Soul of the City

POWER PLAY by Janet Morris

Tempus, a mercenary general in the service of Ranke's new emperor, was knee-deep in the bloody purges marking the first winter of Theron's accession to the Rankan throne when the sky above the walled city began to weep black tears.

By the time dawn should have broken, ashen clouds massed to the very vault of heaven so that not even the Sun God's sharpest rays could pierce the arrayed armies of the night. The city of Ranke, once the brightest jewel of the Rankan empire, shuddered in the dark, her ochre walls stained dusky from the storm's black and ugly might.

Thunder growled; winds yowled. Black hail pelted Theron's palace, shattering windows and pounding doors. On temple streets and cultured byways it bounced, sharp as diamonds and large as heads, bringing impious priests to their knees and cheap nobles to charity in slick streets covered with greasy slush freezing to ice as black, some said, as their emperor Theron's heart.

For all knew that Theron had come to power in a coup instigated by the armies-he was a creature of blood, a wild beast of the battlefield. And the proof of this was in the allies who had brought him to the Imperial palace: Nisibisi witches, demons of the black beyond, devils of horrid aspect, even the feared near immortals of the blood cults-Askelon, the lord of dreams, and his brother-in-law Tempus, demigod and favorite son of Vashanka, the Rankan wargod, to name but two- had lent their strength to Theron's cause.

Did not Tempus still labor at his gory task of purging the disloyal-all who had been influential in Abakithis's court? Did not women still wake to empty beds and find pouches made of human skin and filled with thirty gold soldats (the Rankan price for one human life) nailed to their boudoir doors?

Did not those few remaining adherents of Abakithis, former emperor of Ranke (now deceased, unavenged, much cursed in his uneasy grave), still scuttle even through the deadly, knife-sharp hail with bulging pockets to the mercenaries' guildhall to leave their fortunes at the desk with scrawled notes saying, "For Tempus, to distribute as he wills, from the admiring and loyal family of So-and So," while servants spirited noble wives and children out back ways and slumyard gates in beggars' guise?

Thus it was whispered, as the storm raged unabated into its second day, that Theron and his creature Tempus were to blame for this black blizzard straight from hell.

It was whispered by a woman to Critias, Tempus's first officer and finest covert actor, who had infiltrated the noble strata of the imperial city; And Crit, with a wry twitch of lips that drew down his patrician nose and a rake of his swordhand through dark, feathery hair, replied to the governor's wife he was bedding: "No one gives a contract for a sunrise, m'lady. No man. that is. Theron is no more than that. When gods throw tantrums, even Tempus listens."

Crit had fought in the Wizard Wars up north and the woman knew it. His guise was that of a disaffected officer who had renounced his commission after Abakithis's assassination at the Festival of Man and now, like so many others of the old guard, scrambled from allegiance to allegiance in search of safety.

So the governor's wife just ran a finger along his jaw and smiled commiseratingly as she said, "You men of the armies ... all alike. I suppose you're telling me that this is good? This storm, this hail black as hell? That it's a sign we poor women cannot read?"

And (thinking of the prognosticators-bits of hair and silver and bone and luck nestled in the pouch dangling from his belt that, with the rest of his clothes, lay in a heap at the foot of another man's bed) Crit replied in Court Rankene, "When the Storm God returns to the armies, wars can be won-not just fought interminably. Without Him, we've just been marking time. If He's angry, He'll let us know on what account. And I'd bet it won't be Theron's-or Tempus's. One's a general whom the soldiers chose exactly because the god had abandoned us during Abakithis's reign; the other is..."

It was not the woman's hand, reaching low, which made him pause. She wanted Crit's protection; information was what he'd sought here in return. And gotten what he'd come for, and more from this one-all a Rankan lady had to give. So he thought-in a moment of unaccustomed tenderness for one who would likely entertain, on his account, the crowds who'd throng the execution stands when the weather broke-to explain to her about Tempus. About what and who the man Crit had sworn to serve was, and was not.

He settled for "... Tempus is what Father Enlil-Lord Storm to the armies-wills, and cursed more than Ranke and all her enemies put together. By gods and men, by magic and mages. If there's hell to pay because of Theron's reign, rest assured, lady, it's he who'll suffer in all our steads."

