The abattoir was the heart of Codesh. It was an old building, similar in style to the little building they hoped to find inside it, and etched with the same angular, indecipherable script Pavek had noticed at the elven market. Shadowed patches on its time and grime-darkened walls led the eye to believe that there had once been murals, but whatever grandeur the abattoir might have possessed in the past, it was a dismal place now.

Another templar watchtower rose beside a gaping archway carved through thick limestone walls. There were as many yellow-robed men and women watching over the abattoir as Nunk kept with him at the outer gate. A rack of hook-bill spears stood on one side of the watchroom door while a stack of shields made from erdlu scales lashed to flexible rattan sat on the other. Inside the watchroom, each templar wore a sword and boiled leather armor; that was very unusual for civil bureau templars and a measure of Codesh's reputation as a thorn in Urik's foot. They greeted Giola as if hers were the first friendly—as in not belonging to the enemy—face they'd seen in a stormy quinth.

"Instigator Nunk says I'm to take these rubes onto the floor," Giola informed Nunk's counterpart, a dwarf with a bit less decoration woven through his sleeve.

The dwarf swiped the oily sweat from his bald scalp before sauntering over to greet Pavek and his companions.

"Who in blazes are you that I should let you and yours stir up trouble I don't need?"

He grabbed the front of Pavek's shirt, a gesture well within his templar's right to harass any ordinary citizen, but he caught Pavek's medallion as well, and the shock knocked him back a step or two.

"Be damned," he swore, partly fear and partly curse.

Pavek could watch the thoughts—questions, doubts and possibilities—march between the dwarf's narrowed eyes. He judged the moment had come for revelation and pulled his medallion into view, gouge and all.

"Be damned," the dwarf repeated.

This time the oath was definitely a curse and definitely directed on himself. Pavek felt a measure of sympathy; he had the same sort of rotten luck.

"Who I am is Pavek, Lord Pavek, and what I want on the killing ground is no concern of yours."

Standing behind the dwarf, and half again as tall, elven Giola had a good view of the ceramic lump Pavek held in his hand. She turned pale enough to be Mahtra's sister.

"A thousand pardons, Great One. Forgive my insolence, Great One," she humbled herself, dropping to one knee and striking her breast with her fist. But for all Giola's humility, there was one flash of fire when her eyes skewed in the direction of the outer gate watchtower where Nunk, who'd gotten her into this, was waiting.

"Forgive me, also, Great One," the dwarf said quickly. "May I ask if you're Pavek... Lord Pavek who was once exiled from Urik?"

Pavek truly got no exhilaration from the embarrassment of others. "I'm the Pavek who lit out of Urik with a forty-gold piece bounty riding on my head," he said, trying to break the grim mood.

Giola stood erect. She straightened her robe and said, "Great One, it is good to see you are alive," which surprised Pavek as much as the sight of his medallion had surprised her. "There's never been a regulator dead or alive who was worth forty pieces of gold. I don't know what you did, but your name was whispered in all the shadows. You were not without friends. Luck sat on your shoulder."

She took a long-limbed stride around the dwarf and extended her open hand, which held the four ceramic bits Pavek had given her earlier. Everyone said Athas had changed in the few years since the Tynans slew the Dragon. Nunk said the bureaus had changed since Pavek left, and partly because of him. There could be no greater symbol of those changes than a regulator offering to return money. Or telling him, in the plain presence of other templars, that she'd gone to a fortune-seller and bought him a bit of luck.

A human could study the elves of Athas all his life without truly learning what an elf meant when he—or she-called someone a friend. Now two elves had called Pavek friend in as many days—if he considered Ruari an elf. There was always a gesture involved, be it a bright-colored lizard or four broken bits. Last night Pavek had known to take the lizard. Today he knew he'd spoil everything if he touched those rough-edged bits.

Giola cocked her head, pondering a moment before she decided the sentiment was acceptable. Then she touched her right-hand's index finger first to her own breast then to his. Judging by Ruari's slack-jawed astonishment, he could rely on his assumption: he'd been accorded a rare honor. The dwarf, the highest rank templar in the watchtower, save for Pavek himself, must have sensed the same thing.

He got in front of Giola. "Great One, it would be an honor to help you. Let me escort you personally."

There were some traditions that were more resistant to change than others. Giola retreated, and the dwarf led them downstairs.

The abattoir wasn't so much a building as an open space surrounded by walls and a two-tier gallery, open to the brutal sun, and filled from back to front, side to side, with the trades of death. Pavek judged the killing floor to be as large as any Urik market plaza, at least sixty parade paces square. Carcasses outnumbered people many times over. Finding Kakzim would be a challenge, but finding the twin of the building Mahtra had used to come and go from the reservoir cavern was as simple as looking at the middle of the killing floor.

Getting there was another matter. The abattoir didn't fall silent the moment one yellow-robed templar and four strangers appeared on the watchtower balcony, but their presence was noted everywhere, and not welcomed. Pavek's quick scan of the killing floor didn't reveal any scarred halflings among the faces pointed their way. And although Mahtra wore her long, black shawl and a borrowed cloak, her white-white face divided by its mask was a distinct as the silvery moon, Ral, on a clear night.

"Stay close together," Pavek whispered to his companions as they started across the floor. "Keep an eye out for Kakzim—you two especially." He indicated Mahtra and Zvain. "You know what to look for. But he's not what we're here for, not today. We'll go inside that little building, go down to the reservoir and come back up in Urik." The last was a spur-of-the-moment decision. Pavek liked the mood on the killing floor less with every step he took across it.

Mahtra reached down and took Zvain's hand in her own.

Whether that was to reassure him or her, Pavek couldn't guess; he let the gesture pass without comment. The dwarf hadn't drawn his sword, but he kept his hand on the hilt as he stomped forward with that head-down, single-minded determination that got dwarves in a world of trouble when things didn't go according to their plan.

Giola hadn't noticed a door in the little building because at first glance there wasn't one, just four plain stone walls. Then Pavek noticed the weathered remains of the indecipherable script carved into one of the walls. He thumped the seemingly solid stone below the inscription with his fist and felt it give.

The dwarf said, "False front, Great One," and added an oath. It didn't really matter what lay behind the door or who'd hung the false front. The discovery had been made on his watch, and he was the one who'd answer for it. That was another Urik tradition that wasn't likely to change. "Is it trapped, Great One?"

Pavek caught himself before he said something foolish. He was the high templar; he was supposed to have open call on the Lion-King's power. A little borrowed spellcraft and any magical devices associated with the door would be sprung and any warding behind it would be dissolved. The problem was, Pavek didn't want to use his high templar's privilege. Like as not, he'd forfeit his hard-earned druidry if he went back to templar ways. He'd have to make the choice eventually, but eventually wasn't now.