“None.”

“Then have the money ready by Festival morning.”

“WHAT ARE YOU DOING, MASTER?” HAMMEN hissed, his voice near to breaking with fear.

“Just shut up and do as I tell you to do.”

“You mean go back there?” He pointed nervously down the alleyway.

“Precisely, now move.”

“This is madness.”

“Chances are they still have someone watching this place in the hope that you might be so stupid as to come back again.”

“Only an idiot would do that, so don’t insult me.”

“You might have treasure hidden. They know you didn’t have enough time to get it the first time, so maybe you’ll venture it again.”

“There is treasure hidden,” Hammen said quietly.

“Good. So we’ll get it back. Now get moving.”

Hammen let out a slight yelp when Garth’s dagger poked him in the backside, sending him out into the middle of the alleyway. Hammen turned as if to go back, but Garth’s angry stare stopped him.

“So help me,” Hammen whispered while rubbing his injured parts. “I quit.”

“Is that official as of now?” Garth hissed. “Because if so, they’ve already seen you. Now get moving or I’ll leave you.”

Hammen, muttering a curse, started down the alleyway, moving furtively through the shadows, stepping lightly over the piles of offal, and hoping against hope that the Grand Master’s people were not still there. But again there was that sense, the street far too quiet. And he knew.

He wanted simply to try and run on past what had once been his hiding place, hoping that they would not recognize him and thus let him pass. But that was madness. They knew. They had seen him once, and they knew.

He reached the door and quickly opened it as Garth had ordered. Cursing, he stepped in, darting to one side as he did so.

The blow barely missed him, the club brushing within inches of his face. Screaming, Hammen dived backward, ducking under the table. As he rolled under the table he bounced up against something cold and stiff. It was his old friend Nahatkim; he could tell by the missing legs. His hand fumbled over the place where a head should have been, sticking in the congealed slime of blood.

At least he had the advantage in the total darkness. He felt a hand reaching past him, and with a quick grab, took hold and bit down hard, nearly severing the man’s finger. The hand jerked back, a loud howling filling the room. Hammen scurried out from under the table, moving toward the sewer bolt-hole in the back of the room. The demons take Garth, he thought. I’m getting out.

He reached the hole and dived into it headfirst… and straight into a hammerlike blow that sent his senses reeling.

Through a haze of pain and nausea he felt hands grabbing him from behind, pulling him out, while the man who had been waiting in the sewer laughed cruelly, striking him in the face yet again for the fun of it.

Pulled out of the hole, he was thrown down on the floor and a light was struck, a lamp flaring up.

His vision blurred, Hammen looked up at two leering faces. Though they were dressed in filth-stained leather, he knew these were not two simple thieves… they were warriors of the Grand Master, their well-fed faces looking down at him, laughing.

One of them leaned down and held a bleeding hand before him and then struck him again across the face.

“Don’t kill him yet,” the other hissed. “I want him when we’re done.”

“When we’re done,” another voice said. Through eyes that were starting to swell shut Hammen saw three more men come into the room, all of them obviously magic-wielding fighters, all three of them dressed in the multihued tunics of the Grand Master.

The three moved across the room, looking around disdainfully, one of them covering his nose with a scented handkerchief.

“Is it the same one?”

“I think so,” the one in the center replied. “Get him to talk. Find out exactly where One-eye is.”

The warrior with the bleeding hand snicked a dagger out of his belt and held it close to Hammen’s face.

“Can I start with the eyes?” he hissed softly.

“I don’t care. Just don’t cut his tongue out or kill him.”

For an instant Hammen wasn’t sure if the flash of light was blindness descending upon him or not. Then he heard the high, keening scream and felt the heat. There were more screams and the heat started to build, followed an instant later by a cool blast of air.

Hammen looked around the room, which was blurred and hazy, and it took him a moment to realize that he was in fact wrapped in a circle of protection while the rest of the room blazed with a white-hot intensity. His five tormentors rolled back and forth, shrieking, trying to beat out the flames that engulfed them.

Though the shield protected him from the heat, the scent of burning flesh still wafted through and he suppressed a gag. The five started to become still, curling up into tight, charred balls so that they looked like blackened dolls. The fire winked out as if the room had been washed with a blast of rain. Through the smoke he saw Garth emerge, a cold look of fury still in his eye.

The circle of protection vanished.

“Are you all right?”

“Not really, damn it. I think I lost a tooth.”

“I had to make sure they all came in. I knew they wouldn’t hurt you too much until then. I’m sorry.”

Garth laid his hands on Hammen’s temples and the pain washed away. He felt for a moment as if he were floating. He closed his eyes and then reopened them. His vision was again clear.

“Were they the ones who attacked you before?”

“I think so.”

Garth nodded, looking around the room.

“I’m sorry your friends’ bodies had to be burned like that.”

“I don’t think they really cared one way or the other,” Hammen replied coldly. “Besides, the pyre had some curs on it to be their servants in the land of the dead; it was fitting.” He paused for a moment. “Thank you.”

“It served my purpose.”

“I think it was more than that,” Hammen said, and Garth mumbled a soft curse and stood up.

“You want to collect your treasure? I think we better get moving. The fireball caught them by surprise, but it’ll draw attention. There’ll be others here in a moment, maybe more than I can handle.”

Hammen stepped over a charred corpse and went up to the fireplace. Reaching up inside, he pushed a brick aside, pulled out a heavy bag, and tucked it into his tunic. He started back across the room and then paused. He pulled the bag out again, opened it, fished out four gold coins, and quickly tossed them on the four corpses of his friends.

“For the ferryman,” he said to Garth almost as if apologizing.

“Let’s go. Someone’s coming,” Garth replied, moving away from the door and toward the back of the room. Hammen followed him, pausing for a moment to spit on one of the corpses of fighters and then went down the bolt-hole, Garth following.

“Take us toward the Fentesk House.”

“Why there?”

“Don’t you think they’ll cover the paths toward Ingkara?” Garth asked, and Hammen grunted in agreement.

Choking from the fumes, Garth followed Hammen through the stygian darkness, cursing as the sewage washed up over the top of his boots and poured down inside to squish between his toes.

“I can’t see you,” Garth whispered.

“Then strike a light.”

Garth pulled his dagger out of its sheath and held it aloft. An instant later it started to glow softly. He looked around and a chill washed over him. The sewer walls were dripping with slime. They passed a narrow side channel and the sound of rats echoed from it as they scurried away from the light. Hammen moved with a swift ease, turning one way and then the other, and Garth stumbled to keep up. And all the time the chill cut deeper into him. The walls seemed to crowd inward like nightmare memories in a dream from which he could not awaken. Hammen turned and looked back.