Shadows of Sanctuary

LOOKING FOR SATAN by Vonda N. Mclntyre

The four travellers left the mountains at the end of the day, tired, cold, and hungry, and they entered Sanctuary.

The inhabitants of the city observed them and laughed, but they laughed behind their sleeves or after the small group passed. All its members walked armed. Yet there was no belligerence in them. They looked around amazed, nudged each other, and pointed at things, for all the world as if none had ever seen a city before. As, indeed, they had not.

Unaware of the amusement of the townspeople, they passed through the marketplace towards the city proper. The light was fading; The farmers culled their produce and took down their awnings. Limp cabbage leaves and rotten fruit littered the roughly cobbled street, and bits of unrecognizable stuff floated down the open central sewer. Beside Wess, Chan shifted his heavy pack.

'Let's stop and buy something to eat,' he said, 'before everybody goes home.'

Wess hitched her own pack higher on her shoulders and did not stop. 'Not here,' she said. 'I'm tired of stale flatbread and raw vegetables. I want a hot meal tonight.'

She tramped on. She knew how Chan felt. She glanced back at Aerie, who walked wrapped in her long dark cloak. Her pack weighed her down. She was taller than Wess, as tall as Chan, but very thin. Worry and their journey had deepened her eyes. Wess was not used to seeing her like this. She was used to seeing her freer.

'Our tireless Wess,' Chan said. 'I'm tired, too!' Wess said. 'Do you want to try camping in the street again?'

'No,' he said. Behind him. Quartz chuckled.

In the first village they had ever seen - it seemed years ago now, but was only two months - they tried to set up camp in what they thought was a vacant field. It was the village common. Had the village possessed a prison, they would have been thrown into it. As it was they were escorted to the edge of town and invited never to return. Another traveller explained inns to them - and prisons - and now they all could laugh, with some embarrassment at the episode.

But the smaller towns they had passed through did not even approach Sanctuary in size and noise and crowds. Wess had never imagined so many people or such high buildings or any odour so awful. She hoped it would be better beyond the marketplace. Passing a fish stall, she held her breath and hurried. It was the end of the day, true, but the end of a cool late fall's day. Wess tried not to wonder what it would smell like at the end of a long summer's day.

'We should stop at the first inn we find,' Quartz said.

'All right,' Wess said.

By the time they reached the street's end, darkness was complete and the market was deserted. Wess thought it odd that everyone should disappear so quickly, but no doubt they were tired too and wanted to get home to a hot fire and dinner. She felt a sudden stab of homesickness and hopelessness: their search had gone on so long, with so little chance of success.

The buildings closed in around them as the street narrowed suddenly. Wess stopped: three paths faced them, and another branched off only twenty paces farther on.

'Where now, my friends?'

'We must ask someone,' Aerie said, her voice soft with fatigue.

'If we can find anyone,' Chan said doubtfully.

Aerie stepped towards a shadow-filled corner.

'Citizen,' she said, 'would you direct us to the nearest inn?'

The others peered more closely at the dim niche. Indeed, a muffled figure crouched there. It stood up. Wess could see the manic glitter of its eyes, but nothing more.

'An inn?'

'The closest, if you please. We've travelled a long way.'

The figure chuckled. 'You'll find no inns in this part of town, foreigner. But the tavern around the corner - it has rooms upstairs. Perhaps it will suit you.'

'Thank you.' Aerie turned back,.a faint breeze ruffling her short black hair. She pulled her cloak closer.

They went the way the figure gestured, and did not see it convulse with silent laughter behind them.

In front of the tavern, Wess puzzled out the unfamiliar script: the Vulgar Unicorn. An odd combination, even in the south where odd combinations were the style of naming taverns. She pushed open the door. It was nearly as dark inside as out, and smoky. The noise died as Wess and Chan entered - then rose again in a surprised buzz when Aerie and Quartz followed.

Wess and Chan were not startlingly different from the general run of southern mountain folk: he fairer, she darker. Wess could pass unnoticed as an ordinary citizen anywhere; Chan's beauty often attracted attention. But Aerie's tall white-skinned black-haired elegance everywhere aroused comment. Wess smiled, imagining what would happen if Aerie flung away her cloak and showed herself as she really was.

And Quartz: she had to stoop to come inside. She straightened up. She was taller than anyone else in the room. The smoke near the ceiling swirled a wreath around her hair. She had cut it short for the journey, and it curled around her face, red, gold, and sand-pale. Her grey eyes reflected the firelight like mirrors. Ignoring the stares, she pushed her blue wool cloak from her broad shoulders and shrugged her pack to the floor.

The strong heavy scent of beer and sizzling meat made Wess's mouth water. She sought out the man behind the bar.

'Citizen,' she said, carefully pronouncing the Sanctuary language, the trade tongue of all the continent, 'are you the proprietor? My friends and I, we need a room for the night, and dinner.'

Her request seemed ordinary enough to her, but the innkeeper looked sidelong at one of his patrons. Both laughed.

'A room, young gentleman?' He came out from behind the bar. Instead of replying to Wess, he spoke to Chan. Wess smiled to herself. Like all Chan's friends, she was used to seeing people fall in love with him on sight. She would have done so herself, she thought, had she first met him when they were grown. But they had known each other all their lives and their friendship was far closer and deeper than instant lust.

'A room?' the innkeeper said again. 'A meal for you and your ladies? Is that all we can do for you here in our humble establishment? Do you require dancing? A juggler? Harpists and hautbois? Ask and it shall be given!' Far from being seductive, or even friendly, the innkeeper's tone was derisive.

Chan glanced at Wess, frowning slightly, as everyone within earshot burst into laughter. Wess was glad her complexion was dark enough to hide her blush of anger. Chan was bright pink from the collar of his homespun shirt to the roots of his blond hair. Wess knew they had been insulted but she did not understand how or why, so she replied with courtesy.

'No, citizen, thank you for your hospitality. We need a room, if you have one, and food.'

'We would not refuse a bath,' Quartz said.

The innkeeper glanced at them, an irritated expression on his face, and spoke once more to Chan.

'The young gentleman lets his ladies speak for him? Is this some foreign custom, that you are too high-bred to speak to a mere tavern-keeper?'

'I don't understand you,' Chan said. 'Wess spoke for us all. Must we speak in chorus?'

Taken aback, the man hid his reaction by showing them, with an exaggerated bow, to a table.

Wess dumped her pack on the floor next to the wall behind her and sat down with a sigh of relief. The others followed. Aerie

looked as if she could not have kept on her feet a moment longer.

'This is a simple place,' the tavern-keeper said. 'Beer or ale, wine. Meat and bread. Can you pay?'

He was speaking to Chan again. He took no direct note of Wess " or Aerie or Quartz.

'What is the price?'

'Four dinners, bed - you break your fast somewhere else, I don't open early. A piece of silver. In advance.'

'The bath included?' Quartz said.

'Yes, yes, all right.'

'We can pay,' said Quartz, whose turn it was to keep track of what they spent. She offered him a piece of silver.

He continued to look at Chan, but after an awkward pause he shrugged, snatched the coin from Quartz, and turned away. Quartz drew back her hand, then, under the table, surreptitiously wiped it on the leg other heavy cotton trousers.

Chan glanced over at Wess. 'Do you understand anything that has happened since we entered the city's gates?'

'It is curious,' she said. 'They have strange customs.'

'We can puzzle them out tomorrow,' Aerie said.

A young woman carrying a tray stopped at their table. She wore odd clothes, summer clothes by the look of them, for they uncovered her arms and shoulders and almost completely bared her breasts. It is hot in here, Wess thought. That's quite intelligent of her. Then she need only put on a cloak to go home, and she will not get chilled or overheated.

'Ale for you, sir?' the young woman said to Chan. 'Or wine? And wine for your wives?'

'Beer, please,' Chan said. 'What are "wives"? I have studied your language, but this is not a word I know.'

'The ladies are not your wives?'

Wess took a tankard of ale off the tray, too tired and thirsty to try to figure out what the woman was talking about. She took a deep swallow of the cool bitter brew. Quartz reached for a flask of wine and two cups, and poured for herself and Aerie.

'My companions are Westerly, Aerie, and Quartz,' Chan said, nodding to each in turn. 'I am Chandler. And you are -?'

'I'm just the serving girl,' she said, sounding frightened. 'You could not wish to be troubled with my name.' She grabbed a mug of beer and put it on the table, spilling some, and fled.

They all looked at each other, but then the tavern-keeper came with platters of meat. They were too hungry to wonder what they had done to frighten the barmaid.

Wess tore off a mouthful of bread. It was fairly fresh, and a welcome change from trail rations - dry meat, flatbread mixed hurriedly and baked on stones in the coals of a campfire, fruit when they could find or buy it. Still, Wess was used to better.

'I miss your bread,' she said to Quartz in their own language. Quartz smiled.

The meat was hot and untainted by decay. Even Aerie ate with some appetite, though she preferred meat raw.

Halfway through her meal, Wess slowed down and took a moment to observe the tavern more carefully.

At the bar, a group suddenly burst into raucous laughter.

'You say the same damned thing every damned time you turn up in Sanctuary, Bauchle,' one of them said, his loud voice full of mockery. 'You have a secret or a scheme or a marvel that will make your fortune. Why don't you get an honest job - like the rest of us?'

That brought on more laughter, even from the large, heavyset young man who was being made fun of.

'You'll see, this time,' he said. 'This time I've got something that will take me all the way to the court of the Emperor. When you hear the criers tomorrow, you'll know.' He called for more wine. His friends drank and made more jokes, both at his expense.

The Unicorn was much more crowded now, smokier, louder. Occasionally someone glanced towards Wess and her friends, but otherwise they were let alone.

A cold breeze thinned the odour of beer and sizzling meat and unwashed bodies. Silence fell suddenly, and Wess looked quickly around to see if she had breached some other unknown custom.

But all the attention focused on the tavern's entrance. The cloaked figure stood there casually, but nothing was casual about the aura of power and self possession.

In the whole of the tavern, not another table held an empty place.

'Sit with us, sister!' Wess called on impulse.

Two long steps and a shove: Wess's chair scraped roughly along the floor and Wess was rammed back against the wall, a dagger at her throat.

'Who calls me "sister"?' The dark hood fell back from long, grey-streaked hair. A blue star blazed on the woman's forehead. Her elegant features grew terrible and dangerous in its light.

Wess stared up into the tall, lithe woman's furious eyes. Her jugular vein pulsed against the point of the blade. If she made a move towards her knife, or if any other friends moved at all, she was dead.

