Tempus was missing.

The word was out that Jubal heroically sold no more human merchandise to Kurdthe vivisectionist... a man with a Rankan accent.

Why would such as Jubal cut off such a source of revenue? For moral reasons,because Kurd did evil things to people? Hardly. Because Jubal had made a dealwith other enemies of Tempus? Zaibar and Razkuli, perhaps? Because Tempus wasnow in the mysterious experimenter's foul and reeking hands, perhaps?

In an ugly dark stenchy room Hanse learned more of Kurd and his business. Kurdclaimed to be dedicated to the god Science. Medicine. That requiredexperimentation. But Kurd was not content to experiment with the wounded andvictims of accidents. The pallid fellow created his own. And, Hanse thought withrather more than distaste, Kurd could occupy himself for a life time with onewhose wounds - Hanse suspected and thought he knew - healed with inhuman speedand completeness. Make that superhuman, or preternatural. Tempus call-me-Thales was a man of war who had participated in many battles. Yet there wereno scars on the man. Not one.

Tempus/Thales.

'You, I own, can call me anytime,' he had told Hanse, and 'my friend', he hadcalled Hanse, and 'Just tell me not to call you friend', he had dared Hanse. AndHanse had not been able to tell him that, thus revealing and silently replyingthat he was close on to desperate for friends, a friend; for someone to careabout him. For someone to care about.

Hanse sprawled supine on his bed in an upstairs room in the heart of the Maze,and he pondered what he had learned. He rose to pace and chew his full lower lipand ponder, with his soul and heart and longing all naked in his eyes so that itwas good no one was there to see, for Hanse wanted others to see only what hedeliberately projected.

All I need do is report all this to KUt-to Kadakithis, he thought. The PrinceGovernor who had begun his term here by announcing that there would be law andorder and safety for citizens and had hanged, among others, one CudgetSwearoath, mentor (and father image?) to Hanse. The P-G did not like Tempus (andfather image?) to Hanse.

It was all Hanse need do. Just report what he had learned and now suspected.Then it was up to Kadakithis. He had the power and the resources. The men andthe swords. The savankh.

Surely that was as far as Hanse's responsibility extended, to Kadakithis and toTempus. If he had any responsibility to that krff-snorting bully.

And... suppose H.R.H. Kadakithis, P-G, did nothing? Or if his Hell Hounds, thecharming Razkuli and Zaibar, received their orders but only pretended to act?Did not Rankans protect their own? Did not soldiers obey authority? Was therenot honour among those thieving over-Lords?

If not, then Hanse's world would be a-teeter. Despite his pretences there hadto be trust and some sort of order, didn't there, and trustworthiness?Hanse frowned and looked about almost wildly. An animal in a cage it fearedbut could not escape, yet also feared what lay beyond the bars. Even the spawnof shadows did not want to live in a world that was askew and a teeter. If itexisted, if the world was truly a thing of Chance and Chaos, he preferred notto know. Fighting it, he had learned to trust Tempus. He had been/orce(/totrust Kadakithis, because he was down a well up at Eaglenest. Later,disbelieving and resisting, he had learned that he could trust the Rankan.That disturbed his haven of cynicism and was hard to admit. But was notcynicism merely a mask on an idealist seeking more, seeking perfection, seekingdisproof of his cynical assumptions?

Far better just to report what I know and leave it at that and go on about mybusiness. That would be enough. Tempus already owed him a debt, anyhow, and hadpromised him a service.

Shadowspawn began collecting his materials for a night of stealth, of breakingand entering. It was a thief's business and these were the tools. Yet he knewthat he was not preparing for theft.

You are a fool, Hanse, he told himself with a curse in Shalpa's name, and heagreed. And he continued with what he was doing.

At the door he stopped, blinking. He looked back with a frown. Only now did heremember the look Mignureal had given him just two hours ago, and her strangewords. They meant nothing and connected to nothing. 'Oh, Hanse,' she had saidwith a strange intensity on her girlish face. 'Hanse - take the crossed brownpot with you.'

'With me where?'

But she had to flee, for her glowering mother was calling.

Now Hanse stared at the brown crock with the etched pair ofYs. Mignureal did notknow about it. She could not. Mignureal had mentioned it specifically! She wasMoonflower's daughter ... Name of the Shadowed One, she must have some of thepower too!

Hanse turned back to pick up that well-stoppered container, a fired pot a bitlarger than a soldier's canteen. Why. Mignureal? Why, Lord I'Is?

He had acquired it months ago, easily and quickly, without knowing what itcontained. Mignureal had never seen it and could not know about this containerof quicklime. She could not know where he was going this night for he had onlyjust decided (and that without quite admitting it to himself); she wasMoonflower's daughter...

Stupid, cumbersome, senseless, he thought while he slipped the crock into a goodoilskin bag he had lifted in the Bazaar. He secured it to his belt so that itrested on one buttock. And he touched the sandal of Thufir tacked above thedoor, and went forth.

The white blaze of the sun had hours since become yellow in its daily waning,and then orange. Now it squatted low and seemed to spray streamers of crimsonacross the darkening sky. It did not look at all like blood, Hanse told himself.Besides, soon it would be dark and his friends would be everywhere, in black andindigo and charcoal. The shadows.

I could use a good sword, the shadow thought, blending into another shadow. Aneerie feeling still lay on him, from that business with Mignureal. Surely noteven Kurd deserved quicklime! This long 'knife' from the Ilbarsi Hills is a goodtool, he thought, to keep his mind on sensible, practical matters. But it's timeI had a good sword.

I'll have to try and steal one.

'Thou shalt have a sword,' a voice said sonorously inside his head, a lionwithin the shadowed corridors of his mind, ';/ thou free'st my valued and loyalally. Aye, and a fine sheath for it, as well. In silver!'

Hanse stopped. He was still and dark as the shadow of a tree or a wall of stone.He was good at it; six minutes ago four cautious people had passed close enoughto touch him, and never knew he was there.

I want nothing of you, incestuous god of Ranke, he thought, almost speakingwhile a thousand ants seemed at play along his spine. Tempus serves you. I donot and will not.

Yet you do this night, seeking him, that silent voice that was surely the godVashanka's said. And a cloud ate the moon.

No! I serve - I mean... I do not... No!... Tempus is my... my... I go to aid afr- man who might help me! Leave me and go to him, jealous god of Ranke! LeaveSanctuary to my patron Shalpa the Swift, and Our Lord Ils. Ils, Ils, 0 Lord ofa Thousand Eyes, why is it not You who speaks to me?

There was no reply. Clouds rolled and they seemed dark men astride dark horsesthat loped with manes and long tails aflow. Hanse felt a sudden chill absence ofthat presence in his mind. In a few seconds he was praying not to gods butcursing himself for giving heed to the delusions of a dark night, a night badlyruled by a moon pale as a Rankan concubine and now covered like the whore shewas. The Swift-footed One ruled this night.