'Get me the little crystal vial fronrthe cabinet - the one with the dipper thatused to hold perfume.'

Vanda got to her feet to obey as Lady Kurrekai faced Gilla again. 'I haveattempted to transform the venom by altering the nature of my blood, but it mustbe used immediately. Scratch your husband's flesh so that the blood comes andtouch a drop of this to the wound.' She took the stopper from the vial Vanda washolding out to her, touched it to the drop of blood, and inserted it back in thevial with a little shake, squeezed her hand to produce a second drop, and athird.

'Go now as I have told you, and quickly.' She thrust the stopper home firmly andhanded it to Gilla, then delicately licked the smear of blood from her thumb.'And remember I warned you - it may fail.'

'The blessing of the All-Mother be on you. Lady, and be you free of any blame.'Gilla was already on her feet. 'At least you were willing to try!'

They hurried down the corridor, Vanda skipping to keep up with her mother'slonger strides and trying to keep her voice down.

'Mother, how could you do that? I was terrified! Mother, you could have died!'

Gilla forged ahead silently, while those they encountered scattered from herpath. It was not until they had crossed the Square and passed through theWestgate that opened out on to the familiar streets of Sanctuary that she pausedfor breath and turned to meet her daughter's wide eyes.

'Vanda, you are a woman now, old enough to take care of the younger ones if youmust, and old enough, perhaps, to understand. If this works, you must promisenever to tell your father what I have done for him.'

'And if it doesn't?' Vanda said in a very small voice.

Gilla gazed at the teeming life around her, sunlight glaring harshly off brownedfaces, sounds of quarrelling and laughter, the rich mixture of odours from thestreet, and for a moment felt as if she had lost her skin and had become a partof all of these.

'I have borne seven children and seen two die, and lived with the same contraryman for twenty-six years,' she said slowly, 'and I have just realized that Iwould sacrifice this whole city for one lock of his hair. If this stuff I amgoing to give him kills him,' she shook the hand in which the crystal vial layhidden, 'I'm sorry, Vanda, but I will go after him.'

Lalo the god was creating a woman, a goddess as beautiful as Eshi, as bountifulas Shipri, as wise as Sabellia, as dear to him as someone - he could notremember, but the brush splashed gold like sunlight across Her hair. There, theripeness of breasts that could feed a dozen babes, and the opulence of haunchand thigh, and skin smoother than the silk of Sihan ... Lalo smiled, and thebrush moved as if of itself to suffuse that white flesh with a rosy glow likethe inside of a shell.

And then he stepped back from the easel, smiling, and the figure he had beenpainting turned to him and took him by the hand.

He had expected that, and he reached with his other arm embrace Her, but Shecontinued to turn in his grasp, drawing him after her, faster and faster untilthe green meadow blurred around him.

'Wait! Where are we going? Beside the river there is a shady bower where we canlie, and -' Damn! If only She would stop and face him for a moment he would knowHer name!

Clouds boiled around him with a roar of thunder. The difference between up anddown was disappearing and the paintbrush was torn from his hand.

'Who are you?' he shouted. 'Where are you taking me?'

And then he was hurtling through winds that tore away his awareness until heknew nothing but the implacable grip that held his hand. The world haddisintegrated into pain and darkness, but through the clouds that whirled aroundhim he glimpsed brief images - the pretentious splendours of a great city wherea beleaguered emperor's banner flew; armies crawling like lines of ants acrossthe plains; mountains that shuddered with the struggles of men and mages, andhere and there a pocket of greater darkness where forces worse than human strovefor mastery.

And then he saw below him a familiar curve of harbour and a tangle of houses anda tarnished golden dome. and pain clapped great hands around him and he fell.

Lalo's mouth tasted like the midden of the Vulgar Unicorn and he felt as if theStepsons had been practising manoeuvres on the inside of his skull. Except foran annoying throbbing in his arm, he could hardly feel his body at all.

And Gilla was calling him.

Holy Anen blast me if I ever touch that wine again! he thought muzzily, andperhaps presently he would remember just what wine it had been. But now that heconsidered, he could not remember anything about what must have been an epicbinge, and that worried him. Gilla would be furious if she had had to drag himhome, and from the taste in his mouth he must have been sick, too. He groaned,wishing fervently that he could pass out again.

'Lalo! Lalo my darling, you've got to wake up! You wretched man, I heard youopen your eyes and look at me!'

Something wet ran down his neck and someone near him stifled a sob. Gilla?Gilla? But she would never weep over him after a drinking bout - a pail of coldwater, maybe, but not tears. How long had he been unconscious, anyway?

As if he were trying to work an old lock with a rusty key, Lalo-opened his eyes.

He was lying on the pallet in his studio. Alfi and Latilla crouched at the footof it, watching him with wide, awed eyes. Vanda was behind them, but her faceheld the look of one who has been suddenly released from fear. He turned hiseyes - he did not yet trust himself to move his head - to the bedside, and sawGilla. Her face was puffy and her eyes red from weeping, and as his gaze methers they glistened with another tear.

Without thinking, he reached up and brushed it from her cheek: then he stared athis hand, pallid and veined and thin. And now that awareness of the rest of hisbody was returning, he realized that he felt curiously light, and his other handclutched at the bedclothes as if to hold him there.

'Gilla, have I been ill?'

'Ill! You might call it that - and I'd rather not know what else it might be -'exploded Gilla, and Vanda got to her feet.

'Father, you've been lying in some kind of trance for almost three weeks now,'Vanda added.

Three weeks? But just this afternoon he had been ... painting... He had lookedin the mirror and then ... Lalo began to tremble as memory came back to him. Hiseyes filled with tears for the beauty of the other world, but Gilla's handsclosed on his shoulders. and she shook him back to her own reality.

Lalo stared at her, and through the veil of her swollen features he saw the faceof the goddess who had brought him home. It took a kind of inner focussing, andhe found that now he could see another face beneath his daughter's familiar maskof cheerfulness too. Only the two younger children remained essentially thesame.

So, he thought, perhaps I will not need a paintbrush to do my seeing now. He layback, trying to assimilate the truth of what had happened to him into his memoryof the man he used to be.

'So, how do you feel? Is there anything you want me to get you now?' Gillafinished wiping her eyes and resolutely blew her nose on a corner other apron.

Lalo smiled. 'Well, I haven't eaten for three whole weeks -'

'Vanda, there's soup on the stove,' Gilla said sharply. 'Go heat it up, and youlittle ones go with her. You've seen him, and Father doesn't need you underfoothere. Everything will be all right now.'

Gilla bustled nervously about the room, smoothing the covers, heaping pillowsbehind Lalo so that he could sit, pushing a chair back against the wall. Laloflexed his fingers, feeling them tingle as blood began to circulate freely oncemore, and wondered how he had gotten the scratch on his arm.