'I meant no disrespect -' She almost said 'sister' again. But it. was not the familiarity that had caused offence: it was the word itself. The woman was travelling incognito, and Wess had breached her disguise. No mere apology would repair the damage she had done.

A drop of sweat trickled down the side of her face. Chan and Aerie and Quartz were all poised on the edge of defence. If Wess erred again, more than one person would die before the fighting stopped.

'My unfamiliarity with your language has offended you, young gentleman,' Wess said, hoping the tavern-keeper had used a civil form of address, if not a civil tone. It was often safe to insult someone by the tone, but seldom by the words themselves. 'Young gentleman,' she said again when the woman did not kill her, 'someone has made sport of me by translating "frejojan", "sister".'

'Perhaps,' the disguised woman said. 'What does frejojan mean?'

'It is a term of peace, an offer of friendship, a word to welcome a guest, another child of one's own parents.'

'Ah. "Brother" is the word you want, the word to speak to men. To call a man "sister", the word for women, is an insult.'

'An insult!' Wess said, honestly surprised.

But the knife drew back from her throat.

'You are a barbarian,' the disguised woman said, in a friendly tone. 'I cannot be insulted by a barbarian.'

'There is the problem, you see,' Chan said. 'Translation. In our language, the word for outsider, for foreigner, also translates as "barbarian".' He smiled, his beautiful smile.

Wess pulled her chair forward again. She reached for Chan's hand under the table. He squeezed her fingers gently.

'I meant only to offer you a place to sit, where there is no other.'

The stranger sheathed her dagger and stared down into Wess's eyes. Wess shivered slightly and imagined spending the night with Chan on one side, the stranger on the other.

Or you could have the centre, if you liked, she thought, holding the gaze.

The stranger laughed. Wess could not tell if the mocking tone were directed outward or inward.

'Then I will sit here, as there is no other place.' She did so. 'My name is Lythande.'

They introduced themselves, and offered her - Wess made herself think of Lythande as 'him' so she would not damage the disguise again - offered him wine.

'I cannot accept your wine,' Lythande said. 'But to show I mean no offence, I will smoke with you.' He rolled shredded herbs in a dry leaf, lit the construction, inhaled from it, and held it out. 'Westerly, frejojan.'

Out of politeness Wess tried it. By the time she stopped coughing her throat was sore, and the sweet scent made her feel lightheaded.

'It takes practice,' Lythande said, smiling.

Chan and Quartz did no better, but Aerie inhaled deeply, her eyes closed, then held her breath. Thereafter she and Lythande shared it while the others ordered more ale and another flask of wine.

'Why did you ask me, of all this crowd, to sit here?' Lythande asked.

'Because...' Wess paused to try to think of a way to make her intuition sound sensible. 'You look like someone who knows what's going on. You look like someone who might help us.'

'If information is all you need, you can get it less expensively than by hiring a sorcerer.'

'Are you a sorcerer?' Wess asked.

Lythande looked at her with pity and contempt. 'You child! What do your people mean, sending innocents and children out of the north!' He touched the star on his forehead. 'What did you think this means?'

'I'll have to guess, but I guess it means you are a mage.'

'Excellent. A few years of lessons like that and you might survive, a while, in Sanctuary - in the Maze - in the Unicorn!'

'We haven't got years,' Aerie whispered. 'We have, perhaps, overspent the time we do have.'

Quartz put her arm around Aerie's shoulders, for comfort, and hugged her gently.

'You interest me,' Lythande said. 'Tell me what information you seek. Perhaps I will know whether you can obtain it less expensively - not cheaply, but less expensively - from Jubal the Slavemonger, or from a seer -' At their expressions, he stopped.

'Slavemonger!'

'He collects information as well. You needn't worry that he'll abduct you from his sitting-room.'

They all started speaking at once, then fell silent, realizing the futility.

'Start at the beginning.'

'We're looking for someone,' Wess said.

'This is a poor place to search. No one will tell you anything about any patron of this establishment.'

'But he's a friend.'

'There's only your word for that.'

'Satan wouldn't be here anyway,' Wess said. 'If he were free to come here he'd be free to go home. We'd have heard something of him, or he would have found us, or -'

'You fear he was taken prisoner. Enslaved perhaps.'

'He must have been. He was hunting, alone. He liked to do that, his people often do.'

'We need solitude sometimes,' Aerie said.

Wess nodded. 'We didn't worry about him till he didn't come home for Equinox. Then we searched. We found his camp, and a cold trail...'

'We tried to hope for kidnapping,' Chan said. 'But there was no ransom demand. The trail was so old - they took him away.'

'We followed, and we heard some rumours of him,' Aerie said. 'But the road branched, and we had to choose which way to go." She shrugged, but could not maintain the careless pose; she turned away in despair. 'I could find no trace...'

Aerie, with her longer range, had met them after searching all day at each evening's new camp, ever more exhausted and more driven.

'Apparently we chose wrong,' Quartz said.

'Children,' Lythande said, 'children, frejohans -'

'Frejojani,'' Chan said automatically, then shook his head and spread his hands in apology.

'Your friend is one slave out of many. You could not trace him by his papers, unless you discovered what name they were forged under. For someone to recognize him by a description would be the greatest luck, even if you had an homuncule to show. Sisters, brother, you might not recognize him yourselves, by now.'

'I would recognize him,' Aerie said.

'We'd all recognize him, even in a crowd of his own people. But that makes no difference. Anyone would know him who had seen him. But no one has seen him, or if they have they will not say so to us.' Wess glanced at Aerie.

'You see,' Aerie said, 'he is winged.'

'Winged!' Lythande said.

'Winged folk are rare, I believe, in the south.'

'Winged folk are myths, in the south. Winged? Surely you mean...'

Aerie started to shrug back her cape, but Quartz put her arm around her shoulders again. Wess broke into the conversation quickly.

'The bones are longer,' she said, touching the three outer fingers of her left hand with the forefinger of her right. 'And stronger. The webs between fold out.'

'And these people fly?'

'Of course. Why else have wings?'

Wess glanced at Chan, who nodded and reached for his pack.

'We have no homuncule,' Wess said. 'But we have a picture. It isn't Satan, but it's very like him.'

Chan pulled out the wooden tube he had carried all the way from Kaimas. From inside it, he drew the rolled kidskin, which he opened out on to the table. The hide was carefully tanned and very thin; it had writing on one side and a painting, with one word underneath it, on the other.

'It's from the library at Kaimas,' Chan said. 'No one knows where it came from. I believe it is quite old, and I think it is from a book, but this is all that's left.' He showed Lythande the written side. 'I can decipher the script but not the language. Can you read it?'

Lythande shook his head. 'It is unknown to me.'

Disappointed, Chan turned the illustrated side of the manuscript page towards Lythande. Wess leaned towards it too, picking out the details in the dim candlelight. It was beautiful, almost as beautiful as Satan himself. It was surprising how like Satan it was, for it had been in the library since long before he was born. The slender and powerful winged man had red-gold hair and flame-coloured wings. His expression seemed composed half of wisdom and half of deep despair.

Most flying people were black or deep iridescent green or pure dark blue. But Satan, like the painting, was the colour of fire. Wess explained that to Lythande.

'We suppose this word to be this person's name,' Chan said.

'We cannot be sure we have the pronunciation right, but Satan's mother liked the sound as we say it, so she gave it to him as his name, too.'

Lythande stared at the gold and scarlet painting in silence for a long time, then shook his head and leaned back in his chair. He blew smoke towards the ceiling. The ring spun, and sparked, and finally dissipated into the haze.

'Frejojani,' Lythande said, 'Jubal - and the other slavemongers - parade their merchandise through the town before every auction. If your friend were in the coffle, everyone in Sanctuary would know. Everyone in the Empire would know.'

Beneath the edges of her cape. Aerie clenched her hands into fists.

Chan slowly, carefully, blankly, rolled up the painting and stored it away.

This was, Wess feared, the end of their journey.

'But it might be...'

Aerie looked up sharply, narrowing her deep-set eyes.

'Such an unusual being would not be sold at public auction. He would be offered in private sale, or exhibited, or perhaps even offered to the Emperor for his menagerie.'

Aerie flinched, and Quartz traced the texture of her short-sword's bone haft.

'It's better, children, don't you see? He'll be treated decently. He's valuable. Ordinary slaves are whipped and cut and broken to obedience.'

Chan's transparent complexion paled to white. Wess shuddered. Even contemplating slavery they had none of them understood what it meant.

'But how will we find him? Where will we look?'

'Jubal will know,' Lythande said, 'if anyone does. I like you, children. Sleep tonight. Perhaps tomorrow Jubal will speak with you.' He got up, passed smoothly through the crowd, and vanished into the darkness outside.

In silence with her friends, Wess sat thinking about what Lythande had told them.

A well-set-up young fellow crossed the room and leaned over their table towards Chan. Wess recognized him as the man who had earlier been made sport of by his friends.

'Good evening, traveller,' he said to Chan. 'I have been told these ladies are not your wives.'

'It seems everyone in this room has asked if my companions are my wives, and I still do not understand what you are asking,' Chan said pleasantly.

'What's so hard to understand?'

'What does "wives" mean?'

The man arched one eyebrow, but replied, 'Women bonded to you by law. To give their favours to no one but you. To bear and raise your sons.'

'"Favours"?'

'Sex, you clapperdudgeon! Fucking! Do you understand me?'

'Not entirely. It sounds like a very odd system to me.'

Wess thought it odd, too. It seemed absurd to decide to bear children of only one gender; and bonded by law sounded suspiciously like slavery. But - three women pledged solely to one man? She glanced across at Aerie and Quartz and saw they were thinking the same thing. They burst out laughing.

'Chan, Chan-love, think how exhausted you'd be!' Wess said.

Chan grinned. They often slept and made love all together, but he was not expected to satisfy all his friends. Wess enjoyed making love with Chan, but she was equally excited by Aerie's delicate ferocity, and by Quartz's inexhaustible gentleness and power.

'They're not your wives, then,' the man said. 'So how much for that one?' He pointed at Quartz.

They all waited curiously for him to explain.

'Come on, man! Don't be coy! You're obvious to everyone -why else bring women to the Unicorn? With that one, you'll get away with it till the madams find out. So make your fortune while you can. What's her price? I can pay, I assure you.'

Chan started to speak, but Quartz gestured sharply and he fell silent.

'Tell me if I interpret you correctly,' she said. 'You think coupling with me would be enjoyable. You would like to share my bed tonight.'

'That's right, lovey.' He reached for her breast but abruptly thought better of it.