The Rankan woman, from the look on her face and the hunger on her lips, had lost interest in the subject. But Crit had not. When he left her, he marked her door with a sign for the palace police without even a second thought to the fine body behind it which would soon be lifeless.

The sky was still black as a witch's crotch and the wind was chorusing its judgment song in a many-throated voice Crit had heard occasionally on the battlefield when Tempus's non-human allies took a hand in this skirmish or that choraling the way it used to when wizard weather blew in Sanctuary, where Crit's partner and his brothers of the Sacred Band were now, down at the empire's most foul and egregious southernmost appurtenance.

By the time Crit had retrieved his horse, his fingers were playing with the luck charms in his beltpouch. Normally, he'd have pulled them out, squatted down, shaken and thrown them in the straw for guidance.

But the storm was guidance enough; he didn't need to ask a question he wouldn't like the answer to. If his partner Strat had been on his right tonight, he'd have bet his friend any odds that, when the weather broke, Tempus would come rousting Crit without so much as an explanation and they'd be heading south to Sanctuary where the Sacred Band was quartered for the winter.

Not that he didn't want to see Strat-he did. Not that he wasn't happy that the Storm god Vashanka, God of the Annies, of Rape and Pillage, of Bloodlust and Fury and Death's Gate, was manifest-he was. What he'd told the Rankan bitch was true-you couldn't win a war without your god. But Vashanka, the Rankan Storm God, had deserted the Stepsons, Crit's unit, in their need. So the unit had taken up with another, perhaps greater, god: Father Enlil.

And the black, roiling clouds above, the voices which spoke thunder over the fighter's head, were telling a man who didn't like gods much better than magic and who was first officer to a demigod who meddled with both, that Vashanka might not be too pleased with the fickle men who once had slaughtered in His name and now did so in Another's.

Things were so damned complicated whenever Tempus was .involved.

Grabbing a tuft of mane, Crit swung up on his warhorse and reined it around so hard it half-reared and then, finding itself headed toward the mercenaries' guild and its own stall, safety and comfort in the storm, fairly bolted through the treacherous, slushy streets of Ranke.

Despite the darkened ways and chancy footing, Crit let the young horse run, trusting pedestrians, should there be any, to scatter, and armed patrols to recognize him for who and what he was. The horse had a right to comfort, where it could find some. Crit couldn't think of a thing that would do the same for him, now that the gods had dropped one shoe and all he could do was wait until Tempus dropped the other.

The storm didn't exactly break, but on the fourth day it mellowed.

By then, Theron and Tempus had summoned Brachis, High Priest of the Variously Named Wargods of Imperial Ranke, and concocted a likely story for the populace.

Executions, held in abeyance for the first three days of the storm, were resumed. "More purges, obviously. Your Majesty," Brachis had suggested, unctuous to the point of insult, managing by his exaggerated servility to mean the opposite of what he said, "will appease the hungry gods."

And Theron, old and as gray as the shadows in this newly acquired but not yet conquered palace full of politicians and whores, gave Brachis a tare fully as black as the raging sky outside and said, "Right, priest. Let's have a dozen of your worst enemies bled out in Blood Square by lunch."

Tempus stayed an impulse to touch his old friend Theron's knee under the table.

But Brachis didn't rise to Theron's bait. The priest bowed his way out in a swish of copper-beaded robes.

"God's balls, Riddler," said the aging general to the ageless one, "do you think we've angered the gods? More to the point, do you think we've got one to anger?"

Theron's jaw jutted so that the pitting of age made it look like a walnut shell, or the snout of the moth-eaten geriatric lion he so much resembled from his thinning, unkempt mane to his scarred and twisted claws. He was a big man still, his power no mere memory, but fresh and flowing in corded veins and leathery sinews-big and powerful in his aged prime, except when seen in close proximity to Tempus, the avatar of Storm Gods on earth, whose yarrow-honey hair and high brow free from lines resembled so much the votive statues of Vashanka still worshiped in the land. Tempus's eyes were long and full of guile, his form heroic, his aspect one of a man on the joyous side of forty, though he'd seen empires rise and fall and fully expected to see the end of this one-to bury Theron as he had and would so many other men, with all their might ranged round them. And Theron knew the truth of it-he'd known Tempus since both were seemingly of an age, fighting the Defender on Wizardwall's skirts when the Rankan Empire was just a babe. The two were honest with one another when it was possible; they were careful when it was not.

