'Not surprising,' the other man said with a nod. 'They come mostly after dark, you know. And you wouldn't be able to see them from here anyway.'

'No?' said Samlor, sipping a little more of his clabbered milk. 'There's a back entrance?'

'Not just that,' said the local man. 'There's a network of tunnels beneath the whole area. They - the worshippers - enter from inns or shops or tenements from blocks away. In Sanctuary, those who come to Heqt come secretly.'

Samlor's left hand toyed with his religious medallion. 'I'd heard that before,' he said, 'and I don't figure it. Heqt brings the Spring rains ... she's the genetrix, not only in Cirdon but everywhere she's worshipped at all - except Sanctuary. What happened here?'

'You're devout, I suppose?' asked the younger man, eyeing the disk with the face of Heqt.

'Devout, devout,' said Samlor with a grimace. 'I run caravans, I'm not a priest. Sure, maybe I spill a little drink to Heqt at meals ... without her, there'd be no world but desert, and I see enough desert already.'

The stranger's skin was so pale that it looked yellow now that most of the light was from the lamp above. 'Well, they say there was a shrine to Dyareela here before Alar tore it down to build his temple. There wouldn't be anything left, of course, except perhaps , the tunnels, and they may have been old when the city was built ! on top of them. Have you heard there's supposed to be a demon kept in the lower crypts?'

Samlor nodded curtly. 'I heard that.'

'A hairy, long-tailed, fang-snapping demon,' said the younger man with a bright smile. 'Pretty much of a joke nowadays, of course. People don't really believe in that sort of thing. Still, the first priest of Heqt here disappeared. ... And last year Alciros Foin went into the temple with ten hired bravos to find his wife. Nobody saw the bullies again, but Foin was out on the street the next morning. He was alive, even though every inch of skin had been flayed off him.'

Samlor finished his mug of blue John. 'Men could have done that,' he said.

'Would you prefer to meet men like that rather than ... a demon?' asked the local, smiling. The two men stared in silence at the temple. 'Do you want a drink?' Samlor asked abruptly.

'Not I,' said the other. 'You say that fellow was looking for his wife?' the Cirdonian pressed, his eyes on the shadow-hidden temple and not on his companion.

'That's right. Women often go through the tunnels, they say.

Fertility rites. Some say the priests themselves have more to do with any increase in conceptions than the rites do - but what man can say what women are about?'

'And the demon?'

'Aiding the conceptions?' said the local. Samlor had kept his face turned from the other so that he would not have to see his smile, but the smile freighted the words themselves stickily. 'Perhaps, but some people will say anything. That would be a night for the ... suppliant, wouldn't it?'

Samlor turned and smiled back, baring his teeth like a cat eyeing a throat vein. 'Quite a night indeed,' he said. 'Are there any places known to have entrances to - that?' He gestured across the dark street. 'Or is it just rumour? Perhaps this inn itself?'

'There's a hostel west of here a furlong,' said the youth. 'Near the Beef Market - the Man in Motley. They say there's a network beneath like worm tunnels, not really connected to each other. A man could enter one and walk for days without ever seeing another soul.'

Samlor shrugged. He stood and whistled for attention, then tossed his empty mug to the tapster behind the bar. 'Just curiosity,' he said to his companion. 'I've never been in Sanctuary before.' Samlor stepped into the street, over a drain which held something long dead. When he glanced back, he saw the local man still seated empty-handed on the bench. In profile against the light, his face had the perfection of an ancient cameo.

Samlor wore boots and he was long familiar with dark nights and bad footing, so he did not bother to hire a linkman. When he passed a detachment of the Watch, the Imperial officer in command stared at the dagger the Cirdonian now carried bare in his hand. Still, Samlor looked to be no more than he was, a sturdy man who would rather warn off robbers than kill them, but who was willing and able to do either. I'll have to buy another boot knife, Samlor thought; but for the time he'd make do, make do...

The Man in Motley was a floor lower than the four-storey tenements around it. The ground level was well lighted. Across the street behind a row of palings, a slave gang worked under lamps scraping dung from the cobbles of the Beef Market. Tomorrow their load would be dried in the sun for fuel. The public room of the inn was occupied by a score of men, mostly drovers in leather and homespun. A barmaid in her fifties was serving a corner booth. As Samlor entered, the host thrust through the hangings behind the bar with a cask on his shoulder.

Samlor had sheathed his knife. He nodded to the brawny innkeeper and ducked beneath the bar himself. 'Hey!' cried the host.

'It's all right,' Samlor muttered. He slipped behind the hangings.

A stone staircase, lighted halfway by an oil lamp, led down into the cellars. Samlor followed it, taking the lamp with him. The floor beneath the public room was of dirt. A large trap, now closed and bolted, gave access to deliveries from the street fronting the inn. The walls were lined with racked bottles, small casks, and great forty-gallon fooders set on end. One of the fooders was of wood so time-blackened as to look charred. Samlor rapped it with his knife hilt, then compared the sound to the duller note of the tun beside it.

The stairs creaked as the host descended. He held a bung-starter in one heavy fist. 'Didn't they tell you to go by the side?' he rasped. 'D'ye think I want the name of running a devil's brothel?' He took another step. 'By Ils and his sisters, you'll remember the next time!'

Samlor's fingers moved on his knife hilt. He still held the point away from the innkeeper. 'We don't have a quarrel,' he said.

'Let's leave it at that.'

The host spat as he reached the bottom of the stairs. ' Sure, I know you hot pants folderols. Well, when I'm done with you, you take my greetings to your pandering psalm-singers and tell them there'll be no more customers through here!'

'The priests share their privileges for a price?' Samlor said in sudden enlightenment. 'But I don't come for sex, friend.'

Whatever the tavern-keeper thought he understood, it frightened him as sight of the dagger had not. He paused with the bung-starter half raised. First he swallowed. Then, with a guttural sound of pure terror he flung the mallet into the shadows and fled back up the stairs. Samlor frowned, shrugged, and turned again to the fooder.

There was a catch disguised as a knot, obvious enough if one knew something of the sort had to be there. Pressed, the side of the cask swung out to reveal a dry, dark tunnel sloping gently downward. Samlor's tongue touched his lips. It was, after all, what he had been looking for. He picked up the lamp, now burned well down. He stepped into the tunnel, closing the door behind him.

The passage twisted but did not branch. It was carven through dense, yellow clay, shored at intervals with timbers too blackened for Samlor to identify the wood. There were tiny skitterings which seemed to come from just beyond the light. Samlor walked slowly enough not to lose the lampflame, steadily enough not to lose his nerve. Despite the disgrace of his vocation, Samlor was a noble of Cirdon; and there was no one else in his family to whom he could entrust this responsibility.