'Yet you speak, not to me, but to my friend. This seems very awkward, and very rude.'

'You'd better get used to it, woman. It's the way we do things here.'

'You offer Chan money, to persuade me to couple with you.'

The man looked at Chan. 'You'd best train your whores to manners yourself, boy, or your customers will help you and damage your merchandise.'

Chan blushed scarlet, embarrassed, flustered, and confused. Wess began to think she knew what was going on, but she did not want to believe it.

'You are speaking to me, man,' Quartz said, using the word with as much contempt as he had put into 'woman'. 'I have but one more question for you. You are not ill-favoured, yet you cannot get someone to bed you for the joy of it. Does this mean you are diseased?'

With an incoherent sound of rage, he reached for his knife. Before he touched it. Quartz's short-sword rasped out of its scabbard. She held its tip just above his belt-buckle. The death she offered him was slow and painful.

Everyone in the tavern watched intently as the man slowly spread his hands.

'Go away,' Quartz said. 'Do not speak to me again. You are not unattractive, but if you are not diseased you are a fool, and I do not sleep with fools.'

She moved her sword a handsbreadth. He backed up three fast steps and spun around, glancing spasmodically from one face to another, to another. He found only amusement. He bolted, through a roar of laughter, fighting his way to the door.

The tavern-keeper sauntered over. 'Foreigners,' he said, 'I don't know whether you've made your place or dug your graves tonight,

but that was the best laugh I've had since the new moon. Bauchle Meyne will never live it down.'

'I did not think it funny in the least,' Quartz said. She sheathed her short sword. She had not even touched her broadsword. Wess had never seen her draw it. 'And I am tired. Where is our room?'

He led them up the stairs. The room was small and low-ceilinged. After the tavern-keeper left, Wess poked the straw mattress of one of the beds, and wrinkled her nose.

'I've got this far from home without getting lice, I'm not going to sleep in a nest of bedbugs.' She threw her bedroll to the floor. Chan shrugged and dropped his gear.

Quartz flung her pack into the comer. 'I'll have something to say to Satan when we find him,' she said angrily. 'Stupid fool, to let himself be captured by these creatures.'

Aerie stood hunched in her cloak. 'This is a wretched place,' she said. 'You can flee, but he cannot.'

'Aerie, love, I know,.I'm sorry.' Quartz hugged her, stroking her hair. 'I didn't mean it, about Satan. I was angry.'

Aerie nodded.

Wess rubbed Aerie's shoulders, unfastened the clasp of her long hooded cloak, and drew it from Aerie's body. Candlelight rippled across the black fur that covered her, as sleek and glossy as sealskin. She wore nothing but a short thin blue silk tunic and her walking boots. She kicked off the boots, dug her clawed toes into the splintery floor, and stretched.

Her outer fingers lay close against the backs of her arms. She opened them, and her wings unfolded.

Only half-spread, her wings spanned the room. She let them droop, and pulled aside the leather curtain over the tall narrow window. The next building was very close.

'I'm going out. I need to fly.' .

'Aerie, we've come so far today -'

'Wess, I am tired. I won't go far. But I can't fly in the daytime, not here, and the moon is waxing. If I don't go now I may not be able to fly for days.'

'It's true,' Wess said. 'Be careful.'

'I won't be gone long.' She slid sideways out of the window and climbed up the rough side of the building. Her claws scraped into the adobe. Three soft footsteps overhead, the shushh other wings; she was gone.

The others pushed the beds against the wall and spread their blankets, overlapping, on the floor. Quartz looped the leather flap over a hook in the wall and put the candle on the window-ledge.

Chan hugged Wess. 'I never saw anyone move as fast as Lythande. Wess, love, I feared he'd killed you before I even noticed him.'

'It was stupid, to speak so familiarly to a stranger.'

'But he offered us the nearest thing to news of Satan we've heard in weeks.'

'True. Maybe the fright was worth it.' Wess looked out of the window, but saw nothing of Aerie.

'What made you think Lythande was a woman?'

Wess glanced at Chan sharply. He gazed back at her with a mildly curious expression.

He doesn't know, Wess thought, astonished. He didn't realize -

'I... I don't know,' she said. 'A silly mistake. I made a lot of them today.'

It was the first time in her life she had deliberately lied to a friend. She felt slightly ill, and when she heard the scrape of claws on the roof above, she was glad for more reasons than simply that Aerie had returned. Just then the tavern-keeper banged on their door announcing their bath. In the confusion of getting Aerie inside and hidden under her cloak before they could open the door, Chan forgot the subject of Lythande's gender.

Beneath them, the noise of revelry in the Unicorn gradually faded to silence. Wess forced herself to lie still. She was so tired that she felt as if she were trapped in a river, with the current swirling her around and around so she could never get her bearings. Yet she could not sleep. Even the bath, the first warm bath any of them had had since leaving Kaimas, had not relaxed her.

Quartz lay solid and warm beside her, and Aerie lay between Quartz and Chan. Wess did not begrudge Aerie or Quartz their places, but she did like to sleep in the middle. She wished one of her friends were awake, to make love with, but she could tell from their breathing that they were all deeply asleep. She cuddled up against Quartz, who reached out, in a dream, and embraced her.

The darkness continued, without end, without any sign of dawn, and finally Wess slid out from beneath Quartz's arm and the blankets, silently put on her pants and shirt, and, barefoot, crept down the stairs, past the silent tavern, and outside. On the doorstep, she sat and pulled on her boots.

The moon gave a faint light, enough for Wess. The street was deserted. Her heels thudded on the cobblestones, echoing hollowly against the close adobe walls. Such a short stay in the town should not make her uneasy, but it did. She envied Aerie her power to escape, however briefly, however dangerous the escape might be. Wess walked down the street, keeping careful track of her path. It would be very easy to get lost in this warren of streets and alleys, niches and blank canyons.

The scrape of a boot, instantly stilled, brought her out of her mental wanderings. They wished to try to follow her? Good luck to them.

Wess was a hunter. She tracked her prey so silently that she killed with a knife; in the dense rain forest where she lived, arrows were too uncertain. She had crept up on a panther and stroked its smooth pelt - then vanished so swiftly that she left the creature yowling in fury and frustration, while she laughed with delight. She grinned, and quickened her step, and her footfalls turned silent on the stone.

Her unfamiliarity with the streets hampered her slightly. A dead-end could trap her. But she found, to her pleasure, that her instinct for seeking out good trails translated into the city. Once she thought she would have to turn back, but the high wall barring her way had a deep diagonal fissure from the ground to its top. She found just enough purchase to clamber over it. She jumped into the garden the wall enclosed, scampered across it and up a grape arbour, and swung down into the next alley.

She ran smoothly, gladly, as her exhaustion lifted. She felt good, despite the looming buildings and twisted dirty streets and vile odours.

She faded into a shadowed recess where two houses abutted but did not line up. Listening, she waited.

The soft and nearly silent footsteps halted. Her pursuer hesitated. Grit scraped between stone and leather as the person turned one way, then the other, and, finally, chose the wrong turning and hurried off. Wess grinned, but she felt respect for any hunter who could follow her this far.

Moving silently through shadows, she started back towards the tavern. When she came to a tumbledown building she remembered, she found finger- and toe-holds and climbed to the roof of the next house. Flying was not the only talent Aerie had that Wess envied. Being able to climb straight up an undamaged adobe wall would be useful sometimes, too.

The rooftop was deserted. Too cold to sleep outside, no doubt; the inhabitants of the city went to ground at night, in warmer, unseen warrens.

The air smelled cleaner here, so she travelled by rooftop as far as she could. But the main passage through the Maze was too wide to leap across. From the building that faced the Unicorn, Wess observed the tavern. She doubted that her pursuer could have reached it first, but the possibility existed, in this strange place. She saw no one. It was near dawn. She no longer felt exhausted, just deliciously sleepy. She climbed down the face of the building and started across the street.

Someone flung open the door behind her, leaped out as she turned, and punched her in the side of the head.

Wess crashed to the cobblestones. The shadow stepped closer and kicked her in the ribs. A line of pain wrapped around her chest and tightened when she tried to breathe.

'Don't kill her. Not yet.'

'No. I have plans for her.'

Wess recognized the voice ofBauchle Meyne, who had insulted Quartz in the tavern. He toed her in the side.

'When I'm done with you, bitch, you can take me to your friends.' He started to unbuckle his belt.

Wess tried to get up. Bauchle Meyne's companion stepped towards her, to kick her again.

His foot swung towards her. She grabbed it and twisted. As he went down, Wess struggled up. Bauchle Meyne, surprised, lurched towards her and grabbed her in a bear hug, pinioning her arms so she could not reach her knife. He pressed his face down close to hers. She felt his whisker stubble and smelled his yeasty breath. He could not hold her and force his mouth to hers at the same time, but he slobbered on her cheek. His pants slipped down and his penis thrust against her thigh.

Wess kneed him in the balls as hard as she could.

He screamed and let her go and staggered away, holding himself, doubled up and moaning, stumbling over his fallen breeches. Wess drew her knife and backed against a wall, ready for another attack.

Bauchle Meyne's accomplice rushed her. Her knife sliced quickly towards him, slashing his arm. He flung himself backwards and swore violently. Blood spurted between his fingers.

Wess heard the approaching footsteps a moment before he did. She pressed her free hand hard against the wall behind her. She was afraid to shout for help. In this place whoever answered might as easily join in attacking her.

But the man swore again, grabbed Bauchle Meyne by the arm, and dragged him away as fast as the latter, in his present distressed state, could go.

Wess sagged, sliding down the wall to the ground. She knew she was still in danger, but her legs would not hold her up anymore.

The footsteps ceased. Wess looked up, clenching her fingers around the handle of her knife. '

'Frejojan,' Lythande said softly, from ten paces away, 'sister, you led me quite a chase.' She glanced after the two men. 'And not only me, it seems.'

'I never fought a person before,' Wess said shakily. 'Not a real fight. Only practice. No one ever got hurt.' She touched the side other head. The shallow scrape bled freely. She thought about its stopping, and the flow gradually ceased.

Lythande sat on his heels beside her. 'Let me see.' He probed the cut gently. '1 thought it was bleeding, but it's stopped. What happened?'

'I don't know. Did you follow me? Did they? I thought I was eluding one person.'

'I was the only one following you,' Lythande said. 'They must have come back to bother Quartz again.'

'You know about that?'

'The whole city knows, child. Or anyway, the whole Maze. Bauchle will not soon live it down. The worst of it is he will never understand what it is that happened, or why.'

