Sidling through the upscale crowd in the Alekeep to find the owner, a man Niko had known well enough to court his daughter when he'd been stationed here before and a man who had a right to know that the daughter's shade, long undead under the witch's spell, had finally been put to rest by Niko's own hand, the fighter called Stealth was suddenly so aware of Roxane that he fancied he could smell her musk upon the beerhall's air.

She was here, somewhere. Close at hand. His maat told him so-he could glimpse the cobalt-shining trails of Roxane's magic out of the corner of his inner eye the way some lesser man might glimpse a stalker's shadow in his peripheral vision. Niko's soul had its own peripheral vision in the discipline of transcendent perception, a skill which let him track a person or sense a presence or gather the gist of emotions aimed his way, though he could not eavesdrop on specific thoughts.

The Alekeep was freshly whitewashed and full of determined revelers, men and women whose position in the town demanded that they show themselves at business as usual, undisturbed by PFLS rebels or Beysib interlopers or Nisibisi wizardry. Here Rankan Mageguild functionaries in robes that made them look like badly-set tables hobnobbed with caravanners and Palace hierophants all intent on the same end: safety for their business transactions from the interference of warring factions; safety for their persons and their kin from undeads and less numinous terrorists; safety-it was the most sought after commodity in Sanctuary these days.

Safety, so far as Niko was concerned whenever he came out of Bandara into the World, was beside the point. In his cabin on its cliff he could be safe, but then his gifts of maat and his deep perceptions were turned inward, useful only to the student, not, as they were meant, carried by him abroad in the World to turn a fate or two or stem a tide gone too far in any one direction.

Maat forced its bearer out, among its opposite, Chaos, to set whatever imbalances he could to rights. It always hurt, it always cost, and he always longed for Bandara when his strength was spent. But, when he was home, he always grew restless, strong and able, and so he'd come out again, even into Sanctuary, where Balance was just an abstract, where everything was always wrong, and where nothing any man-or even demigod like Niko's commander Tempus-could do would bring even an intimation of lasting peace. But peace, Niko's teacher had said, was death. He would have it by and by.

The witch, Roxane, was death also. He hoped she couldn't sense him as clearly as he could her. Though he'd been at pains to keep his visit here a secret from those who'd use him if they could, Niko was drawn to Roxane like a Sanctuary whore to a well-heeled drunk or, if rumor could be believed, like Prince Kadakithis to the Beysa Shupansea.

Not even Bandara's gravel ponds or deep seaside meditation had cleansed his soul of its longing for the flesh of the witch who loved him.

So he'd come down again to Sanctuary, on the excuse of answering Randal's ephemeral summons. But it was Roxane he'd come to see. And touch. And talk to.

For Niko had to exorcise her, take her talons from his soul, cleanse his heart of her. He'd admitted it to himself this season in Bandara. At least that was a start. The lore of his mystery whispered that any problem, named and known, was soluble. But since the name of Niko's problem was Roxane, Stealth wasn't sure that it was so.

Thus, he must confront her. Here, somewhere. Make her let him go.

But he didn't find her in the Alekeep, just a fat old man with a wispy pate who'd aged too much in the passing seasons, who had a winter in his eyes with more bite to it than any Sanctuary ever blew in off the endless sea.

The old man, when Niko told him of his daughter's fate, simply nodded, chin on fist, and said to Niko, "You did your best, son. As we're all doing now. It seems so long ago, and we've such troubles here...." He paused, and sighed a quavery sigh, and wiped red eyes with his sleeve then, so Niko knew that the father's hurt was still fresh and sharp.

Niko got up from the marble table where he'd found the father, alone with the night's receipts, and looked down. "If there's ever anything I can do, sir anything at all. I'm at the mercenaries' guildhall, will be for a week or two."

The old barkeep blew his nose on the leather of his chiton's hem, then craned his neck. "Do? Leave my other daughters be, is all."

Niko held the barkeep's feisty gaze until the man relented. "Sorry, son. We all know none's to blame for undeads but their makers. Luck go with you. Stepson. What is it your brothers of the sword say? Ah, I've got it: Life to you, and everlasting glory." There was too much bitterness in the father's voice for Niko to have misunderstood what remained unsaid.

But he had to ask. "Sir, I need a favor-don't call me th at here, or anywhere. Tell no one I'm in town. I came to you only because ... I had to. For Tamzen's sake." That was the first time either man had used the name of the girl who'd been daughter to the elder and lover to the younger, a girl now safe and peacefully dead, who hadn't been for far too long while Roxane had made use of her, and other children she'd added to her crew of zombies, children taken from among the finest homes of Sanctuary and now buried on the slopes of Wizardwall.

He got out of there as soon as the old man shielded his eyes with his hand and muttered something like assent. He shouldn't have come. It had done the Alekeep's owner harm, not good. But he'd had to do it, for himself. Because the girl had been used by the witch against him, because he'd had to kill a child to save a childish soul. He wondered whether he'd expected the old man to absolve him, as if anyone could. Then he wondered where he'd go as he stepped out into the Green Zone streets and saw torches flaring Mazeward-tiny at this distance, but a warning that there was trouble in the lower quarter of the town.

Niko didn't want to mix in any of Sanctuary's internecine disputes, to be recruited by any side-even Strat's- or even know specifics of who was right and wrong. Probably everyone was equally culpable and innocent; wars had a way of blotting out absolutes; and civil wars, or wars of liberation, were the worst.

He wandered better streets, his hand upon his scabbard, until he came to an intersection where a corner estate had an open gate and, beyond, a beggar was crouched. A beggar this far uptown was unlikely.

Niko was just about to turn away, reminding himself that he was no longer policing Sanctuary as a Stepson on covert business, but here on his own recognizance, when he heard a voice he thought he knew.

"Seh," said a shadow separating itself out from shadows across from where the beggar sat. The curse was Nisi; the voice was, too.

He stepped closer and the shadows became two, and they were arguing as they came abreast of the beggar, who stood right up and demanded where they'd been so long.

"He's drunk, can't you see?" said the first voice and Niko's gift gave him a different kind of light to place the face and find the name he'd known long since.

The first speaker was a Nisi renegade named Vis, a man who owed Niko at least one favor, and might know the answer to the question Niko most wanted to ask: the whereabouts of the Nisibisi witch.

The second shadow spoke, as the drunken beggar clawed at its clothes and Niko's sight grew sharper, showing him bluish sparks swirling round the taller of the two shadows solidifying despite the moonless dark. "Mor-am, you idiot! Get up! What's Moria going to say? Fool, and worse! There's death out here. Don't get too cocky...." The rest was a hostile hiss from a lowered voice, but Niko had placed this man easier than the first: The deeply accented voice, the velvet tones, had made him know the other speaker was an ex-slave named Haught.