"We're just a bunch of petty thieves. They're princes, dukes, and barons of the land. First Prince Bors, Second Prince Vargo, followed by Princes Throdus and Marac- there's a murderous lot. Bors is too much of an idiot to be any danger, but don't worry. Our dear Lord Chamberlain out there, the duke of Senestra, has gone begging for a fool to protect his own interests. Oh, and there's more. Tomas, Duke of the Port, is Manferic's brother, and Lady Graln was his sister-in-law. She's got whelps, princelings of the Second Order, for whom she'd kill to see crowned. Finally, there's the Hierarch Juricale. They call him the Red Priest, he's got enough blood on him. He and his sect hold the Knife and the Cup, so you can imagine no one gets crowned without his say." With slender fingers, Pinch counted out the titles until there were no fingers left. "Every one of them's a scorpion in the sheets. Compared to them, we're lewds."

"They sent Cleedis up here for you," Sprite mused, as his foot gently slid toward the bauble at his feet.

"Royal Ward Janol, Pinch to you," the regulator mocked. A light kick with his boot kept the halfling's furred foot at bay. "It's not as though the royal ward has any chance or claim. Cleedis wants me for some reason, but it's just as like there'll be a mittimus for your arrest as soon as we strike Ankhapur. From here on, abroad or in the city, cut your words goodly and keep your eyes open like quick intelligencers or somebody'll cut your weasand-pipe for certain." That said, Pinch scooped up the amulet and turned to leave.

"And you, Pinch dear?" Maeve asked.

The rogue considered the truth, considered a lie, and then spoke. "I'll stand by you all and cross-lay old Cleedis's plans any way I can." He smiled a little, the way he chose when no one was to know his true thoughts. The afternoon shadows, creeping through the door, gave all the warmth to his thin reassurance.

Outside, after ten steps, he met Lissa as though she'd been lurking around waiting for this casual rendezvous. The woman had finally shed her saintly armor, and the effect was a transformation. Pinch had become so used to the rumpscuttle mien of a warrior woman that he was taken aback by her change to more demure clothes. Her silvery vestments, though long and shamefast, were still more flattering than battered steel made to cover every weak point of her sex. Her arms were half-bare to the cool air, and her slender, fair neck uncased from its sheath of gorgetted steel. Hair, brown and curly, tousled itself playfully in the breeze. Without all that metal, she stepped lighter and with more grace than did the clank and jingle of her armored self. The transformation from amazon to gentry maid was startlingly complete.

"Greetings, Lord Janol," Lissa hailed, catching the rogue not at his best. "How fare you and your companions? Lord Cleedis says we shall be upon Ankhapur on the morrow."

"We?"

With a knowing, impish smile, Lissa brushed a loose wisp back into the tumble of her hair. "Certainly. Like yourself, Lord Cleedis is a gentleman. He's offered me passage to Ankhapur rather than leave me in this wilderness."

Either she now suspects me and favors Cleedis or the chamberlain is playing the game, using her and her temple as a threat over me. If that's the case, does she know her part, or can I still direct her? Taking up his mantle as the lordly Janol, Pinch smiled and bowed while making his cold calculations.

"As well the chamberlain should. And if he had not, I would have insisted upon it."

"Well, I'm glad you would because I'm still counting on you to help me find a thief." Her voice dropped to a whisper of winter wind through the beeches.

"If your thief is here."

Lissa nodded. "They are-I've had dreams."

"Dreams?"

"The voice of our lord. He speaks to us in our dreams. It's our way."

She could be naive, misled, inspired, or right; Pinch withheld judgment. He couldn't think of any good reason why a god shouldn't talk to his priests in their dreams, but why not just burn your words in a rock or, for that matter, limn the offender in holy fire? Had she seen him in her dreams? If not, then what was her god revealing? At least so far, that seemed to be nothing.

Gods always took roundabout ways to the straightest of things, and he for one felt they did so for his personal benefit, although perhaps not in the case of Fortune's master. Pinch did feel that the Mistress of Luck was a little too indirect in his own case-so much that he, only acting from a sense of just deserving, did what he could to speed the turn of her wheel along. So if the gods wanted to be indirect with him to the point where he helped move them along, it was apt that her god was equally oblique.

In this simplified theology, it was clear to Pinch's mind that Lissa was being tested. Succeed at the test and she would find the thief. Fail-and well, who knows?

He pulled at his ear to show doubt. "I could never place so much stock in dreams. What if you have a nightmare?"

The seminary student got the better of the priestess. "It's my duty to interpret the meaning in what I have received. If I can't, then I need to dedicate myself even more."

"Well spoken," he applauded, while settling onto a punky log, fallen several years back and now riddled with insects and mold.

She reddened at the compliment.

"So you don't really see the thief in your dreams, only some sort of symbol?"

"The words of our god transcend simple images. He speaks a different language from us. In our dreams, we filter though the things we know and find parallels for his voice." Lissa's hands flew as she talked, sometimes cupping the words only to spill them in a burst of excitement.

Pinch let her go on to explain how to tell true dreams from false visions, the five precepts of action, and more than Pinch needed to know. Still it was a good diversion from the hectic preparations for home, and before the rogue had completely succumbed to boredom, dusk wafted in from the east and it was time to retire.

The night passed quickly, dreamless for Pinch. As for the others, none would say. What kinds of dreams were left to an outcast Gur, a drink-sodden sorceress, and an unrepentant halfling?

Dawn scratched at the canvas, scarring the tan haze with morning shadows. Pinch stepped out of the sweat of tent air. It was a clammy dawn of stale wood smoke and horse manure, but over it all was the incongruous thick scent of geraniums and jasmine. The jarring sweetness clung in the throat and choked more than the stench of ordure. In the cold of coming winter, it could only be that the wizards were here, borne in on a wind of flowers of their own making.

Stumbling out of his tent, the rogue wandered through a queue of clay-colored troopers, pilgrims awaiting their turn at the shrine. Each man led his horse, fully packed and carefully groomed. They jostled and talked, smoked pipeweed or whittled, and every few minutes plodded ahead a few more steps.

At the head of the column was a small cluster of strangers, as uncomfortable as choirboys milling outside the church. As each man of the column came abreast, one of the strangers stepped from their shivering mass, thin robes clutched about him, and gestured over the line. A greenish flash bubbled out from his fingertips and swallowed trooper, spellcaster, and more. When the bright air cleared, wizard and soldier were gone.

"The time is best for you and your companions to take their place in the line," Cleedis noted as he ambled over to where Pinch stood. There was no haste or desperate urgency in the man's way; those who weren't ready could be left behind.

A swift yank on the tent pole roused the rest. As they stumbled out, Lord Cleedis, playing host and master and accompanied by Lissa, led Pinch to the front of his troop. The rogue's mates fell into line, grumbling and slouching, unruly children mocking their parents. At the front a pudgy, boy-faced wizard who couldn't be much older than twenty and hadn't gotten himself killed yet-more than a little feat for an ambitious mage-bowed to the Lord Chamberlain. With apologies, the wizard arranged them just so, positioning the five of them to some invisible diagram. Cleedis's impatience and Sprite's impish refusal to cooperate made the young mage all the more nervous until, by the time he was to say the words and make the passes, Pinch worried whether they would have their essences scattered across a thousand miles. Pinch always worried though; suspicion is what kept rogues like him alive.