'No more will I,' Wess said. She looked up at Lythande. 'How can you live here?' she cried.

Lythande drew back, frowning. 'I do not live here. But that is not really what you are asking. We cannot speak so freely on the public street.' He glanced away, hesitated, and turned back. 'Will you come with me? I haven't much time, but I can fix your cut, and we can talk safely.'

'All right,' Wess said. She sheathed her knife and pushed herself to her feet, wincing at the sharp pain in her side. Lythande grasped her elbow, steadying her.

'Perhaps you've cracked a rib,' he said. They started slowly down the street.

'No,' Wess said. 'It's bruised. It will hurt for a while, but it isn't broken.'

'How do you know?'

Wess glanced at him quizzically. 'I may not be from a city, but my people aren't completely wild. I paid attention to my lessons when I was little.'

'Lessons? Lessons in what?'

'In knowing whether I am hurt, and what I must do if I am, in controlling the processes of my body - surely your people teach their children these things?'

'My people don't know these things,' Lythande said. 'I think we have more to talk about than I believed, frejojan.'

The Maze confused even Wess, by the time they reached the small building where Lythande stopped. Wess was feeling dizzy from the blow to her head, but she was confident that she was not dangerously hurt. Lythande opened a low door and ducked inside. Wess followed.

Lythande picked up a candle. The wick sparked. In the centre of the dark room, a shiny spot reflected the glow. The wick burst into flame and the spot of reflection grew. Wess blinked. The reflection spread into a sphere, taller than Lythande, the colour and texture of deep water, blue-grey, shimmering. It balanced on its lower curve, bulging slightly so it was not quite perfectly round.

'Follow me. Westerly.'

Lythande walked towards the sphere. Its surface rippled at her approach. She stepped into it. It closed around her, and all Wess could see was a wavering figure, beyond the surface, and the spot of light from the candle flame.

She touched the sphere gingerly with her fingertip. It was wet. Taking a deep breath, she put her hand through the surface.

It froze her fast; she could not proceed, she could not escape, she could not move. Even her voice was captured.

After a moment Lythande surfaced. Her hair sparkled with drops of water, but her clothes were dry. She stood frowning at Wess, lines of thought bracketing the star on her forehead. Then her brow cleared and she grasped Wess's wrist.

'Don't fight it, little sister,' she said. 'Don't fight me.'

The blue star glittered in the darkness, its points sparking with new light. Against great resistance, Lythande drew Wess's hand from the sphere. The cuff of Wess's shirt was cold and sodden. In only a few seconds the water had wrinkled her fingers. The sphere freed her suddenly and she nearly fell, but Lythande caught and supported her.

'What happened?'

Still holding her up, Lythande reached into the water and drew it aside like a curtain. She urged Wess towards the division. Unwillingly, Wess took a shaky step forward, and Lythande helped her inside. The surface closed behind them. Lythande eased Wess down on the platform that flowed out smoothly from the inside curve. Wess expected it to be wet, but it was resilient and smooth and slightly warm.

'What happened?' she asked again.

'The sphere is a protection against other sorcerers.'

'I'm not a sorcerer.'

'I believe you believe that. If I thought you were deceiving me, I would kill you. But if you are not a sorcerer, it is only because you are not trained.'

Wess started to protest, but Lythande waved her to silence.

'Now I understand how you eluded me in the streets.'

'I'm a hunter,' Wess said irritably. 'What good would a hunter be, who couldn't move silently and fast?'

'No, it was more than that. I put a mark on you, and you threw it off. No one has ever done that before.'

'I didn't do it, either.'

'Let us not argue, frejojan. There isn't time.'

She inspected the cut, then dipped her hand into the side of the sphere, brought out a handful of water, and washed away the sticky drying blood. Her touch was warm and soothing, as expert as Quartz's.

'Why did you bring me here?'

'So we could talk unobserved.'

'What about?'

'I want to ask you something first. Why did you think I was a woman?'

Wess frowned and gazed into the depths of the floor. Her boot dimpled the surface, like the foot of a water-strider.

'Because you are a woman,' she said. 'Why you pretend you are not, I don't know.'

'That is not the question,' Lythande said. 'The question is why you called me "sister" the moment you saw me. No one, sorcerer. or otherwise, has ever glanced at me once and known me for what I am. You could place me, and yourself, in great danger. How did you know?'

'I just knew,' Wess said. 'It was obvious. I didn't look at you and wonder if you were a man or a woman. I saw you, and I thought, how beautiful, how elegant she is. She looks wise. She looks like she could help us. So I called to you.'

'And what did your friends think?'

'They ... I don't know what Quartz and Aerie thought. Chan asked whatever was I thinking of.'

'What did you say to him?'

'I ...' She hesitated, feeling ashamed. 'I lied to him,' she said miserably. 'I said I was tired and it was dark and smoky, and I made a foolish mistake.'

'Why didn't you try to persuade him you were right?'

'Because it isn't my business to deny what you wish known about yourself. Even to my oldest friend, my first lover.'

Lythande stared up at the curved surface of the inside of the sphere. The tension eased in the set of her shoulders, the expression on her face.

'Thank you, little sister,' she said, her voice full of relief. 'I did not know if my identity were safe with you. But I think it is.'

Wess looked up suddenly, chilled by insight. 'You brought me here - you would have killed me!'

'If I had to,' Lythande said easily. 'I am glad it was not necessary. But I could not trust a promise made under threat. You do not fear me; you made your decision of your own free will.'

'That may be true,' Wess said. 'But it isn't true that I don't fear you.'

Lythande gazed at her. 'Perhaps I deserve your fear. Westerly. You could destroy me with a thoughtless word. But the knowledge you have could destroy you. Some people would go to great lengths to discover what you know.'

'I'm not going to tell them.'

'If they suspected - they might force you.'

'I can take care of myself,' Wess said.

Lythande rubbed the bridge of her nose with thumb and forefinger. 'Ah, sister, I hope so. I can give you very little protection.' She - he, Wess reminded herself- stood up. 'It's time to go. It's nearly dawn.'

'You asked questions of me - may I ask one of you?'

'I'll answer if I can.'

'Bauchle Meyne - if he hadn't behaved so stupidly, he could have killed me. But he taunted me till I recovered myself. He made himself vulnerable to me. His friend knew I had a knife, but he attacked me unarmed. I've been trying to understand what happened, but it makes no sense.'

Lythande drew a deep breath. 'Westerly,' she said, 'I wish you had never come to Sanctuary. You escaped for the same reason that I first chose to appear as I now must remain.'

'I still don't understand.'

'They never expected you to fight. To struggle a little, perhaps, just enough to excite them. They expected you to acquiesce to their wishes whether it was to beat you, to rape you, or to kill you. Women in Sanctuary are not trained to fight. They are taught that their only power lies in their ability to please, in bed and in flattery. Some few excel. Most survive.'

'And the rest?'

"The rest are killed for their insolence. Or-' She smiled bitterly and gestured to herself. 'Some few ... find their talents are stronger in other areas.'

'But why do you put up with it?'

'That is the way it is. Westerly. Some would say that is the way it must be that it is ordained.'

'It isn't that way in Kaimas.' Just speaking the name of her home made her want to return. 'Who ordains it?'

'Why, my dear,' Lythande said sardonically, 'the gods.'

'Then you should rid yourselves of gods.'

Lythande arched one eyebrow. 'You should, perhaps, keep such ideas to yourself in Sanctuary. The gods' priests are powerful.' She drew her hand up the side of the sphere so it parted as if she had slit it with a knife, and held the skin apart so Wess could leave.

Wess thought the shaky uncertain feeling that gripped her would disappear when she had solid ground beneath her feet again.

But it did not.

Wess and Lythande returned to the Unicorn in silence. As the Maze woke, the street began to fill with laden carts drawn by scrawny ponies, with beggars and hawkers and pickpockets. Wess bought fruit and meat rolls to take to her friends.

The Unicorn was closed and dark. As the tavern-keeper had said, he did not open early. Wess went around to the back, but at the steps of the lodging door, Lythande stopped.

'I must leave you, frejojan.'

Wess turned back in surprise. 'But I thought you were coming upstairs with me for breakfast, to talk ..."

Lythande shook his head. His smile was odd, not, as Wess had come to expect, sardonic, but sad. 'I wish I could, little sister. For once, I wish I could. I have business to the north that cannot wait.'

'To the north! Why did you come this way with me?' She had got her bearings on the way back, and while the twisted streets would not permit a straight path, they had proceeded generally southward.

'I wanted to walk with you,' Lythande said.

Wess scowled at him. 'You thought I hadn't enough sense to get back by myself.'

'This is a strange place for you. It isn't safe even for people who have always lived here.'

'You -' Wess stopped. Because she had promised to safeguard his true identity, she could not say what she wished: that Lythande was treating her as Lythande himself did not wish to be treated.

Wess shook her head, flinging aside her anger. Stronger than her anger in Lythande's lack of confidence in her, stronger than her disappointment that Lythande was going away, was her surprise that Lythande had pretended to hint at finding Satan. She did not wish to think too deeply on the sorcerer's motives.

'You have my promise,' she said bitterly. 'You may be sure that my word is important to me. May your business be profitable.' She turned away and fumbled for the latch, her vision blurry.

'Westerly,' Lythande said gently, 'do you think I came back last night only to coerce an oath from you?'

'It doesn't matter.'

'Well, perhaps not, since I have so little to give in return.'

Wess turned around. 'And do you think I made that promise only because I hoped you could help us?'

'No,' Lythande said. 'Frejojan, I wish I had more time - but what I came to tell you is this. I spoke with Jubal last night.'

'Why didn't you tell me? What did he say? Does he know where Satan is?' But she knew she would have no pleasure from the answer. Lythande would not have put off good news. 'Will he see us?'

'He has not seen your friend, little sister. He said he had no time to see you.'

'Oh.'

'I did press him. He owes me, but he has been acting peculiar lately. He's more afraid of something else than he is of me, and that is very strange.' Lythande looked away.

'Didn't he say anything?'

'He said ... this evening, you should go to the grounds of the governor's palace.'

'Why?'

'Westerly ... this may have nothing to do with Satan. But the auction block is there.'

Wess shook her head, confused.

'Where slaves are offered for sale.'

Fury and humiliation and hope: Wess's reaction was so strong that she could not answer. Lythande came up the steps in one

stride and put his arms around her. Wess held him, trembling, and Lythande stroked her hair.

'If he's there - is there no law, Lythande? Can a free person be stolen from their home, and ... and ...'

Lythande looked at the sky. The sun's light showed over the roof of the easternmost building.

