A spider wandered over his shoulder and up his cheek and began struggling in hisblack mop of hair, and was unmolested. The spider felt warmth, but no movement,not so much as a twitch. (If mental curses could have effect, the spider was agoner.)

The sentry ambled by, scuffing and tapping. The thief heard him yawn. Dumb, hethought, dumb. How nice it was of sentries to pace and make noise, rather thanbe still and listen!

The sentry having moved on leftward along the perimeter of the wall, the thiefmoved on rightward; northwestward. He'd an armlet of leather and copper well uphis right upper arm, and a long bracer of black leather on that wrist. Eachcontained a nasty leaf-bladed throwing knife of dull blue-black. There wasanother in his left buskin, where sheath and hilt were mere decoration. He woreno other weapons, none that showed. Certainly he bore neither sword nor axe, andthe bow lay at the base of the granary wall.

He stopped. Stepped into a crenel just above two feet deep. Stared, off into thedarkness. Yes. There was the spire of the Temple of Holy Allestina Ever Virgin,poor thing. It was the first of the markers he had so carefully spotted andchosen, this afternoon.

The thief did not intend to enter the palace by just any window. He knewprecisely where he was going.

The task of regaining line and arrow was more difficult than he had anticipated.He silenced snarls and curses. Knot a rope ten times and try swinging on it andthe accursed thing might well work itself loose. Shoot an arrow to wrap a cordslimmer than a little finger around a damned gilded brass flagpole, and he hadto fight to get the damned thing to let go!

Within four or six minutes (with silenced snarls and curses) he had sent enoughloops and twitches ripple-writhing up the line to loosen the arrow. It swungonce around the spire, twice, encountered the line, and caught. More curses, asort of prayer, and more twitches and ripples riding up the line. Reluctantlythe arrow ended its loving embrace of the pennon spire. The line flutteredloose. Down came the arrow. It fell with a clatter that, to a shadowy thief inshadows, sounded like thunder on a cloudless day.

Sleepy sentries heard no thunder. Only he noticed. He reeled in line and arrow.In a crouch, he reached behind him into hi snugly fitted backpack. From ithe drew two cylinders of hard wood wrapped with black cloth. Around them helooped his line arrow detached. He held silent for a time, listening. A flyhummed restless and loud. The thief heard nothing to indicate that any o hisactions had been noticed with anything approaching alarm.

Rising, he went on his way. Along the perimeter of the palace along the flaggedwalkway betwixt dome and toothy wall.

Moving with a cat suppleness that would have been scary to an] observer, hereached his second marker. Nicely framed betweer two merlons, he could see it,away off in the distance. The purple' black shape ofJulavain's Hill. Again hesmiled, tight of lip.

A merlon became a winch, aided by the two wooden cylinders brought for thepurpose. They would pay out the silken cord and prevent the stone from slicingit. Its other end he secured to his ankles. And froze, waiting while the sentryclumped by. He was not importantly thumping his pike's butt, now. He no longeicared to keep himself awake. The thief gritted his teeth against the ghastlynoise of the hardest of wood grating over harder flagstones. The porker wasdragging his pike!

Then silence was thick enough to cut with a knife, of which the thief owned anabundance. He waited. And waited.

At last he stepped, still crouching, into the crenel. Turning, he carefullywinched himself, backwards, down the wall. Down and down, until he came to aparticular window. It was cut in the shape of a diamond. That decision hadinvolved more than aesthetics; the damned thing was harder to enter.

Most carefully indeed, he turned. He paid out the cord with his hands until hewas quite upside down outside that window. Blood flowed into his head while hestrained muscles and vision until he was assured that the chamber wasuninhabited.

Then, grinning, Hanse the thief flipped down and dropped lightly into thebedchamber of H.R.H. Kadakithis, Prince-Governor of Sanctuary.

He had done it again! And this time all on his own and without aid. He hadbreached the wall, eluded the guards, broken into the palace, and was in thevery privatemost chamber of the Prince-Governor himself!

Well, lord Prince, you wanted to see Shadowspawn - here he is, awaiting you!Thus he thought while he freed his ankles of expensive silken line and removedhis gloves. At least this time no bedmate waited here for her youthful lord.

It was all Hanse could do to keep from laughing aloud in sheerest pridefuldelight.

'A nice-looking girl left this here for you, Hanse,' Moonflower the Seer hadtold him. 'She got it from another - along with a coin for her trouble - who gotit from still another.'

Hanse raised his dark, dark brows and hooked a thumb in the shagreen belt hewore over a screamingly red sash. From one side of the belt was slung a dagger.An Ilbarsi knife, long as his whole arm, hung down his other leg.

'This you ... Saw, Passionflower?'

She smiled, a hugely fat and grossly misnamed woman who overflowed two cushionsatop a low stool. She saw him as a boyish boy and had ever let him turn her headwith his charm, which she was almost alone in seeing.

'Oh no,' Moonflower said almost archly, 'I needed to go to no such trouble. Iknow things, you know.'

'Oh, I know you know things, you clever darling,' he told that gross dumpling inher several skirts, each of more than one unrepeated colour. 'And this timeyou're going to let me know how you know, I know.'

She nodded at the wax-sealed walnut shell he was idly tossing in his left hand.'You know me too well, don't you, you naughty scamp! Smell it.'

Up went his close-snuggling brows again, and he brought the shell to his nose.He rolled his eyes. 'Aha! Perfume. A good one. Times are good for the only truemage of Sanctuary, then.'

'You know that is not my perfume,' she said, not without a sideward turn of herblue-tressed head to give him an arch look.

'Now I know that,' Shadowspawn said, jocular and easygoing and almost cute inthe sunlight, 'because you tell me so. The walnut was given you by a well-offgirl wearing good perfume, then. Betwixt her breasts, I'll bet, where shebore this charming charm.'

She lifted a dimpled finger. 'Ah! But that is the point. The scent on that charmis not mine, and the girl who gave it me wore none at all.' -

'Oh Moonflower, pride of the S'danzo and of Sanctuary! By Ils if the P-G knew ofyour genius, he'd not have that ugly old charlatan at court, but you, only you!So. By the perfume you know that there was a third woman, who gave this and acoin to another to give to you to give to me.' He wagged his head. 'What a gameof roundabout! But what makes you think this thing was given her by stillanother, to begin with?'

'I saw the coin,' Moonflower said, all kittenish inside a body to block a dooror bring groans to a good steed.

'It bore still another scent?'

Moonflower laughed. 'Ah Hanse, Hanse. I know that. Soon you will know too,surely, once you open the walnut shell. Surely it contains a message fromsomeone who wanted no one to know he sent it to you.'

'He?'

'Do you care to make a wager?'

He who was called Shadowspawn clutched the walnut to him in mock terror. Withhis other hand he clutched his purse theatrically. 'Wager with you about yourwisdom? Never! No one has accused me of being stupid.' Well, almost no one, hementally added, thinking of that burly stranger, Tempus the Hell Hound ...Tempus the ... what?