'If information is all you need, you can get it less expensively than by hiringa sorcerer.'

'Are you a sorcerer?' Wess asked.

Lythande looked at her with pity and contempt. 'You child! What do your peoplemean, sending innocents and children out of the north!' He touched the star onhis forehead. 'What did you think this means?'

'I'll have to guess, but I guess it means you are a mage.'

'Excellent. A few years of lessons like that and you might survive, a while, inSanctuary - in the Maze - in the Unicorn!'

'We haven't got years,' Aerie whispered. 'We have, perhaps, overspent the timewe do have.'

Quartz put her arm around Aerie's shoulders, for comfort, and hugged her gently.

'You interest me,' Lythande said. 'Tell me what information you seek. Perhaps Iwill know whether you can obtain it less expensively - not cheaply, but lessexpensively - from Jubal the Slavemonger, or from a seer -' At theirexpressions, he stopped.

'Slavemonger!'

'He collects information as well. You needn't worry that he'll abduct you fromhis sitting-room.'

They all started speaking at once, then fell silent, realizing the futility.

'Start at the beginning.'

'We're looking for someone,' Wess said.

'This is a poor place to search. No one will tell you anything about any patronof this establishment.'

'But he's a friend.'

'There's only your word for that.'

'Satan wouldn't be here anyway,' Wess said. 'If he were free to come here he'dbe free to go home. We'd have heard something of him, or he would have found us,or -'

'You fear he was taken prisoner. Enslaved perhaps.'

'He must have been. He was hunting, alone. He liked to do that, his people oftendo.'

'We need solitude sometimes,' Aerie said.

Wess nodded. 'We didn't worry about him till he didn't come home for Equinox.Then we searched. We found his camp, and a cold trail...'

'We tried to hope for kidnapping,' Chan said. 'But there was no ransom demand.The trail was so old - they took him away.'

'We followed, and we heard some rumours of him,' Aerie said. 'But the roadbranched, and we had to choose which way to go." She shrugged, but could notmaintain the careless pose; she turned away in despair. 'I could find notrace...'

Aerie, with her longer range, had met them after searching all day at eachevening's new camp, ever more exhausted and more driven.

'Apparently we chose wrong,' Quartz said.

'Children,' Lythande said, 'children, frejohans -'

'Frejojani,'' Chan said automatically, then shook his head and spread his handsin apology.

'Your friend is one slave out of many. You could not trace him by his papers,unless you discovered what name they were forged under. For someone to recognizehim by a description would be the greatest luck, even if you had an homuncule toshow. Sisters, brother, you might not recognize him yourselves, by now.'

'I would recognize him,' Aerie said.

'We'd all recognize him, even in a crowd of his own people. But that makes nodifference. Anyone would know him who had seen him. But no one has seen him, orif they have they will not say so to us.' Wess glanced at Aerie.

'You see,' Aerie said, 'he is winged.'

'Winged!' Lythande said.

'Winged folk are rare, I believe, in the south.'

'Winged folk are myths, in the south. Winged? Surely you mean...'

Aerie started to shrug back her cape, but Quartz put her arm around hershoulders again. Wess broke into the conversation quickly.

'The bones are longer,' she said, touching the three outer fingers of her lefthand with the forefinger of her right. 'And stronger. The webs between foldout.'

'And these people fly?'

'Of course. Why else have wings?'

Wess glanced at Chan, who nodded and reached for his pack.

'We have no homuncule,' Wess said. 'But we have a picture. It isn't Satan, butit's very like him.'

Chan pulled out the wooden tube he had carried all the way from Kaimas. Frominside it, he drew the rolled kidskin, which he opened out on to the table. Thehide was carefully tanned and very thin; it had writing on one side and apainting, with one word underneath it, on the other.

'It's from the library at Kaimas,' Chan said. 'No one knows where it came from.I believe it is quite old, and I think it is from a book, but this is all that'sleft.' He showed Lythande the written side. 'I can decipher the script but notthe language. Can you read it?'

Lythande shook his head. 'It is unknown to me.'

Disappointed, Chan turned the illustrated side of the manuscript page towardsLythande. Wess leaned towards it too, picking out the details in the dimcandlelight. It was beautiful, almost as beautiful as Satan himself. It wassurprising how like Satan it was, for it had been in the library since longbefore he was born. The slender and powerful winged man had red-gold hair andflame-coloured wings. His expression seemed composed half of wisdom and half ofdeep despair.

Most flying people were black or deep iridescent green or pure dark blue. ButSatan, like the painting, was the colour of fire. Wess explained that toLythande.

'We suppose this word to be this person's name,' Chan said.

'We cannot be sure we have the pronunciation right, but Satan's mother liked thesound as we say it, so she gave it to him as his name, too.'

Lythande stared at the gold and scarlet painting in silence for a long time,then shook his head and leaned back in his chair. He blew smoke towards theceiling. The ring spun, and sparked, and finally dissipated into the haze.

'Frejojani,' Lythande said, 'Jubal - and the other slavemongers - parade theirmerchandise through the town before every auction. If your friend were in thecoffle, everyone in Sanctuary would know. Everyone in the Empire would know.'

Beneath the edges of her cape. Aerie clenched her hands into fists.

Chan slowly, carefully, blankly, rolled up the painting and stored it away.

This was, Wess feared, the end of their journey.

'But it might be...'

Aerie looked up sharply, narrowing her deep-set eyes.

'Such an unusual being would not be sold at public auction. He would be offeredin private sale, or exhibited, or perhaps even offered to the Emperor for hismenagerie.'

Aerie flinched, and Quartz traced the texture of her short-sword's bone haft.

'It's better, children, don't you see? He'll be treated decently. He's valuable.Ordinary slaves are whipped and cut and broken to obedience.'

Chan's transparent complexion paled to white. Wess shuddered. Even contemplatingslavery they had none of them understood what it meant.

'But how will we find him? Where will we look?'

'Jubal will know,' Lythande said, 'if anyone does. I like you, children. Sleeptonight. Perhaps tomorrow Jubal will speak with you.' He got up, passed smoothlythrough the crowd, and vanished into the darkness outside.

In silence with her friends, Wess sat thinking about what Lythande had toldthem.

A well-set-up young fellow crossed the room and leaned over their table towardsChan. Wess recognized him as the man who had earlier been made sport of by hisfriends.

'Good evening, traveller,' he said to Chan. 'I have been told these ladies arenot your wives.'

'It seems everyone in this room has asked if my companions are my wives, and Istill do not understand what you are asking,' Chan said pleasantly.

'What's so hard to understand?'

'What does "wives" mean?'

The man arched one eyebrow, but replied, 'Women bonded to you by law. To givetheir favours to no one but you. To bear and raise your sons.'