'Frejojan, I must go. If your friend is to be sold, you can try to buy him. The merchants here are not so rich as the merchants in the capital, but they are rich enough. You'd need a great deal of money. I think you should, instead, apply to the governor. He is a young man, and a fool - but he is not evil.' Lythande hugged Wess one last time and stepped away. 'Good-bye, little sister. Please believe I'd stay if I could.'

'I know,' she whispered.

Lythande strode away without looking back, leaving Wess alone among the early morning shadows.

Wess returned to the room at the top of the stairs. When she entered, Chan propped himself up on one elbow.

'I was getting worried,' he said.

'I can take care of myself!' Wess snapped.

'Wess, love, what's the matter?'

She tried to tell him, but she could not. Wess stood, silent, staring at the floor, with her back turned on her best friend.

She glanced over her shoulder when Chan stood up. The ripped curtain let in shards of light that cascaded over his body. He had changed, like all of them, on the long journey. He was still beautiful, but he was thinner and harder.

He touched her shoulder gently. She shrank away.

He saw the bloodstains on her collar. 'You're hurt!' he said, startled. 'Quartz!'

Quartz muttered sleepily from the bed. Chan tried to lead Wess over to the window, where there was more light.

'Just don't touch me!'

'Wess-'

'What's wrong?' Quartz said.

'Wess is injured.' Quartz padded barefoot towards them and Wess burst into tears and flung herself into her arms.

Quartz held Wess, as Wess had held her a few nights before, when Quartz had cried silently in bed, homesick, missing her children. 'Tell me what happened,' she said softly.

What Wess managed to say was less about the attack than about Lythande's explanations of it, and of Sanctuary.

'I understand,' Quartz said after Wess had told her only a little. She stroked Wess's hair and brushed the tears from her cheeks.

'I don't,' Wess said. 'I must be going crazy, to act like this!' She started to cry again. Quartz led her to the blankets, where Aerie sat up, blinking and confused. Chan followed, equally bewildered. Quartz made Wess sit down, sat beside her and hugged her. Aerie rubbed her back and neck and let her wings unfold around them.

'You aren't going crazy,' Quartz said. 'It's that you aren't used to the way things are here.'

'I don't want to get used to things here, I hate this place, I want to find Satan, I want to go home.'

'I know,' Quartz whispered. 'I know.'

'But I don't,' Chan said.

Wess huddled against Quartz, unable to say anything that would ease the hurt she had given Chan.

'Just leave her alone for a little while, Chan,' Quartz said to him. 'Let her rest. Everything will be all right.'

Quartz eased Wess down and lay beside her. Cuddled between Quartz and Aerie, with Aerie's wing spread over them all, Wess fell asleep.

At midmoming, Wess awoke. Her head ached fiercely and the black bruise across her side hurt every time she took a breath. She looked around the room. Sitting beside her, mending a strap on her pack, Quartz smiled down at her. Aerie was brushing her short smooth fur, and Chan stared out of the window, his arm on the sill and his chin resting on his arm, his other shirt abandoned unpatched on his knee.

Wess got up and crossed the room. She sat on her heels near Chan. He glanced at her, and out of the window, and at her again.

'Quartz explained, a little ...'

'I was angry,' Wess said.

'Just because barbarians act like... like barbarians, isn't a good reason to be angry with me.'

He was right. Wess knew it. But the fury and bewilderment mixed up in her were still too strong to shrug off with easy words.

'You know -' he said, 'you do know I couldn't act like that...'

Just for an instant Wess actually tried to imagine Chan acting like the innkeeper, or Bauchle Meyne, arrogantly, blindly, with his self-interest and his pleasure considered above everything and everyone else. The idea was so ludicrous that she burst out in sudden laughter.

'I know you wouldn't,' she said. She had been angry at the person he might have been, had all the circumstances of his life been different. She had been angry at the person she might have been, even more. She hugged Chan quickly. 'Chan, I've got to get free of this place.' She took his hand and stood up. 'Come, I saw Lythande last night, I have to tell you what he said.'

They did not wait till evening to go to the governor's palace, but set out earlier, hoping to gain an audience with the prince and persuade him not to let Satan be sold.

But no one else was waiting till evening to go to the palace, either. They joined a crowd of people streaming towards the gate. Wess's attempt to slip through the throng earned her an elbow in her sore ribs.

'Don't push, girl,' said the ragged creature she had jostled. 'He shook his staff at her. 'Would you knock over an old cripple? I'd never get up again, after I'd been trampled.'

'Your pardon, citizen,' she said. Ahead she could see that the people had to crowd into a narrower space. They were, more or less, in a line. 'Are you going to the slave auction?'

'Slave auction? Slave auction! No slave auction today, foreigner. The carnival come to town!' .

'What's the carnival?'

'A carnival! You've never heard of a carnival? Well, ne'mind, nor has half the people in Sanctuary, nor seen one neither. Two twelve-years since one came. Now the prince is governor, we'll see more, I don't doubt. They'll come wanting an admission to his brother the Emperor - out of the hinterlands and into the capital, if you know.'

'But I still don't know what a carnival is.'

The old man pointed.

Over the high wall of the palace grounds, the great drape of cloth that hung limply around a tall pole slowly began to spread, and open - like a huge mushroom, Wess thought. The guy ropes tightened, forming the canvas into an enormous tent.

'Under there - magic, foreign child. Strange animals. Prancing horses with pretty girls in feathers dancing on their backs. Jugglers, clowns, acrobats on high wires - and the freaks!' He chuckled. 'I like the freaks best; the last time I saw a carnival they had a sheep with two heads and a man with two - but that's not a story to tell a young girl unless you're fucking her.' He reached out to pinch her. Wess jerked back, drawing her knife. Startled, the old man said. There, girl, no offence.' She let the blade slide back into its sheath. The old man laughed again. 'And a special exhibition, this carnival - special, for the prince. They won't say what 'tis. But it'll be a sight, you can be sure.'

Thank you, citizen,' Wess said coldly, and stepped back among her friends. The ragged man was swept forward with the crowd.

Wess caught Aerie's gaze. 'Did you hear?'

Aerie nodded. 'They have him. What else could their great secret be?'

'In this skyforsaken place, they might have overpowered some poor troll, or a salamander.' She spoke sarcastically, for trolls were the gentlest of creatures, and Wess herself had often stretched up to scratch the chin of a salamander who lived on a hill where she hunted. It was entirely tame, for Wess never hunted salamanders. Their hide was too thin to be useful and no one in the family liked lizard meat. Besides, one could not pack out even a single haunch of fullgrown salamander, and she would not waste her kill. 'In this place, they might have a winged snake in a box, and call it a great secret.'

'Wess, their secret is Satan and we all know it,' Quartz said. 'Now we have to figure out how to free him.'

'You're right, of course,' Wess said.

At the gate, two huge guards glowered at the rabble they had been ordered to admit to the parade-ground. Wess stopped before one of them.

'I want to see the prince,' she said.

'Audience next week,' he replied, hardly glancing at her.

'I need to see him before the carnival begins.'

This time he did look at her, amused. 'You do, do you? Then you've no luck. He's gone, won't be back till the parade.'

'Where is he?' Chan asked.

She heard grumbling from the crowd piling up behind them.

'State secret,' the guard said. 'Now go in, or clear the way.'

They went in.

The crowd thinned abruptly, for the parade-ground was enormous. Even the tent seemed small; the palace loomed above it like a cliff. If the whole population of Sanctuary had not come here, then a large proportion of every section had, for several merchants were setting up stalls: beads here, fruit there, pastries farther on; a beggar crawled slowly past; and a few paces away a large group of noblefolk in satins and fur and gold walked languidly beneath parasols held by naked slaves. The thin autumn sunlight was hardly enough to mar the complexion of the most delicate noble. or to warm the back of the most vigorous slave.

Quartz looked around, then pointed over the heads of the crowd. 'They're making a pathway, with ropes and braces. The parade will come through that gate, and into the tent from this side.' She swept her hand from right to left, east to west, in a long curve from the Processional gate. The carnival tent was set up between the auction block and the guards' barracks.

They tried to circle the tent, but the area beyond it all the way to the wall was blocked by rope barriers. In the front, a line of spectators already snaked back far beyond any possible capacity.

'We'll never get in,' Aerie said.

'Maybe it's for the best,' Chan said. 'We don't need to be inside with Satan we need to get him out.'

The shadows lengthened across the palace grounds. Wess sat motionless and silent, waiting. Chan bit his fingernails and fidgeted. Aerie hunched under her cloak, her hood pulled low to shadow her face. Quartz watched her anxiously, and fingered the grip of her sword.

After again being refused an audience with the prince, this time at the palace doors, they had secured a place next to the roped-off path. Across the way, a work crew put the finishing touches on a platform. When it was completed, servants hurried from the palace with rugs, a silk-fringed awning, several chairs, and a brazier of coals. Wess would not have minded a brazier of coals herself; as the sun fell, the air was growing chill.

The crowd continued to gather, becoming denser, louder, more and more drunk. Fights broke out in the line at the tent, as people began to realize they would never get inside. Soon the mood grew so ugly that criers spread among the people, ringing bells and announcing that the carnival would present one more performance, several more performances, until all the citizens of Sanctuary had the opportunity to glimpse the carnival's wonders. And the secret. Of course, the secret. Still, no one even hinted at the secret's nature.

Wess pulled her cloak closer. She knew the nature of the secret; she only hoped the secret would see his friends and be ready for whatever they could do.

The sun touched the high wall around the palace grounds. Soon it would be dark.

Trumpets and cymbals: Wess looked towards the Processional gates, but a moment later realized that all the citizens around her were straining for a view of the palace entrance. The enormous doors swung open and a phalanx of guards marched out, followed

by a group of nobles wearing jewels and cloth of gold. They strode across the hard-packed ground. The young man at the head of the group, who wore a gold coronet, acknowledged his people's shouts and cries as if they all were accolades - which, Wess thought, they were not. But above the mutters and complaints, the loudest cry was, 'The prince! Long live the prince!'

The phalanx marched straight from the palace to the new-built platform. Anyone shortsighted enough to sit in that path had to snatch up their things and hurry out of the way. The route cleared as swiftly as water parting around a stone.

Wess stood impulsively, about to sprint across the parade route to try once more to speak to the prince.

'Sit down!'

'Out of the way!'

Someone threw an apple core at her. She knocked it away and crouched down again, though not because of the threats or the flying garbage. Aerie, too, with the same thought, started to her feet. Wess touched her elbow.

