The pool of moonlight shifted as the night aged and Cythen waited. She wasbathed in silvery light and blind to the shadows beyond it: undoubtedly theHarka Bey had chosen the rendezvous carefully. She held only her sword hilt andendured the cramps the cold stone left in her legs. Rising above the pain, shesought the mindlessness she had first discovered the day her world had ended andthe future closed. It was not the fantastic mindlessness that had claimed Bekin,but rather an alert emptiness, waiting to be filled.

Even so, she missed the first hint of movement in the shadows. The Harka Beywere within the ruins before she heard the faint rustle of shoes on thecrumbling masonry.

"Greetings,' she whispered as one figure separated from the rest and whipped outa short, batonlike sword from a sheath she wore slung like a bow across herback. Cythen was glad of the sword beneath her palms and of the sturdy bootsthat let her spring to her feet while the advancing woman drew a second swordlike the first. She remembered all Lythande had been able to tell her about theHarka Bey: they were women, mercenaries, assassins, magicians, and utterlyruthless.

Cythen backed away, masking her apprehension as the woman spun the pair ofblades around her with a blinding, deadly speed. By now, five months after thelanding, almost everyone had heard of the dazzling swordwork of the Beysibaristocracy, but few had seen even practice bouts with wooden swords and nonehad seen such lethal artistry as advanced towards Cythen.

She assumed the static en garde of a Rankan officer - who until the Beysib hadbeen the best swordsmen in the land - and fought the mesmerizing power of thespinning steel. The almost invisible sphere the Beysib woman constructed withthe whirling blades was both offence and defence. Cythen saw herself sliced downlike wheat before a peasant's scythe - and cut down in the next few heartbeats.

She was going to die. . .

There was serenity in that realization. The nausea dropped away, and the terror.She still couldn't see the individual blades as they twirled, but they seemedsomehow slower. And no one, unless the Harka Bey were demons as well, couldtwirl the steel forever. And wasn't her own blade demon-forged, shedding greensparks when it met and shattered inferior metal? The voice of her father, avoice she thought she had forgotten, came to her: 'Don't watch what I do,' he'dsnarled good-naturedly after batting aside her practice sword. 'Watch what I'mnot doing and attack into that weakness!'

Cythen hunched down behind her sword and no longer retreated. However fast theymoved, those blades could not protect the Harka Bey everywhere, all the time.Though still believing she would die in the attempt, Cythen balanced her weightand brought her sword blade in line with her opponent's neck: a neck which wouldbe, for some invisible fraction of time, unprotected. She lunged forward,determined that she would not die unprotesting like the wheat.

Green sparks showered as Cythen absorbed the force of two blades slamming hardagainst her own. The Beysib steel did not shatter - but that was less importantthan the fact that all three blades were entrapped by each other and the tip ofCythen's blade was a finger's width from the Harka Bey's black-scarved neck.Cythen had the advantage with both hands firmly on her sword hilt, while theHarka Bey still had her two swords, and half the strength to hold each of themwith. Then Cythen heard the unmistakable sound of naked steel in the shadowsaround her.

'Filthy, fish-eyed bitches!' Cythen exclaimed. The local patois, usuallyunequalled for expressing contempt or derision, had not yet taken the measure ofthe invaders, but there was no mistaking the murderous disgust in Cythen's faceas she beat her sword free and stepped momentarily back out of range.

'Cowards!' she added.

'Had we wished to slay you, child, we could have done so without revealingourselves. So, you see, it was simply a test; which you passed,' her opponentsaid in slightly breathless, accented tones. She sheathed her swords and, unseenstill in the darkness, her companions did the same.

'You're lying, bitch.'

The Harka Bey ignored Cythen's remark, but began unwinding the black scarf fromher face, revealing a woman only a little older than Cythen herself. The clearracial stamp of the Beysib unsettled Cythen as much, or more than, the twirlingswords. It wasn't just that their eyes were a bit too round and bulging formainland taste but -flick - and those eyes went impenetrable and glassy. ToCythen it was like being watched by the dead, and with the corpse of her sisterstill foremost in her mind, the comparison was not at all comforting.

'Do we truly seem so strange to you?' the Beysib woman asked, reminding Cythenthat she, too, was staring.

'I had expected someone... older: a crone, from what the mages said.'

The Harka Bey hunched her shoulders; the glassy membrane over her eyes flickedopen, then closed without interrupting her stare. 'No old people came on theships with us. They would not have survived the journey. I have been Harka Beysince my eyes first opened on the sun and Her blood mingled with mine. Youneedn't fear that I am not Harka Bey. I am called Prism. Now, what do you wishfrom the Harka Bey?'

'A woman from the Street of Red Lanterns has been murdered. She slept secure inthe most guarded House in Sanctuary and yet someone was able to kill her leavingthe mark of serpent fangs on her neck.' Cythen spoke the words Lythande hadtaught her, though they were far from the ones she would have freely chosen.

Though the Sanctuary woman believed it impossible. Prism's eyes grew wider,rounder and the glassy membrane fluttered wildly. Finally her eyelids closedand, as if on cue, the loose, dark clothing she wore began to writhe from herwaist to her breasts, from her breasts to her shoulders, until the bloodred headof the woman's familiar peeked above her collar and regarded Cythen with round,unblinking eyes. The serpent opened its mouth, revealing an equally crimson mawand glistening ivory fangs. Its tongue wove before Cythen's face, drawing afaint murmur of disgust from her.

'You needn't fear her,' Prism assured Cythen with a cold smile, 'unless you'remy enemy.'

Cythen silently shook her head.

'But you do think that I, or my sisters, killed this woman who was, in some way,dear to you?'

'No - yes. She was mad; she was my sister. She was protected there and there wasno reason for anyone to want her dead. She lived in the past, in a world thatdoesn't exist any more.'

The cold smile nickered across Prism's face again. 'Ah, then, you see it couldnot have been Harka Bey. We would never kill without reason.'

"There were no marks besides the snakes fangs' puncture anywhere on her. Myrtiseven called Lythande to examine the body -and he arranged for Enas Yorl to studythe poison. And Enas Yorl sent us to you.'

Prism turned to the shadows and spoke rapidly in her own language. Cythenrecognized only the names of the two magicians; the native Beysib language wasvery different from the mix of dialects common in Sanctuary. A second womanjoined them in the moonlight. She unwound her scarf to reveal a face thatshimmered orchid as it stared at Cythen. Cythen let her hand rest once again onher sword hilt while the two women conversed rapidly in their incomprehensibletongue.

'What else did your magician, Enas Yorl, tell you about us -besides how tocontact us along the wharves?'

'Nothing,' Cythen replied, hesitating a bit before continuing. 'Enas Yorl'scursed. We left Bekin's corpse in his vestibule and returned later to find anote tucked in her shroud. Lythande said it was incomplete; that the shiftingcurse had claimed him again. Beyond saying that you, the Harka Bey, would knowthe truth, the note was indecipherable.'