Strat evaded the entire process, felt a jostle and spun, reaching after a retreating arm-his heart lurched; his legs hurled him into action before he thought, but that was temper, and he gave up the chase two steps into it. The thief had failed, his purse was intact, and the only thought left to him was how easily it could have been a knife. The Rankan hitting the pavements right along with the donkey and the Ilsigi rabble howling with laughter. Or absenting themselves in prudent speed. He felt cold of a sudden, standing there, his thief in rout, the passers-by giving him curious stares as they jostled about him, perhaps seeing a stranger a little tall and a little fair to be standing on this particular streetcorn-er, this low in the town. A battlefield had its terror: noise and dust and craziness; but this day by day walking through streets full of knives, full of sly stares and calculations where he stood out like a whore at an uptown party-

-he was in the minority down here, that was what. He was thunderously alone. Uptown was where a Rankan belonged.

-in the sunlight-

-at the head of armies-

"Hsst."

He turned with a start, caught the sudden dart of an eye from a curly-headed brat, the inviting jerk of head toward alley, down beyond the donkey-crowd. Come along, the gesture insisted.

He froze, there on the street. It was not one of the regular contacts. It was someone who knew him. Or who knew him only as Rankan and a target and any target would do to raise the prestige of some damned death squad crazy who wanted a little claim to glory-

Any Rankan would do, any Beysib, any uptowner.

He walked on down the street, slipping his shoulders through the crowd, ignoring the invitation. It was not a situation he liked-crowds, bodies pressing close against him, pushing and shoving; but there was one way away from that alley.

Another tug at his belt; he reached and turned and lost momentum in the crowd as his hand protected his purse. Another hand was there, on his wrist.

He looked up and it was a dark face, a couple of days unshaven, haggard-eyed, under a dark fringe of hair and a cap that had seen better years.

Vis.

Mradhon Vis pulled at him, edged sideways through the crowd and alleyward, and Straton followed, cursing himself for a twice-over fool. This was a Nisi agent. A hawkmask; and a man with more than one grudge against him. And also a man more than once in his pay.

Vis wanted him in the alley. And of a sudden there was a second man who seemed less interested in the dead donkey than in him.

Fool, Straton thought again, but there were two choices now-the alley with Vis or taking out running, in full flight, and attracting the mob.

3

Moria waited in the antechamber in an agony of uncertainty-cloak close about her and enough muscle waiting out in the street to guarantee her passage through Downwind with jewels on. This foyer of one of uptown's most elegant mansions was no less perilous territory, for other reasons. It was the lady Nuphtantei's mansion, where Ischade had sent her: Haught said so. Haught gave her an escort of some of Downwind's best, bathed and dressed up like a proper set of servants; Haught gave her a paper to hand the servants, a tiny object^ and a set of words to say, and Moria, born to Downwind's gutters, stood in this place which was one of the oldest of all Sanctuary mansions (but not the oldest of Sanctuary occupants) and knotted her hands and professionally estimated the wealth that she saw about her, in gold and silver.

A movement caught her eye. She looked down, gulped and skipped four feet backward from the gliding course of a viper.

So she looked up again, still in retreat, an object lost from her hand and rolling somewhere across the carpet, as a set of skirts swayed into her view, covering the serpent: skirts and small bare feet and (Moria's shocked vision traveled up to wasp waist and bare breasts) a plethora of jewelry and blonde curls and a face painted to a fare-thee-well: (Migods, it's a doll!)

The doll acquired a more stately companion, taller, with straight blonde hair and a shawl of flounces; blonde hair, unblinking eyes and a very sober face of some few more years.

The doll chittered and chattered in the Beysib tongue. "Oh," lisped the tall one. "A messenger? From whom?"

Never you mind, bitch. That was what Moria meant to say; but it came out: "Of no moment to you or me." Pure and Rankene. Her voice rushed, breathless. "Your gold has bought you trouble, your friends have bought you enemies, your enemies multiply daily. I have connections. I came to offer them."

"Connections?" The tall Beysib stared with her strange eyes and fingered a small knife at the edge of her shawl of flounces. One of her necklaces moved, a thing that had seemed cloisonne, and was not. "Connections? To whom?"

"Say that this someone can save you when the walls fall."

"What walls?"

"Say that you serve the Beysa. Say that I serve someone else. And tell the Beysa that the wind is changing. Gold will not buy walls."

"Who are you?"

"Tell the Beysa. Tell the Beysa mine is the house with the red door, downhill from here. My name is Moria. Say to the Beysa that there are ways to safeguard her people. And ways to pass any door." It came out in a rush and was done. She did not know what she had said, except that the two Beysib stared at her and the tall woman's necklace had risen up to stare too, quite unpleasantly.

The doll spoke, rapidly. Started forward and looked mad enough to spit, but the other restrained her. There were men about now, elegant, quiet men, half a dozen of them.

"I'm done," Moria said, and waved a hand toward the door. Backed a step, thought of snakes and decided to turn and look. It was not a comfortable retreat. She turned her face to the Beysib again. "I'd say," she said, and her voice was more her own, "that you better lock your doors and stay behind them. You've been fools to walk about so rich. There's a lot fewer of you than there were. Bread's dearer, gold's cheaper, and two blocks downhill from my house even the Guard won't walk. Think about that."

"Come here," the Beysib said.

"Not with those snakes," Moria declared, and snatched the door open and slammed it after.

Her guard was not precisely apparent outside; it materialized when she came down off the steps, a man slouching along here, another joining them from an alley. Only one walked with her openly, one of her own servants, a nine-fingered man very quick with a knife. He wore brocade and a gold chain and had a sword at his hip which he had not the least idea how to use, but she knew that of brigands on the street she was walking with the very worst, and they took her orders.

She was scared beyond clear thought. She scanned the street and walked down it with the flounced swish that had (since the Beysib) become fashionable; and all the while knew that she had just delivered something deadly to that house. She had let fall a small silver ball, and it had rolled away from her feet and lost itself. Perhaps a Beysib snake would investigate it. It was too small for anything else to notice.

It did not at all shake her confidence that even Ischade's sorceries needed physical objects to anchor them. It shook her more to know how tiny those objects could be, hardly more than a bead, a droplet of silver, undetectable without magic to use in turn-and perhaps not then. If that was not a witch who had met her, then she was no judge.

A lifelong resident of Sanctuary learned to judge such things.

Strat balked at the alley-mouth: he had half-thought of a fast move and a quick break; but so, obviously, had Vis. Vis was not alone. Three men were in the alley; waiting. One more behind. So it was either revenge or a serious talk; and it was easy to get bad hurt trying to get out of this now.