'Look,' she said.

Everyone within reach or hearing of the procession seemed to have the same idea. The crowd surged in, every member clamouring for attention. The prince flung out a handful of coins, which drew the beggars scuffling away from him. Others, more intent on their claims, continued to press him. The guards fell back, surrounding him, nearly cutting off the sight of him, and pushed at the citizens with spears held broadside.

The tight cordon parted and the prince mounted the platform. Standing alone, he turned all the way around, raising his hands to the crowd.

'My friends,' he cried, 'I know you have claims upon me. The least wrong to one of my people is important to me.'

Wess snorted.

'But tonight we are all privileged to witness a wonder never seen in the Empire. Forget your troubles tonight, my friends, and enjoy the spectacle with me.' He held out his hand, and brought a member of his party up beside him on the stage.

Bauchle Meyne.

'In a few days, Bauchle Meyne and his troupe will journey to Ranke, there to entertain the Emperor my brother.'

Wess and Quartz glanced at each other, startled. Chan muttered a curse. Aerie tensed, and Wess held her arm. They all drew up their hoods.

'Bauchle goes with my friendship, and my seal.' The prince held up a rolled parchment secured with scarlet ribbons and ebony wax.

The prince sat down, with Bauchle Meyne in the place of honour by his side. The rest of the royal party arrayed themselves around, and the parade began.

Wess and her friends moved closer together, in silence.

They would have no help from the prince.

The Processional gates swung open to the sound of flutes and drums. The music continued for some while before anything else happened. Bauchle Meyne began to look uncomfortable. Then abruptly a figure staggered out on to the path, as if he had been shoved. The skeletally thin, red-haired man regained his balance, straightened up, and gazed from side to side. The jeers confounded him. He pushed his long cape off his shoulders to reveal his star-patterned black robe, and took a few hesitant steps.

At the rope barrier's first wooden supporting post, he stopped again. He gestured towards it tentatively and spoke a guttural word.

The post sputtered into flame.

The people nearby drew back shouting, and the wizard lurched along the path, first to one side, then the other, waving his hands at each wooden post in turn.

The foggy white circles melded together to light the way. Wess saw that the posts were not, after all, burning. When the one in front of her began to shine, she brought her hand towards it, palm forward and fingers outspread. When she felt no heat she touched the post gingerly, then gripped it. It held no warmth, and it retained its ordinary texture, splintery rough-hewn wood.

She remembered what Lythande said, about her having a

strong talent. She wondered if she could do the same thing. It would be a useful trick, though not very important. She had no piece of wood to try it on, nor any idea how to start to try in the first place. She shrugged and let go of the post. Her handprint -she blinked. No, it was her imagination, not a brighter spot that she had touched.

At the prince's platform, the wizard stood staring vacantly around. Bauchle Meyne leaned forward intently, glaring, his worry clear and his anger barely held in check. The wizard gazed at him. Wess could see Bauchle Meyne's fingers tense around a circle of ruby chain. He twisted it. Wess gasped. The wizard shrieked and flung up his hands. Bauchle Meyne slowly relaxed his hold on the talisman. The wizard spread his arms. He was trembling. Wess, too, was shaking. She felt as if the chain had whipped around her body like a lash.

The wizard's trembling hands moved: the prince's platform, the wooden parts of the chairs, the poles supporting the fringed awning, all burst suddenly into a fierce white fire. The guards leaped forward in fury and confusion, but stopped at a word from their prince. He sat calm and smiling, his hands resting easily on the bright arms of his throne. Shadowy flames played across his fingers, and the light spun up between his feet. Bauchle Meyne leaned back in satisfaction, and nodded to the wizard. The other nobles on the platform stood disconcerted, awash in the light from the boards between the patterned rugs. Nervously, but following the example of their ruler, they sat down again.

The wizard stumbled onward, lighting up the rest of the posts. He disappeared into the darkness of the tent. Its supports began to shine with the eerie luminescence. Gradually, the barrier-ropes and the carpets on the platform and the awning over the prince and the canvas of the tent became covered with a soft gentle glow.

The prince applauded, nodding and smiling towards Bauchle Meyne, and his people followed his lead.

With a sharp cry, a jester tumbled through the Processional gates and somersaulted along the path. After him came the flutists and drummers, and then three ponies with bedraggled feathers attached to their bridles. Three children in spangled shorts and halters rode them. The one in front jumped up and stood balanced on her pony's rump, while the two following did shoulder-stands, braced against the ponies' withers. Wess, who had never been on a horse in her life and found the idea quite terrifying, applauded. Others in the audience applauded too, here and there, and the prince himself idly clapped his hands. But nearby a large grizzled man laughed sarcastically and yelled, 'Show us more!' That was the way most of the audience reacted, with hoots of derision and laughter. The child standing up stared straight ahead. Wess clenched her teeth, angry for the child but impressed by her dignity. Quartz's oldest child was about the same age. Wess took her hand, and Quartz squeezed her fingers gratefully.

A cage, pulled by a yoke of oxen, passed through the dark gate. Wess caught her breath. The oxen pulled the cage into the light. It carried an elderly troll, hunched in the corner on dirty straw. A boy poked the troll with a stick as the oxen drew abreast of the prince. The troll leaped up and cursed in a high pitched angry voice.

'You uncivilized barbarians! You, prince - prince of worms, I say, of maggots! May your penis grow till no one will have you! May your best friend's vagina knot itself with you inside! May you contract water on the brain and sand in the bladder!'

Wess felt herself blushing: she had never heard a troll speak so. Ordinarily they were the most cultured of forest people, and the only danger in them was that one might find oneself listening for a whole afternoon to a discourse on the shapes of clouds or the effects of certain shelf-fungi. Wess looked around, frightened that someone would take offence at what the troll was saying to their ruler. Then she remembered that he was speaking the Language, the real tongue of intelligent creatures, and in this place no one but she and her friends understood.

'Frejojan!' she cried on impulse. 'Tonight - be ready - if I can -!'

He hesitated in the midst of a caper, stumbled, but caught himself and gambolled around, making nonsense noises till he faced her. She pulled her hood back so he could recognize her later. She let it fall again as the cart passed, so Bauchle Meyne would not see her from the other side of the path.

The grey-gold furry little being gripped the bars of his cage and looked out, making horrible faces at the crowd, horrible noises in reaction to their jeers. But between the shrieks and the gibberish, he said, 'I wait -'

After he passed them, he began to wail..

'Wess -' Chan said.

'How could I let him go by without speaking to him?'

'He isn't a friend, after all,' Aerie said.

'He's enslaved, just like Satan!' Wess looked from Aerie's face to Chan's, and saw that neither understood. 'Quartz -?'

Quartz nodded. 'Yes. You're right. A civilized person has no business being in this place.'

'How are you going to find him? How are you going to free him? We don't even know how we're going to free Satan! Suppose he needs help?' Aerie's voice rose in anger.

'Suppose we need help?'

Aerie turned her back on Wess and stared blankly out into the parade. She even shrugged off Quartz's comforting hug.

Then there was no more time for arguing. Six archers tramped through the gate. A cart followed. It was a flatbed, curtained all around, and pulled by two large skewbald horses, one with a wild blue eye. Six more archers followed. A mutter of confusion rippled over the crowd, and then cries of 'The secret! Show us the secret!'

The postillion jerked the draught horses to a standstill before the prince. Bauchle Meyne climbed stiffly off the platform and on to the cart.

'My lord!' he cried. 'I present you - a myth of our world!' He yanked on a string and the curtains fell away.

On the platform, Satan stood rigid and withdrawn, staring forward, his head high. Aerie moaned and Wess tensed, wanting to leap over the glowing ropes and lay about with her knife, in full view of the crowd, whatever the consequences. She cursed herself for being so weak and stupid this morning. If she had had the will to attack, she could have ripped out Bauchle Meyne's guts.

They had not broken Satan. They would kill him before they could strip him of his pride. But they had stripped him naked, and shackled him. And they had hurt him. Streaks of silver-grey cut across the red-gold fur on his shoulders. They had beaten him. Wess clenched her fingers around the handle other knife.

Bauchle Meyne picked up a long pole. He was not fool enough to get within reach of Satan's talons.

'Show yourself!' he cried.

Satan did not speak the trade-language, but Bauchle Meyne made himself well enough understood with the end of the pole. Satan stared at him without moving until the young man stopped poking at him, and, with some vague awareness of his captive's dignity, backed up a step. Satan looked around him, his large eyes reflecting the light like a cat's. He faced the prince. The heavy chains clanked and rattled as he moved.

He raised his arms. He opened his hands, and his fingers unfolded.

He spread his great red wings. Wizard-light glowed through the translucent webs. It was as if he had burst into flame.

The prince gazed upon him with silent satisfaction as the crowd roared with surprise and astonishment.

'Inside,' Bauchle Meyne said, 'when I release him, he will fly.'

One of the horses, brushed by Satan's wingtip, snorted and reared. The cart lurched forward. The postillion yanked the horse's mouth to a bloody froth and Bauchle Meyne lost his balance and stumbled to the ground. His face showed pain and Wess was glad. Satan barely shifted. The muscles tensed and slid in his back as he balanced himself with his wings.

Aerie made a high, keening sound, almost beyond the limits of human hearing. But Satan heard. He did not flinch; unlike the troll, he did not turn. But he heard. In the bright white wizard-light, the short fur on the back of his shoulders rose, He made an answering cry, a sighing: a call to a lover. He folded his wing-fingers back along his arms. The webbing trembled and gleamed.

The postillion kicked his horse and the cart lumbered forward. For the crowd outside, the show was over.

The prince stepped down from the platform, and, walking side by side with Bauchle Meyne and followed by his retinue, proceeded into the carnival tent.

The four friends stood close together as the crowd-moved past them. Wess was thinking. They're going to let him fly, inside. He'll be free ... She looked at Aerie. 'Can you land on top of the tent? And take off again?'

Aerie looked at the steep canvas slope. 'Easily,' she said.

The area behind the tent was lit by torches, not wizard-light. Wess stood leaning against the grounds' wall, watching the bustle and chaos of the troupe, listening to the applause and laughter of the crowd. The show had been going on a long time now; most of the people who had not got inside had left. A couple of carnival workers kept a bored watch on the perimeter of the barrier, but Wess knew she could slip past any time she pleased.

It was Aerie she worried about. Once the plan started, she would be very vulnerable. The night was clear and the waxing moon bright and high. When she landed on top of the tent she would be well within range of arrows. Satan would be in even more danger. It was up to Wess and Quartz and Chan to create enough chaos so the archers would be too distracted to shoot either of the flyers.

