'The story was there in a diary, enough of it,' Samlor continued. He wasdeliberately opening his hands, which had clenched in fury at nothing material.'The child was a girl, fostered with a maid of Samlane's, Reia. I probably sawher myself -' he swallowed '-playing in the halls with the other servants'brats. You could get lost in the house, a whole wing could crumble over you andyou'd never be found.' The hands clenched again. 'My parents tell me they neverknew about the child, about Samlane, in that big house. Pray god I never learnotherwise, or I'll have their hearts out though they are my parents.'

The S'danzo touched his hands, relaxing them again. He continued, 'She's fouryears old by now. She has a birthmark on the front of her scalp, so the hair isstreaked white on the black curls. They called her Star, my sister did and themaid. And I came back to Sanctuary -' Samlor raised his eyes and his voice,neither angry but as hard and certain as a sword's edge'- to this hell-hole, tofind my niece. Reia had married here, a guardsman, and she'd stayed after theafter what happened when my sister died. And she'd kept Star like one of herown, she told me, until a month ago, and the child disappeared, no one to saywhere.

'That's how late I was, lady,' the Cirdonian went on in a wondering voice. 'Justa month. But I will find Star. And I'll find any one or any thing that's harmedthe child before then.'

'You've brought something of the girl's for me to touch, then?' said Illyra.Professional calm had reasserted itself in her voice as she approached her task.This was the crystalline core on which all the mummery, all the 'dark strangers'and 'far journeys' were based.

'Yes,' said Samlor, calm again himself. With his right hand, his knife hand, heheld out a medallion like the one around his own neck. 'It's a custom with us inCirdon, the birth-token consecrating the newborn to Heqt's bounty. This wasStar's. It was found in the mews of the barracks where she lived. Another childpicked it up, a friend, so she brought it to Reia instead of keeping itherself.'

Illyra's hand cupped the grinning face of Heqt, but her eyes glanced over theends of the thong that had suspended the medallion. The surface of the leatherwas dark with years of sweat and body oils, but its core at the ends was a clearyellow. 'Yes,' Samlor said, 'it had been cut off her, not stretched and broken.Help me find Star, lady.'

The S'danzo nodded. Her eyes had slipped .off into a waking trance already.

Illyra's gaze stayed empty for seconds that seemed minutes. Her • fingers werebrown and capable and heavy with rings. They worked the surface of the medallionthey held, reporting the sensations not to the woman's mind but to her soul.

Then, like a castaway flailing herself up from the sea, the S'danzo splutteredagain to conscious alertness. Her thin lips formed a brief rictus, not a smile,at the memory of things she had just seen. Samlor had let his own breath out ina rush that reminded him that he had not breathed since Illyra entered hertrance.

'I wish,' said the woman softly, 'that I had better news for you, or at leastmore. No -' for Samlor's face had stiffened to the preternatural calmness of agrave stele'- not dead. And I can't tell you who, master -' the honorificprofessional as habit reasserted itself'- or even where. But I think I have seenwhy.'

With one hand Illyra returned the medal as carefully as if it were the childherself. With the fingers of the other hand, she touched her own kerchief-boundhair. 'The mark that you call the "star" is the "porta" to some of the Beysib. Asea-beast with tentacles ... a god, to some of them.'

Samlor turned his eyes towards the curtain that hid the execution, as within himhis heart turned to murder. 'That one?' Nodding, his voice as neutral as if allthe fury at Lord Tudhaliya were not foaming over his mind as he spoke.

'No, not the rulers,' Illyra said positively. 'Not the Burek clan at all, thehorsemen. But the fisher-folk and boatwrights who brought the Burek here, theSetmur - and not all of them.' The woman smiled at the trace of a memory so grimthat its fullness wiped her face with loathing an instant later. 'There was,'she explained, looking away from the caravan-master, 'a cult of Dyareela inSanctuary in the - recent past. The Porta cult is like that. Only a few, andthose hidden because it's sacrilege and treason to worship other than theImperial gods.'

'The Beysib have closed the temples here?' Samlor asked. Her last statement hadjarred him into the interjection.

'Only to human beings,' Illyra said. 'And the Setmur are human, even to theBurek.' She smiled again and this time held the expression. 'We S'danzo areaccustomed to being animals, master. Even in cities Ranke conquered as long agoas she did Cirdon.'

'Go on,' said Samlor evenly. 'Do these Beysib think to sacrifice Star to their 'he shrugged '- octopus, their squid?'

The S'danzo woman laughed. 'Master - Samlor,' she demanded, 'is Heqt a gianttoad that you might find near the right pond?' The man touched his medallion,and his eyes narrowed at the blasphemy. Illyra went on, 'Porta is a god, or anidea - if there's a difference. A fisher-folk idea. Some of them have always hadimages, little carvings on stone or shells, hidden deep in their ships where thenobles never venture for the stink ... And now they have something else to bringthem closer to their god. They have -' and she looked from the child's medal,which had told her much, to the Cirdonian's eyes, which in this had told hereven more '- the girl you call your niece.'

Samlor hil Samt stood with the controlled power of a derrick shifting a cargo ofswords. The booth was suddenly very cold. 'Lady,' he said as he paused in thedoorway. 'I thank you for your service. But one thing. I know that the Rankanssay their storm-god bedded his sister. But we don't talk about that in Cirdon.We don't even think about it!'

Except when we 're drunk, the stocky man's mind whispered as his hand flung downthe sash. His legs thrust him through the pattering curtain and again into thesquare. Except when we're very drunk, but not incapable ... may Samlane burn inthe Hell she earned so richly!

Amazingly, the execution was still going on. Lord Tudhaliya's breechclout wasblack with sweat. His body gleamed as it moved through its intricate dance. Hisswords shone as they spun, and the air was jewelled with garnet drops of blood.

The victim's forearm was gone. Tudhaliya's blades were sharp, but they were toolight to shear with a single blow the thick bone of a human upper arm. Rightsword, left sword - placing cuts only, notching ... Tudhaliya pivoted, his backto his victim, and the blades lashed out behind him, perfectly directed. Thestump of the victim's elbow bounded away from the block. She moaned, a bestialsound... but she had never been human to Tudhaliya, had she? The Beysibentourage gave well-bred applause to the pass. Their left fingertips pattered ontheir right palms.

Samlor strode out of the Bazaar. He was thinking about a child. And he wasthinking that murder might not always be without pleasure, even for him.

In the years since Samlor's first visit to Sanctuary, the tavern's sign had beenrefurbished. The unicorn's horn had been gilded, and his engorged penis waspicked out with red paint, lest any passerby miss the joke. The common roomstank as before, though it was too early to add the smoky reek of lamp flames.There were a few soldiers present, throwing knucklebones and wrangling over whoowed for the next round. There were also two women who would have lookedslatternly even by worse light than what now streamed through the grimy windows;and, by the wall, a man who watched them, and watched the soldiers, and - verysharply - watched" Samlor as he entered the tavern.