"I would prefer your farm to any wizard's wonders," said Sanval, and he sounded sincere in his statement. "But I still wish that you had more magic, like that magelord's charms."

"Do not forget his Ankh," whispered Kid. "That is a weapon paid for by murder."

"Ankh?"

"That," said Kid, pointing at the metal pole that Archlis leaned against. It was topped by a smooth loop of metal and a crossbar of the same.

"I though it was a crutch," said Ivy.

Kid shook his head sadly. "No, it is the Ankh of Fire that he stole from my master."

"That is a rather large ankh," said Ivy, eyeballing the length of the thing. "I thought ankhs were little things that priests wore on their belts."

"This Ankh was forged for a giant and casts the most terrible and powerful spells. It took Toram years to find the tomb where it was hidden."

"What type of spells?"

"Fire spells."

"What sort of fire spell?" Her father had hated and feared fire as much as any tree in the forest.

"Many and many, my dear," said Kid, his ears drooping down and back, almost flat and hidden among his curls. "Enough to burn us all. He does not bluff when he claims such power."

"That settles it," Ivy said to Sanval. "You have to stifle any objections to an alliance with Archlis. You did notice how quickly he disposed of those hobgoblins and orcs," she continued when Sanval said nothing.

"But he is the sworn enemy of Procampur," protested Sanval.

"We are his enemies," agreed Ivy in soothing tones. What did it take to make one man in shiny armor to see reason? "And there are more of us, but does he look perturbed? That means he thinks he can beat us and, given the size and the number of fireballs that he was tossing off the walls of Tsurlagol over the last tenday, I think he can too."

"He won't dare try a fireball in here," said Gunderal, catching the end of their discussion. "These tunnels are too narrow. He would burn himself."

When the others looked skeptical, Gunderal said with a huff, "Just because I can't do fire spells does not mean that I never studied them."

Zuzzara shook her head, setting her braids swinging and the iron beads on the ends clicking together. "What do you mean?"

"Flames spread, just like water! Simple enough for you, big sister?"

"Temper, temper," replied the half-orc. "You should eat something. You are getting cranky, little sister."

Gunderal started to reply and then obviously thought better of it. She tore off a small bit of bread and chewed dainty but deliberate bites. Zuzzara smiled to see her sister follow her advice.

"What about that sphere spell?" asked Mumchance. "That fire chased those hobgoblins and orcs precisely enough."

"For all those reasons, we are not going to get into a fight that we cannot win and will not gain us anything," Ivy emphasized to Sanval. "Don't play the hero."

"You always say that," said Sanval in a sharper tone than he usually used.

"Because I know what heroics can bring." A drowned mother, a father so torn by grief that he would rather be wood than human. But how could she explain that to a man raised in Procampur, who thought the world was built on straight, narrow, and well-ordered lines. One who believed you could define people by the color of their roof tiles?

"I will attack him alone," decided Sanval, apparently forgetting that she was supposed to be the captain and the one giving the orders. She had known that was going to happen-she had just known it. "Then you will have time to escape," the silver-roof noble concluded with a pleasant smile.

"And do you think that you would survive such an attack?"

"That does not matter." Sanval sounded happier than she had ever heard him, which was very bothersome to her peace of mind.

"What is the Procampur obsession with rushing in against all odds and getting yourself killed?" asked Ivy. She did not mean to sound harsh, but she did not want to fret about Sanval doing something suicidal. She had so many other things to worry about. "That is as idiotic as your city's ban of the Thieves Guild."

"What is wrong with our ban of the Thieves Guild?" said Sanval, distracted by the sudden criticism of the rules of his beloved city, which was exactly what Ivy had wanted.

"The ban on the Thieves Guild is unnatural, in my opinion," Ivy said, warming to her argument on why Procampur's citizens, especially the one sitting next to her, lacked basic good sense. "It is the same as expecting all the citizens in an entire city to come to an agreement to be honorable and deal fairly with others and not steal their goods."

"You would prefer to be robbed as you walked down the streets?"

"Of course not."

"Or to be allowed to rob others."

"Not me personally, at least not friends and family. But governments and rulers are somewhat stingy and should probably be encouraged to share the wealth at times."

"So you are willing to rob others as long as you do not know them."

"And they can afford it. Never steal from the poor, they don't have anything worth taking." She waited for some response. Sanval's features had settled back into the impassive, slightly stern expression that she knew so well. He did not speak. "That was a joke. But, honestly (or dishonestly if you prefer), thieves who are ruled by Thieves Guilds avoid stealing too much too close to home. City officials supplement their pay with some nice bribes, and the world rolls on. Procampur has to be the only city to take the quaint view that all its visitors, as well as its citizens, should be free to wander wherever they want in the city without having their purses cut or their pockets picked."

"And does that make our quaint view wrong, because it is not true in other cities?" A touch of acid stung beneath his words. And if Sanval's straight spine were any stiffer, Mumchance could have used it as a level. Worst of all, Sanval had gone from his impassive face to that straight-down-the-nose stare that he must have learned in the nursery beneath his mansion's silver roof. It was precisely the look of rebuke that his ancestors must have been giving red-roof adventurers like herself for generations.

Ivy could see a large philosophical hole opening before her-one that probably had a snake at the bottom of it. Which was confusing, because she knew that she had a winning argument when she had started out. A quick visual survey of her friends showed them all sitting there, resolutely silent, and waiting to see how she was going to finish the debate. She grimaced at the lack of verbal verification from those that she had expected to agree with her. Mumchance stared back with a very clear "you dig yourself out of this one" look. Zuzzara and Gunderal were leaning forward, Gunderal fluttering her eyelashes in some type of signal that puzzled Ivy. Even Kid, that hypocritical thief, looked disapproving of her argument. Wiggles just wagged her tail, obviously hoping that Ivy would shut up and somebody would feed the cute white dog sitting at their feet.

"Perhaps we could just agree that getting yourself killed is not going to help anyone, even if it is the most honorable thing to do," said Ivy, returning to the point that she had wanted to make.

"I will attempt no action that would endanger any of you," promised Sanval, replacing his helmet very slowly and very straight upon his head.

Only Ivy seemed to notice that he made no promises about his personal safety.