Wess was rather looking forward to it.

She slipped under the rope when no one was looking and strolled through the shadows as if she belonged with the troupe. Satan's cart stood at the performers' entrance, but Wess did not go near her friend now. Taking no notice of her, the children on their ponies trotted by. In the torchlight the children looked thin and tired and very young, the ponies thin and tired and old. Wess slid behind the rank of animal cages. The carnival did, after all, have a salamander, but a piteous, poor and hungry-looking one, barely the size of a large dog. Wess broke the lock on its cage. She had only her knife to pry with; she did the blade no good. She broke the locks on the cages of the other animals, the half-grown wolf, the pygmy elephant, but did not yet free them. Finally she reached the troll.

'Frejojan,' she whispered. 'I'm behind you.'

'I hear you, frejojan.' The troll came to the back of his cage. He bowed to her. 'I regret my unkempt condition, frejojan; when they captured me I had nothing, not even a brush.' His golden grey-flecked hair was badly matted. He put his hand through the bars and Wess shook it.

'I'm Wess,' she said.

'Aristarchus,' he said. 'You speak with the same accent as Satan - you've come for him?'

She nodded. 'I'm going to break the lock on your cage,' she said. 'I have to be closer to the tent when they take him in to make him fly. It would be better if at first they didn't notice anything was going wrong ...'

Aristarchus nodded. 'I won't escape till you've begun. Can I be of help?'

Wess glanced along the row of cages. 'Could you - would it put you in danger to free the animals?' He was old; she did not know if he could move quickly enough.

He chuckled. 'All of us animals have become rather good friends,' he said. 'Though the salamander is rather snappish.'

Wess wedged her knife into the padlock and wrenched it open. Aristarchus snatched it off the door and flung it into the straw. He smiled, abashed, at Wess.

'I find my own temper rather short in these poor days.'

Wess reached through the bars and gripped his hand again. Near the tent, the skewbald horses wheeled Satan's cart around. Bauchle Meyne yelled nervous orders. Aristarchus glanced towards Satan.

'It's good you've come,' he said. 'I persuaded him to cooperate, at least for a while, but he does not find it easy. Once he made them angry enough to forget his value.'

Wess nodded, remembering the whip scars.

The cart rolled forward; the archers followed.

'I have to hurry,' Wess said.

'Good fortune go with you.'

She moved as close to the tent as she could. But she could not see inside; she had to imagine what was happening, by the tone of the crowd. The postillion drove the horses around the ring. They stopped. Someone crawled under the cart and unfastened the shackles from below, out of reach of Satan's claws. And then -

She heard the sigh, the involuntary gasp of wonder as Satan spread his wings, and flew.

Above her. Aerie's shadow cut the air. Wess pulled off her cloak and waved it, signalling. Aerie dived for the tent, swooped, and landed.

Wess drew her knife and started sawing at a guy-rope. She had been careful enough of the edge so it sliced through fairly quickly. As she hurried to the next line, she heard the tone of the crowd gradually changing, as people began to notice something amiss. Quartz and Chan were doing their work, too. Wess chopped at the second rope. As the tent began to collapse, she heard tearing canvas above where Aerie ripped through the roof with her talons. Wess sliced through a third rope, a fourth. The breeze flapped the sagging fabric against itself. The canvas cracked and howled like a sail. Wess heard Bauchle Meyne screaming, 'The ropes! Get the ropes, the ropes are breaking!'

The tent fell from three directions. Inside, people began to shout, then to scream, and they tried to flee. A few spilled out into the parade-ground, then a mob fought through the narrow opening. The shriek of frightened horses pierced the crowd-noise, and the scramble turned to panic. The skewbald horses burst through the crush, scattering people right and left, Satan's empty cart lurching and bumping along behind. More terrified people streamed out after them. All the guards from the palace fought against them, struggling to get inside to their prince.

Wess turned to rejoin Quartz and Chan, and froze in horror. In the shadows behind the tent, Bauchle Meyne snatched up an abandoned bow, ignored the chaos, and aimed a steel-tipped arrow into the sky. Wess sprinted towards him, crashed into him, and shouldered him off-balance. The bowstring twanged and the arrow fishtailed up, falling back spent to bury itself in the limp canvas.

Bauchle Meyne sprang up, his high complexion scarlet with fury.

'You, you little bitch!' He lunged for her, grabbed her, and backhanded her across the face. 'You've ruined me for spite!'

The blow knocked her to the ground. This time Bauchle Meyne did not laugh at her. Half-blinded, Wess scrambled away from him. She heard his boots pound closer and he kicked her in the same place in the ribs. She heard the bone crack. She'dragged at her knife but its edge, roughened by the abuse she had given it, hung up on the rim of the scabbard. She could barely see and barely breathe. She struggled with the knife and Bauchle Meyne kicked her again.

'You can't get away this time, bitch!' He let Wess get to her hands and knees. 'Just try to run!' He stepped towards her.

Wess flung herself at his legs, moved beyond pain by fury. He cried out as he fell. The one thing he could never expect from her was attack. Wess lurched to her feet. She ripped her knife from its scabbard as Bauchle Meyne lunged at her. She plunged it into him, into his belly, up, into his heart.

She knew how to kill, but she had never killed a human being. She had been drenched by her prey's blood, but never the blood of her own species. She had watched creatures die by her hand, but never a creature who knew what death meant.

His heart still pumping blood around the blade, his hands fumbling at her hands, trying to push them away from his chest, he fell to his knees, shuddered, toppled over, convulsed, and died.

Wess jerked her knife from his body. Once more she heard the shrieks of frightened horses and the curses of furious men, and the howl of a half-starved wolf cub.

The tent shimmered with wizard-light.

I wish it were torches, Wess screamed in her mind. Torches would burn you, and burning is what you deserve.

But there was no fire, and nothing burned. Even the wizard-light was fading.

Wess looked into the sky. She raked her sleeve across her eyes to wipe away her tears.

The two flyers soared towards the moon, free.

And now -

Quartz and Chan were nowhere in sight. She could find only terrified strangers: performers in spangles. Sanctuary people fighting each other, and more guards coming to the rescue of their lord. The salamander lumbered by, hissing in fear.

Horses clattered towards her and she spun, afraid of being run down. Aristarchus brought them to a halt and flung her the second horse's reins. It was the skewbald stallion from Satan's cart, the one with the wild blue eye. It smelled the blood on her and snorted and reared. Somehow she kept hold of the reins. The horse reared again and jerked her off her feet. Bones ground together in her side and she gasped.

'Mount!' Aristarchus cried. 'You can't control him from the ground!'

'I don't know how -' She stopped. It hurt too much to talk. 'Grab his mane! Jump! Hold on with your knees.' She did as he said, found herself on the horse's back, and nearly fell off his other side. She clamped her legs around him and he sprang forward. Both the reins were on one side of his neck - Wess knew that was not right. She pulled on them and he twisted in a circle and almost threw her again. Aristarchus urged his horse forward and grabbed the stallion's bridle. The animal stood spraddle-legged, ears flat back, nostrils flaring, trembling between Wess's legs. She hung on to his mane, terrified. Her broken ribs hurt so badly she felt faint.

Aristarchus leaned forward, blew gently into the stallion's nostrils, and spoke to him so quietly Wess could not hear the words. Slowly, easily, the troll straightened out the reins. The animal gradually relaxed, and his ears pricked forward again.

'Be easy on his mouth, frejojan,' the troll said to Wess. 'He's a good creature, just frightened.'

'I have to find my friends,' Wess said.

'Where are you to meet them?'

Aristarchus's calm voice helped her regain her composure.

'Over there.' She pointed to a shadowed recess beyond the tent. Aristarchus started for it, still holding her horse's bridle. The animals stepped delicately over broken equipment and abandoned clothing.

Quartz and Chan ran from the shadowed side of the tent. Quartz was laughing. Through the chaos she saw Wess, tagged Chan on the shoulder to get his attention, and changed direction to hurry towards Wess.

'Did you see them fly?' Quartz cried. 'They outflew eagles!'

'As long as they outflew arrows,' Aristarchus said dryly. 'Hurry, you, the big one, up behind me, and you,' he said to Chan, 'behind Wess.'

They did as he ordered. Quartz kicked the horse and he sprang forward, but Aristarchus reined him in.

'Slowly, children,' the troll said. 'Slowly through the dark, and no one will notice.'

To Wess's surprise, he was quite correct.

In the city they kept the horses at the walk, and Quartz concealed Aristarchus beneath her cloak. The uproar fell behind them, and no one chased them. Wess clutched the stallion's mane, still feeling very insecure so high above the ground.

A direct escape from Sanctuary did not lead them past the Unicorn, .or indeed into the Maze at all, but they decided to chance going back; the risk of travelling unequipped through the mountains this late in the fall was too great. They approached the Unicorn through back alleys, and saw almost no one. Apparently the denizens of the Maze were as fond of entertainments as anyone else in Sanctuary. No doubt the opportunity to watch their prince extricate himself from a collapsed tent was almost the best entertainment of the evening. Wess would not have minded watching that herself.

Leaving the horses hidden in shadow with Aristarchus, they

crept quietly up the stairs to their room, stuffed belongings in their packs, and started out again.

'Young gentleman and his ladies, good evening.'

Wess spun around, Quartz right beside her gripping her sword. The tavern-keeper flinched back from them, but quickly recovered himself.

'Well,' he said to Chan, sneering. 'I thought they were one thing, but I see they are your bodyguards.'

Quartz grabbed him by the shirt front and lifted him off the floor. Her broadsword scraped from its scabbard. Wess had never seen Quartz draw it, in defence or anger; she had never seen the blade. But Quartz had not neglected it. The edge gleamed with transparent sharpness.

'I forswore the frenzy when I abandoned war,' Quartz said very quietly. 'But you are very nearly enough to make me break my oath.' She opened her hand and he fell to his knees before the point of the sword.

'I meant no harm, my lady -'

'Do not call me "lady"! I am not of noble birth! I was a soldier and I am a woman. If that cannot deserve your courtesy, then you cannot command my mercy!'

'I meant no harm, I meant no offence. I beg your pardon ...' He looked up into her unreadable silver eyes. 'I beg your pardon, northern woman.'

There was no contempt in his voice now, only terror, and to Wess that was just as bad. She and Quartz could expect nothing here, except to be despised or feared. They had no other choices.

Quartz sheathed her sword. 'Your silver is on the table,' she said coldly. 'We had no mind to cheat you.'

