He did not often feel the pain of his assorted bodies; the curse that disguisedhim in ever-shifting forms did not truly affect him. He still felt as he'd feltthe instant before the curse had claimed him. Except - except rarely when inmocking answer to a yearning he could not quite repress, he was himself again:Enas Yorl, a man twice, three times the age of any other man. A shambling,rotted-out wreck who could not die; whose bones would never be scoured clean inthe earth. He hid the radiant, unliving, and therefore uncursed, hair.

The ulcer was congealing with a faintly blue, scaly iridescence. Yorl prayed, asmuch as he ever prayed and to gods no mortal would dare worship, that sometimeit would end for him as it had ended for the woman on his table. He no longerwished that the curse be removed.

The blueness was beginning to spread, bringing with it dis-orientation andnausea. He would not be able to complete his message to Lythande. With atrembling hand, he clutched the stylus and scrawled a final warning:

Go. or send someone you trust, to the Beysib wharf where their ships still lie at anchor. Whisper 'Harka Bey' to the waters; then leave quickly, without looking back -

The transformation sped through him, blurring his vision, softening his bones.He folded the paper with a gross, awkward gesture and left it on the shroud.Paralysis had claimed his feet by the time he'd fumbled the door open and heretreated back to his private quarters, crawling on his hands and knees.

There was much more he could have told Lythande about the powerful, legendarybeynit venom and the equally powerful and legendary Harka Bey. A few months agoeven he had thought that the assassin's guild was only another Ilsigi myth; butthen the fish-eyed folk had come from beyond the horizon and it now seemed someof the other myths might be true as well. Someone had gone to considerabletrouble, using distilled venom and a knife point to make the wound, to make itseem as if the Harka Bey had slain the courtesan. He did not personally believethe Harka Bey would trouble themselves over a Red Lanterns woman - and he didnot truly care why she had been killed or who had killed her. His thoughtssurrounded the knowledge that the methods of the Harka Bey, at least, were realand might be turned towards ending his own misery.

2

Of late life had been kinder to the woman known in the town simply as Cythen.Her high leather boots were not only new but had been made to fit her. Her warm,fur-lined cloak was new as well: made by an old Downwinds woman who haddiscovered that, since the arrival of the Beysib and their gold, there were morethings to do with a stray cat than eat it. Yes, since the Beysib had come, lifewas better than it had been -

Cythen hesitated, repressed a wave of remembrance and, reminding herself that itwas dangerous folly to remember the past, continued on her way. Perhaps life wasbetter for the Downwinds woman; perhaps her own life was now better than it hadbeen a year before, but it was not unconditionally better.

The young woman moved easily through the inky, twilight shadows of the Maze,avoiding the unfathomed pools of detritus that oozed up between the ancientcobblestones. Tiny pairs of eyes focused on her at the sound other approach andscampered noisily away. The larger, more feral creatures of the hell-holewatched in utter silence from the deeper shadows of doorways and blind alleys.She strode past them all, looking neither right nor left, but missing no flickerof motion.

She paused by an alley apparently no different from any of the dozens she hadalready passed by and, after assuring herself that no intelligent eyes markedher, entered it. There was no light now; she guided herself with her fingertipsbrushing the grimy walls, counting the doorways: one, two, three, four. Thedoor was locked, as promised, but she quickly found the handholds that hadbeen chipped into the outer walls. Her cloak fell back as she climbed and,had there been light enough to reveal anything, it would have shown a man'strousers under a woman's tunic and a mid length sword slung low on her lefthip. She swung herself over the cornice and dropped into the littered courtyardof a long-abandoned shrine.

A single patch of moonlight, brilliant and unwelcome here in the Maze, shoneamid the rubble of what had been an altar. Holding her cloak as if it were thesource of all bravery and courage itself, Cythen knelt among the stones andwhispered: 'My life for Harka Bey!' Then, as no one had forbidden it, she drewher sword and laid it across her thighs.

Lythande had said - or rather implied, for magicians and their ilk seldomactually said anything - that the Harka Bey would test her before they wouldlisten to her questions. For Bekin's sake and her own need for vengeance, Cythenvowed that they would not find her wanting. The slowly shifting moonlight fedher terror, but she sat still and silent.

The darkness, which had been a comfort while she had been a part of it, nowlurked at the edge of her vision, as her memories of better times always lurkedat the edge of her thoughts. For a heartbeat she was the young girl she had oncebeen and the darkness lunged at her. A yelp of pure terror nearly escaped herlips before she pushed both memory and old feats aside.

Bekin had been her elder sister. She had been betrothed when disaster hadstruck. She had witnessed her lover's bloody death and then had been made thevictim of the bandits' lust in the aftermath of their victory. None of thebrigands had noticed Cythen: slight, wiry Cythen, dressed in a youth's clothes.The younger sister had escaped from the carnage into the darkness. Waiting untilthe efforts of drinking, killing, and raping had overcome each outlaw and shecould bundle her senseless sister away to the relative safety of the brush.

Under Cythen's protection, Bekin's bruises had healed, but her mind was lost.She lived in her own world, believing that the bulge in her belly was thelegitimate child of her betrothed, oblivious to their squalor and misery. Thebirthing, coming on an early spring night, much like this, with only themoonlight for a midwife, had been a long and terrifying process for both ofthem. Though Cythen had seen midwives start a baby's life with a spanking, sheheld this one still, watching Bekin's exhausted sleep, until there was no chanceit would live. Remembering only the half-naked outlaws in the firelight, shelaid the little corpse on the rocks for scavengers to find.

Again Bekin recovered her strength, but not her wits. She never learned thecruel lessons that hardened Cythen and never lost the delusion that each strangeman was actually her betrothed returning to her. At first Cythen fought withBekin's desires and agonized with guilt whenever she failed. But she could findno work to get them food, while the men often left Bekin a trinket or two thatcould be pawned or sold in the next village - and Bekin was willing to go withany man. So, after a time, Bekin earned their shelter while Cythen, who hadalways preferred swordplay to needlework. learned the art of the garrote anddressed herself in dead men's clothes. .

When the pair reached Sanctuary, it was only natural that Cythen found a placewith Jubal's hawkmasked mercenaries. Bekin slept safely in the slaver's bedwhenever he desired her and Cythen knew a measure of peace. When the hell-sentWhoresons had raided Jubal's Downwinds estate, the younger sister again came tothe aid of the elder. This time, she took her to the Street of Red Lanterns, tothe Aphrodisia House itself, where Myrtis promised that only a select,discriminating clientele would encounter the ever-innocent Bekin. But now,despite Myrtis' promise, Bekin was four days dead of a serpent's venom.