He moved smoothly and silently until, while he was raising his leg over twomissing steps, the lower board gave way. The blond man lurched forward, usinghis sword for balance, not defence, and another sword swished through the airabove him and bit deep into his arm. Metal began to sing loudly against metal;green sparks danced in the air. By their faint light it was clear that Walegrin,with a cut in his shoulder and his legs entangled in the ruins of the stairs,was taking a beating.

Thrusher shouted outside for help, though with Walegrin wedged in the stairway,there was no easy way to reach Burek, nor to protect their captain - but therewas one way. While Thrusher watched in surprise, Cythen drew her own sword andprepared to get up to the second floor by running up and over Walegrin. With ahandful of his hair and one foot planted hard on his thigh, she propelledherself over him, hoping that the sheer audacity of her move would keep Burekguessing for the moment it would take for her to regain her balance. She raisedher sword just as his blade arced towards her - and Walegrin reached out toparry it aside.

The Beysib circled away from the stairwell, and Cythen edged along the walls.This room was not the dusty wreckage the lower parts of the building had been.Someone had been using it recently. Knives littered an otherwise clean table anda crude map of the town hung on the wall. There was another curved Beysib swordon the wall as well, but Turghurt hadn't taken it. The room was too small forthe swirling double-sword style the Harka Bey had used. His stance was not thatmuch different from her own, though his reach was substantially longer.

Walegrin, still struggling to free himself from the stairs, broke throughanother board and fell from sight, shaking the entire structure as he landed.From the commotion, Cythen knew they were trying to improvise a human ladder,but at that moment Turghurt was easily parrying her best cuts and she doubtedthey'd reach her in time.

She wouldn't have the strength to ward off many of his thunderous attacks. Shecould stall and hope they'd get something together in time, or she could chargehim and hope for the same sort of clear shot as she'd gotten at the Harka Beythough that would kill him and might make everything worse.

He guessed her intention to attack and back-pedalled across the room, laughingto himself. He was silhouetted by a hole in the walls where a window might oncehave been and he seemed very large, but perhaps his laughing had made him drophis guard just a fraction. She sprang at him.

His eyes went wide with disbelief. He was falling towards her before she touchedhim, the disbelief becoming a fixed, deathlike stare. His momentum pushed herbackwards and off balance, knocking her sword aside. But he was no longerattacking, only falling. They both went crashing to the floor and through it, asthe old wood gave way beneath them. Cythen heard a scream - her own - thennothing.

3

The sun was bright in the courtyard of the palace. Cythen, the swelling stillapparent in her face, and Walegrin, his arm in a sling, stood with the HellHounds in the places of honour. There were, as yet, no Beysibs in sight. EnasYorl let the curtain fall from his hand and sat back in the shadowed privacy ofhis study. It seemed the whole population of the town had crammed around thehigh platform whereupon the Beysa would pronounce judgement.

'Would you have stopped him for the courtesan's sake alone?' he asked thedarkness beside him.

'The girl-soldier has conquered her fears and her past. We have made her a partof our sisterhood. We, too, must adapt. Her vengeance is ours,' the voice of aBeysib woman replied.

'Ah, but that wasn't the question. If all you knew was that the Blood of Bey, asyou call it, had been used to slay an innocent courtesan, and that it had beendone to make the suspicion fall on you; if there had been no other crimes, wouldyou have stopped him?'

'No. We have always been blamed for crimes we do not commit. It is part of thebalance we have with the Empire. One insignificant life would have made nodifference.'

Trumpets blared out a fanfare. Yorl lifted the curtain again. Sunlight fell on afour-fingered, ebony hand. The Beysa had arrived at the platform, her breasts soheavily painted they scarcely seemed naked. Her long golden hair swirledplumelike in the light breeze. The moment had arrived and the crowd grew quiet.Terrai Burek, the prime minister, ascended the platform and behind him, inchains, came his son, Turghurt.

The young man stumbled and the guards rushed forward to get him back on hisfeet. Even at this distance, it was plain that something had happened to theyoung man and that he had no clear idea why his aunt, the Beysa Shupansea, wasstanding in the sun, telling everyone that he was going to die for the deaths ofhis own people and for the death of a Sanctuary courtesan. Yorl let the curtaindrop again.

'Then why did you use just enough venom on your dart to destroy his mind but notenough to kill him?'

The Beysib woman laughed melodically. 'He overstepped himself. He thought toarouse Shupansea's rage by slaying Sharilar, her cousin, while they walked alongthe wharf. But he killed not only Sharilar, but Prism - and that we could notforgive.'

'But you could have killed him outright. Wouldn't that have been the truevengeance of Bey?'

'Bey is a goddess of many moods; she is life as well as death. This is a lessonfor everyone: for town and Beysib. They will respect each other a little morenow. Shupansea, herself, needed to pronounce this judgement. She must rise torule here or Turghurt will be only the first.'

There was a collective gasp from the crowd and Yorl drew back the curtain forthe third time. The Beysa was holding a small, bloody knife, while her serpentwound around her arm. Turghurt was already dead. The crowd broke into cheering,just as Yorl felt the sharp prick of fangs on his own neck.

Poison burned and gripped him in hands of red-hot iron. The sunlit courtyardgrew dim, then black. The homed gateway to the seventh level of paradise shonebefore him. The ancient magician's spirit stumbled forward and fell, with thegate just beyond his reach.

Failure - and with the land of death almost within his grasp. He wept andbrushed the tears away with a shaggy paw. The room was dark and filled with theodour from the pyre on which they'd immolated the criminal, depriving his spiritof eternal life within the goddess Bey. And Yorl was left with only the memoryof death to sustain him.