He scrabbled up and away from them, into the room. Quartz grabbed the key from the inside, slammed the door, and locked it.

'Let's get out of here.'

They clattered down the stairs. In the street, they tied the packs together and to the horses' harnesses as best they could. Above,. they heard the innkeeper banging at the door, and when he failed to break it down, he came to the window.

'Help!' he cried. 'Help, kidnappers! Brigands!' Quartz vaulted up behind Aristarchus and Chan clambered up behind Wess. 'Help!' the innkeeper cried. 'Help, fire! Floods!'

Aristarchus gave his horse its head and it sprang forward. Wess's stallion tossed his mane, blew his breath out hard and loud, and leaped from a standstill into a gallop. All Wess could do was hold on, clutching the mane and the harness, hunching over the horse's withers, as he careered down the street.

They galloped through the outskirts of Sanctuary, splashed across the river at the ford, and headed north along the river trail. The horses sweated into a lather and Aristarchus insisted on slowing down and breathing them. Wess saw the sense of that, and, too, she could detect no pursuit from the city. She scanned the sky, but darkness hid any sign of the flyers.

Abandoning the headlong pace, they walked the horses or let them jog. Each step jarred Wess's ribs. She tried to concentrate on pushing out the pain, but to do it well she needed to stop, dismount, and relax. That was impossible right now. The road and the night led on forever.

At dawn, they reached the faint abandoned trail Wess had brought them in on. It led away from the road, directly up into the mountains.

The trees, black beneath the slate-blue sky, closed in overhead. Wess felt as if she had fought her way out of a nightmare world into a world she knew and loved. She did not yet feel free, but she could consider the possibility of feeling free again.

'Chan?'

'I'm here, love.'

She took his hand, where he held her gingerly around the waist, and kissed his palm. She leaned back against him, and he held her.

A stream gushed between the gnarled roots of trees, beside the nearly invisible trail.

'We should stop and let the horses rest,' Aristarchus said. 'And rest, ourselves.'

'There's a clearing a little way ahead,' Wess said. 'It has grass. They eat grass, don't they?'

Aristarchus chuckled. 'They do, indeed.'

When they reached the clearing. Quartz jumped down, stumbled, groaned, and laughed. 'It's a long time since I rode horseback,' she said. She helped Aristarchus off. Chan dismounted and stood testing his legs after the long ride. Wess sat where she was. She felt as if she were looking at the world through Lythande's secret sphere.

The sound of great wings filled the cold dawn. Satan and Aerie landed in the centre of the clearing and hurried towards them.

Wess twined her fingers in the skewbald's striped mane and slid off his back. She leaned against his shoulder, exhausted, taking short shallow breaths. She could hear Chan and Quartz greeting the flyers. But Wess could not move.

'Wess?'

She turned slowly, still holding the horse's mane. Satan smiled down at her. She was used to flyers being lean, but they were sleek: Satan was gaunt, his ribs and hips sharp beneath his skin. His short fur was dull and dry, and besides the scars on his back he had marks on his ankles, and around his throat, where he had been bound.

'Oh, Satan -' She embraced him, and he enfolded her in his wings.

'It's done,' he said. 'It's over.' He kissed her gently. Everyone gathered around him. He brushed the back of his hand softly down the side of Quartz's face, and bent down to kiss Chan.

'Frejojani ...' He looked at them all, then, as a tear spilled down his cheek, he wrapped himself in his wings and cried.

They held him and caressed him until the racking sobs ceased. Ashamed, he scrubbed away the tears with the palm of his hand. Aristarchus stood nearby, blinking his large green eyes.

'You must think me an awful fool, Aristarchus, a fool, and weak.'

The troll shook his head. 'I think, when I can finally believe I'm free ...' He looked at Wess. Thank you.'

They sat beside the stream to rest and talk.

'It's possible that we aren't even being followed,' Quartz said.

'We watched the city, till you entered the forest,' Aerie said. 'We saw no one else on the river road.'

'Then they might not have realized anyone but another flyer helped Satan escape. If no one saw us fell the tent -'

Wess reached into the stream and splashed her face, cupped her hand in the water, and lifted it to her lips. The first rays of direct sunlight pierced the branches and entered the clearing.

Her hand was still bloody. The blood was mixing with the water. She choked and spat, lurched to her feet, and bolted. A few paces away she fell to her knees and retched violently.

There was nothing in her stomach but bile. She crawled to the stream and scrubbed her hands, then her face, with sand and water. She stood up again. Her friends were staring at her, shocked.

'There was someone,' she said. 'Bauchle Meyne. But I killed him.'

'Ah,' Quartz said.

'You've given me another gift,' Satan said. 'Now I don't have to go back and kill him myself.'

'Shut up, Satan, she's never killed anyone before.'

'Nor have I. But I would have ripped out his throat if just once he'd left the chains slack enough for me to reach him!'

Wess wrapped her arms around herself, trying to ease the ache in her ribs. Suddenly Quartz was beside her.

'You're hurt - why didn't you tell me?'

Wess shook her head, unable to answer. And then she fainted.

She woke up at midaftemoon, lying in the shade of a tall tree in a circle of her friends. The horses grazed nearby, and Aristarchus sat on a stone beside the stream, combing the tangles from his fur. Wess got up and went to sit beside him.

'Did you call my name?'

'No,' he said.

'I thought I heard -' She shrugged. 'Never mind.'

'How are you feeling?'

'Better.' Her ribs were bandaged tight. 'Quartz is a good healer.'

'No one is following. Aerie looked, a little while ago.'

'That's good. May I comb your back for you?'

'That would be a great kindness.'

In silence, she combed him, but she was paying very little attention. The third time the comb caught on a knot, Aristarchu" protested quietly.

'Sister, please, that fur you're plucking is attached to my skin.'

'Oh, Aristarchus, I'm sorry...'

'What's wrong?'

'I don't know,' she said. 'I feel -1 want -1...' She handed him the comb and stood. 'I'm going to walk up the trail a little way. I won't be gone long.'

In the silence of the forest she felt easier, but there was something pulling her, something calling to her that she could not hear.

And then she did hear something, a rustling of leaves. She faded back off the trail, hiding herself, and waited.

Lythande walked slowly, tiredly, along the trail. Wess was so surprised that she did not speak as the wizard passed her, but a few paces on, Lythande stopped and looked around, frowning.

'Westerly?'

Wess stepped into sight. 'How did you know I was there?*

'I felt you near ... How did you find me?'

'I thought I heard someone call me. Was that a spell?'

'No. Just a hope.'

'You look so tired, Lythande.'

Lythande nodded. 'I received a challenge. I answered it.'

'And you won -'

'Yes.' Lythande smiled bitterly. 'I still walk the earth and wait for the days of Chaos. If that is winning, then I won.'

'Come back to camp and rest and eat with us,'

'Thank you, little sister. I will rest with you. But your friend -you found him?'

'Yes. He's free.'

'You all escaped unhurt?'

Wess shrugged, and was immediately sorry for it. 'I did crack my ribs this time.' She did not want to talk about the deeper hurts.

'And now - are you going home?'

'Yes.'

Lythande smiled. 'I might have known you would find the Forgotten Pass.'

They walked together back towards camp. A little scared by her own presumption, Wess reached out and took the wizard's hand in hers. Lythande did not draw away, but squeezed her fingers gently.

'Westerly -' Lythande looked at her straight on, and Wess stopped. 'Westerly, would you go back to Sanctuary?'

Stunned and horrified, Wess said, 'Why?'

'It isn't as bad as it seems at first. You could learn many things...'

'About being a wizard?'

Lythande hesitated. 'It would be difficult, but - it might be possible. It is true that your talents should not be wasted.'

'You don't understand,' Wess said. 'I don't want to be a wizard. I wouldn't go back to Sanctuary if that were the reason.'

Lythande said, finally, 'That isn't the only reason.'

Wess took Lythande's hand between her own, drew it to her lips, and kissed the palm. Lythande reached up and caressed Wess's cheek. Wess shivered at the touch.

'Lythande, I can't go back to Sanctuary. You would be the only reason I was there - and it would change me. It did change me. I don't know if I can go back to being the person I was before I came here, but I'm going to try. Most of what I did learn there I would rather never have known. You must understand me!' 'Yes,' Lythande said. 'It was not fair of me to ask.'

'It isn't that I wouldn't love you,' Wess said, and Lythande looked at her sharply. Wess took as deep a breath as she could,

and continued. 'But what I feel for you would change, too, as I changed. It wouldn't be love anymore. It would be ... need, and demand, and envy.'

Lythande sat on a tree root, shoulders slumped, and stared at the ground. Wess knelt beside her and smoothed her hair back from her forehead.

'Lythande...'

'Yes, little sister,' the magician whispered, as if she were too tired to speak aloud.

'You must have important work here.' How could she bear it otherwise? Wess thought. She is going to laugh at you for what you ask her, and explain how foolish it is, and how impossible. 'And Kaimas, my home... you would find it dull -' She stopped, surprised at herself for her hesitation and her fear. 'You come with me, Lythande,' she said abruptly. 'You come home with me.'

Lythande stared at her, her expression unreadable. 'Did you mean what you said '

'It's so beautiful, Lythande. And peaceful. You've met half my family already. You'd like the rest of them, too! You said you had things to leam from us.'

'- about loving me?'

Wess caught her breath. She leaned forward and kissed Lythande quickly, then, a second time, slowly, as she had wanted to since the moment she saw her.

She drew back a little.

'Yes,'she said.'Sanctuary made me lie, but I'm not in Sanctuary now. With any luck I'll never see it again, and never have to lie anymore.'

'If I had to go-'

Wess grinned. 'I might try to persuade you to stay.' She touched Lythande's hair. 'But I wouldn't try to hold you. As long as you wanted to stay, and whenever you wanted to come back, you'd have a place in Kaimas.'

'It isn't your resolve I doubt, little sister, it's my own. And my own strength. I think I would not want to leave your home, once I'd been there for a while.'

'I can't see the future,' Wess said. Then she laughed at herself, for what she was saying to a wizard. "Perhaps you can.'

Lythande made no reply.

'All I know,' Wess said, 'is that anything anyone does might cause pain. To oneself, to a friend. But you cannot do nothing.' She stood up. 'Come. Come sleep, with me and my friends. And then we'll go home.'

Lythande stood up too. 'There's so much you don't know about me, little sister. So much of it could hurt you.'

Wess closed her eyes, wishing, like a child at twilight seeking out a star. She opened her eyes again.

Lythande smiled. 'I will come with you. If only for a while.'

They walked together, hand in hand, to join the others.