had risen far up on the pilings of the bridge and gnawedaway at the rock-faced banks, trying at this winding to break its confinementand take the buildings down, this ordinarily sluggish stream. Tonight it wasanother, noisier river, a shape-changer, full of violence; and Mradhon Vis movedcarefully along its edge, in this soundless darkness of deafening sound, in thelead because of the three of them, he was most reckless and perhaps the mostafraid.

So they came up in the place he had aimed for, in the underpinnings of thebridge on the Mazeward side; in this deepest dark. But a star glimmered herelike swampfire, and above it was a pale, hooded face.

He felt one of his two companions set a warning hand on his arm. He kept walkingall the same, watching his footing on this treacherous ground. He could lookaway from that face, or look back again, and a strange peace came on him, facingthis creature who was the centre of all his fears. No more running. No moreevasion. There was a certain security in loss. He stopped, took an easy stance,there above the flood.

'What's the job?' he asked, as if there had never been an interlude. The lightbrightened fitfully, in the witch's outheld hand.

'Mor-am,' she said. A shadow moved from among the pilings to stand by her. Lightfell on a ruined, still-familiar face.

'0 gods,' Mradhon heard beside him, Moria lunged and he caught her arm. Hers washard and tense; she twisted like a cat, but he held on.

'Moria,' her twin said, no longer twin, 'for Ils' sake listen -'

She stopped fighting then. Perhaps it was the face, which was vastly, horriblychanged. Perhaps it was Haught, who moved in the way of her knifehand, makinghimself the barrier, too careless of his life. Haught was a madman. And he couldwin what no one else could. Moria stood still, still heaving for breath, whileMor-am stood still at Ischade's side.