Then, before the last words had gotten through the boy-mage's lips, the air around them went green, lightly at first like a fading hangover on a too-long day. It got brighter, swallowing the blue out of the sky, the cold from Pinch's boots, even the creaking of saddlery from the line of men behind him. In flickering moments, the evenness of the green overwhelmed everything, eventually even the green of the color itself. The world became a perfect color and Pinch could not see it.

The world returned with a nauseating rush. The green vanished, flooded out by other colors: blue sky, curling gray clouds, the brown-mottled turf of freshly turned fields, the fleshy green of still-leaved trees, and the glittering silver of a nearby sea. The ground lurched beneath him, practically toppling him from the unexpected jolt. Lissa clutched at his sleeve and he seized the belt of someone else. A heave of nausea washed over him and then passed.

Blinking in the sudden new light, Cleedis tapped Pinch and pointed toward the sea. Sited on the shore, between the water and the close nest of hills, were the tarnished gypsum-white walls of Ankhapur. A fog had rolled back from the thrusting wharves. Atop the hills, the morning bells of the temples had started to sound. And filling the top of the very highest hill were the colonnaded buildings of the royal palace, millipedes clinging to the rich garden slopes.

Cleedis turned and beamed a drillmaster's smile as he waved his hand up-slope. "Welcome back to Ankhapur, Janol."

Dinner in Ankhapur

Their arrival was well outside the walls of Ankhapur, in the shadow of the Villa of the Palantic Road that crowned the top of Palas Hill, one of six hills surrounding Ankhapur. They appeared at the edge of a grove, as if they had ridden through the woods and emerged to survey the vineyard-filled valley that lay between them and the city. Thus it was that their descent through the fields, while hailed by the peasants with the appropriate concern and homage, raised no questions of wonder or gossip.

Furthermore, they all looked gray, muddy, and spent, even Lord Cleedis himself. Pinch's foreign elegance was all but indistinguishable from the old-fashioned tabard Cleedis favored. Brown Maeve, Sprite-Heels, and Therin the Gur-no one could identify them as any more than merchants or servants among the entourage.

Only the wizards in their white clean shifts stood out from the ordinary, and that too was quite ordinary. No wizard was like the rest of the world, so it was only natural for them to be easily marked. At least that was the reasoning of those who watched the column pass.

In the two hours it took for the column to wend down the hairpin lanes and cross the bridge over the bog-banked Thornwash, a score of petty details returned to Pinch from the life he had fled fifteen years ago. The chill of snow and ice, that in fifteen years in Elturel he had never grown accustomed to, was gone, replaced by the faded green of Ankhapur's winter. The rhythmic lines of grapes were bare vines stretched over frames, the roads were rocky sloughs of clammy mud. To Pinch, the warm sun breathed the promise of spring, fresh grasses, and new growth. After fifteen years' absence, the sun of life was returned to him.

The warmth filled Pinch with a confidence bordering almost on joy, unwarranted by everything he knew, but that was unimportant. He was home, as much as he hated it, with all its memories and pitfalls. He was no longer Pinch, master of thieves, living his derring-do life in the slums and back alleys. By the time he rode through the gates, the ragtag scoundrel was nearly gone. In his place rode a man identical in dress, one who had invisibly traded places during the two-hour ride.

It was Janol, royal ward of the late King Manferic I, or at least some part of him that Pinch had not forgotten, who sat straight in his saddle, giving a supercilious nod to the liveried watchmen who stood at their parade best as the Lord Chamberlain and company rode underneath the whitewashed stone arch of the Thornwash gate.

There was one thing that was no different for Pinch or Janol, no matter his position. As either, the rogue felt power. These guards feared and respected men higher than them: the chamberlain, Janol, even the palace's elite bodyguard. It was the same awe and terror Pinch commanded from the thieves and constables of Elturel. There was in the common folk, he was certain, an innate sense of their betters. Even his gang understood it, though none of them might ever admit it.

To the hoarse cries of the sergeant, bellowing their procession over the squalls of the fruit sellers and the enticements of the fest queens, the company rode as directly toward the palace as the interwoven streets of Ankhapur allowed.

This morning, Ankhapur was alive early with the hurly-burly of market day. Pushcarts rocked like overloaded ferries in the sea of heads, their decks loaded with the glinting round flesh of fall squashes. Tides of serving-cooks and housemaids rippled from one stand to the next all down the shores of the streets. Chains of fishmongers heaved dripping baskets from the boats along the river, their still-twitching contents disappearing into the eager crowd. Children stole fruits and leapt over the smoky fires of the kaff-brewers, who sat cross-legged on their mats, pounding bark to steep in brass pots. The scent of that strongly bitter beverage made Pinch yearn for its rich sourness mixed with honey, a drink he'd not had in his fifteen years of self-exile.

Sated with musing, since too much reflection made a man weak and hesitant to act, Pinch leaned in his saddle toward Therin so that he did not need to shout. "Welcome to home."

The Gur shifted nervously in his own saddle while trying to negotiate his skittish horse through the throng. "Your home, maybe. It's just another ken to me. Although," he added with a smile and wave to the crowd, "one filled with opportunity. Look at all the coneys and marks out there."

"Mind your hands with caution, boy. Take some time to walk the field before you bowl the pins. Besides our game's up there, not in these stews."

Therin's eyes followed where Pinch pointed, to the clean, scrubbed walls that cut the commoners from their masters, the king's palace at the top of the hill.

"Piss and Ilmater's blood!" the enforcer breathed. "Sprite, Maeve-he's serious. He means to have us all in!"

"Gods' wounds, I ain't ever forced a ken like that in all my time," the halfling swore, half-hidden on Therin's other side. "Think of all the plate and treasures sure to be inside."

Because Pinch couldn't, Therin took the pleasure of fiercely berating the little scoundrel with a mindful thump to his shoulder. "Think of the headsman's axe too, you lusker, and let that sink on your wicked heart. Remember our warning of last night."

Sprite did his best to look wounded, but it was to naught on his companions. Further debate on the topic was broken by the need to negotiate an island of wagons that split the flow.

Pinch looked about the rest of the way, marveling at the similarity of the differences he saw. On that corner he remembered a saddler's shop; the building was the same but now it housed an ordinary from which wafted the smell of richly roasted meat. The great square where he used to practice riding was now adorned with an equestrian statue of his late guardian.

The sculptor had been good at capturing old Manferic's likeness, the flaring beard and the leonine mane of the king's regal head. He had molded into the face a sinister and scowling visage that well conveyed the king's savage love of intrigue, though Pinch felt the sculptor had been too kind by a half. In his saddle, the bronze king held the Knife and Cup, Ankhapur's symbols of royal power, as if he still owned them even in death. The Cup was raised in one hand for a bitter toast, while with his other the statue-sovereign thrust the Knife at those who stared up from his feet.