Abruptly the sorcerer grew grave. 'You were painting? Yourself, perhaps? Now Iunderstand. Poor little pond-fish - you have opened the forbidden weir and beenswept through it into the great sea. Those whose portraits you have paintedcould reject the truth they saw, but you could not reject what you painted onthe canvas without denying all you are!'

Lalo was silent, testing his memories. He had been painting a picture, and hehad stepped back from the canvas when he was done, and he had seen ... Awarenesslurched beneath him, dizzying - he glimpsed depths and distances, upwellingsprings of light and darkness that could drown him equally, a universe of powerthat had been trapped beneath the facade that was the self he knew.

'And so you have run away from both the truth and its image, and your body liesabandoned somewhere. I can return you to it, if you truly desire - but don't youunderstand? Now you are free! Do you know what I would give to achieve what youhave inadvert-ently -' the sorcerer stopped himself, 'but I forgot. Your body iswhole, and young ...'

Lalo scarcely heard. His first sight of the vastness within had been sufficientto send him in frantic retreat into the shadow-realm. But whence could he escapefrom here? The meaning of his vision hovered on the edge of comprehension,terrifying, tantalizing, beating at his awareness like mighty wings.

And then the wings were outside of him as well as within; the captive demonspiralled away in pinwheels of foul sparks like burning wool and the exquisitelattices of power within which Enas Yorl had imprisoned it were shattered by arift between the worlds through which dark wings sliced like swords.

Pain dismemoried and dismembered him, and Lalo's consciousness was whirled away.trailed by the sorcerer's unavailing cry -

'Sikkintair, sikkintair!'

Gilla pulled her cloak more tightly around her and hurried over the worncobblestones ofPrytanis Street, hoping that the patter she had heard behind herwas only wind-drifted leaves. The Jewellers' Quarter was supposed to be saferfor foot travellers than the Bazaar, but everyone on her home ground knew thatGilla was not worth tackling.

But of course she was, today. Nervously she fingered the bag at her neck wherethe remainder of her little hoard of gold weighed so heavily. The services ofwizards came high. Gilla cursed them all; cursed Alten Stulwig for hisincompetence and Illyra the half-S'danzo who had been able to tell her only thatwizardry was somehow involved, cursed Lalo for having gotten into this mess andmost of all, cursed herself for her fear.

And the rustle behind her resolved into the thud of running feel, and Gillawheeled, fear-fuelled anger strengthening the massive arm that smacked into thefirst cutpurse as he came on. He buckled with a sound like a sliced bladder, anda knife glittered through the air to rebound with a tinny clatter from thenearest wall. Gilla brought her other fist down on the man's head and waded intohis companion before he quite realized why his point man was down; shebelaboured his ears with all the obscenities that a lifetime on the edge of theMaze had taught her as she put her full weight into her blows.

The blood was singing in her veins and most of her fear had been washed away byadrenalin by the time Gilla dusted herself off and resumed her progress. Behindher two battered figures stirred, groaned, and subsided again.

That martial energy carried her all the way past the last of the carpetmakers'shops and the stares of their owners, rolling up their wares now as the sundescended and painted the city with its fiery glow. It carried her all the wayto the door of Enas Yorl.

But there she halted, her eye mazed by the sinuous swirl of brazen dragons thatadorned it, her hand on the chill metal of the knocker, not quite daring to letit go. All the tales she had ever heard of the sorcerer yammered at her in thevoices her children had used when she told them what she meant to do.

What am I doing here? Who am I to meddle with wizards? The voices were gentle,reasonable, and then, from some deeper part of her being came the thought: Lalopassed through this door and came home to me. Where he has gone, I can go too.

Gilla fet the knocker fall.

The door opened silently. The blind servant of whom she had heard was standingthere, with a silken blindfold in his hand. Licking lips that were suddenly dry,Gilla tied it around her head and let the servant take her hand.

At least she had the advantage of knowledge. Lalo had told her about Darous, andthe blindfold, and the peculiar guardians that laired in the sorcerer's entryhall. But the sound of scales on stone and the sense of myriad bodies slitheringabout her nearly undid her, for snakes were her particular fear. They 're notsnakes', she told herself. They're only basilisks'. But her fingers tightened onthe cool hand of her guide and she was breathing hard when they emerged intoanother chamber in which some musky incense mingled sick-eningly with the smellof sulphur.

The blindfold was taken away and Gilla looked around her with a sigh. The stonewalls were stained with carbon, and a melted tangle of metal that had once beena brazier lay in the middle of the floor. A daybed was set into an embrasure inthe marble walls, and after a moment Gilla realized that the huddle of richfabrics upon it covered a man. She crossed her arms beneath her breasts andstared at him.

'After the bull, the cow,* Enas Yorl said tiredly. 'I might have known.'

'Lalo?' Gilla saw the thin hand that lay upon the velvet quiver, shift, andbecome a more muscular member whose skin bore a thin dusting of bluish scales.Gilla swallowed and forced herself not to look away. 'Lalo's been in some kindof trance for two weeks now. I want you to get him back into his body again.'She reached for the bag at her neck.

'Keep your gold,' the sorcerer said querulously. 'Your husband already asked methat question and I agreed - it would be amusing to see what Sanctuary wouldmake of a man who has faced his own soul - but Lalo is beyond my reach now.'

'Beyond your reach?' Gilla's voice echoed painfully. 'But they call you thegreatest wizard in the Empire!' She met the red glow of the sorcerer's eyes, andafter a moment it dimmed and he looked away.

'I am great enough to know the limits of my power,' he answered bitterly. 'Icannot speak for the Beysib, but no mage of Sanctuary will meddle withSikkintair. The Flying Knives have taken your husband, woman. Go to the Templeof Ils and see if Gordonesh the priest will listen to you. Or better still, gohome - Lalo is gods' business now.'

The Sikkintair devoured Lalo's flesh and scoured his bones until the wind harpedthrough his rib cage and drummed out a rhythm with the long bones of his thighs.His clever painter's hands, stripped of the muscle that had made their magic,rattled like winter-bared twigs against the sky.

And when they were done with the skeleton they let it fall, and mother earthlaid down new flesh around his bones. He lay thus enwombed for a season or acentury, and when his time was' accomplished he found himself naked in a forestglade starred with flowers like jewels, his new body as supple and strong as ahoned blade.

He jumped up and began to walk, content for the moment simply to enjoy thecolours and the soft air and the singing power of this new body of his. Andpresently he heard music and turned his steps towards the sound.

Where the oak trees thinned, a grassy lawn sloped down to a pool fed by agurgling waterfall. A table had been set there, covered with a cloth of crimsondamask fringed with gold, and upon that cloth crystal flagons with wineofCarronne, platters of roasted meats and loaves of white bread and silverdishes heaped with oranges from Enlibar. A feast fit for the gods, thought Lalo.And indeed, the gods were feasting there.