"Got a god to anger? We've got something mad enough to spit, I'll own," Tempus replied. Now, Tempus knew, was not the time to raise false hopes of Vashanka the Missing God's return in a warrior who'd willingly and knowingly come to a throne whose weight would kill him. It was the dirtiest of jobs, was kingship, and Theron had become the man to do it by default. "If it's Vashanka, then it's a matter between Him and Enlil. Theomachy tends to kill more men than gods. Don't be too anxious to get the armies' hopes up-the war with Myg-donia won't end by gods' wills, any more than it will by Nisi-bisi magic."

"That's what you think this infernal darkness is, then- magic? Your nemesis, perhaps ... the Nisibisi witch?"

"Or yours, the Nisibisi warlocks. What matter, gods or magic? If I thought he had the power, I'd pick Brachis as the culprit. He'd do without both of us well enough."

"We'd do without all of his well enough. But we're stuck with one another, for the nonce. Unless, of course, you've a suggestion... some way to rid me, as the saying has gone from time immemorial, of all meddlesome priests?"

The two were fencing with words, neither addressing the real problem: the storm was being taken as an omen, and a bad one, on the nature of Theron's rule.

The aging general fingered a jeweled goblet whose bowl was balanced upon a winged lion and sighed deeply at almost the same time that Tempus's rattling chuckle sounded. "An omen, is it, old lion? Is that what you really want-an omen to make this a mandate from the gods, not a critique?"

"What / want?" Theron thundered in return, suddenly sweeping up the artsy, jewel-encrusted goblet of state and throwing it so hard against the farther wall that it bounced back to land among the dregs spilled from it and roll eerily, back and forth in a circle, in the middle of the floor.

Back and forth it rolled, first one way and then the other, making a sound like chariot wheels upon the stone floor, a sound which grew louder and melded with the thunder outside and the renewed clatter of hailstones which resembled horses' hooves, as if a team from heaven was thundering down the blackened sky.

And Tempus found the hair on his arms raising up and the skin under his beard crawling as the wine dregs spattered on the floor began to smoke and steam and the dented goblet to shimmer and gleam and, inside his head, a rustle-familiar and unfamiliar-began to sound as a god came to visit there.

He really hated it when gods intruded inside his skull. He managed to mutter "Crap! Get thee hence!" before he realized that it was neither the deep and primal breathing of Father Enlil-Lord Storm-nor the passionate and demanding boom of Vashanka the Pillager which he was hearing so loud that the shimmer and thunder and smoke issuing from the goblet and dregs before him were diminished to insignificance. It was neither voice from either god; it was comprised of both.

Both! This was too much. His own fury roused. He detested being invaded; he hated being an instrument, a pawn, the butler of one murder god, the batman of another.

He fought the heaviness in his limbs which demanded that he sit, still and pop eyed, like Theron across the table from him, and meekly submit to whatever manifestation was in the process of coalescing before him. He snarled and cursed the very existence of godhead and managed to get his hands on the stout edge of the plank table.

He squeezed the wood so hard that it dented and formed round his fingers like clay, but he could not rise nor could he banish the babble of divine infringement from his head.

And before him, where a cup had rolled, wheels spun- golden-rimmed wheels of a war chariot drawn by smoke-colored Tros horses whose shod hooves struck sparks from the stones of the palace floor. Out of a maelstrom of swirling smoke it came, and Tempus was so mesmerized by the squealing of the horses and the screech of unearthly stresses around the rent in time and space through which the chariot approached that he only barely noticed that Theron had thrown up both hands to shield his face and was cowering like an aged child at his own table.

The horses were harnessed in red leather that was shiny, as if wet. Beyond the blood-red reins were hands, and the arms attached were well-formed and strong, brown and smooth, without hair or scar above graven gauntlets. The'driver's torso was covered by a cuirass of enameled metal, cast to the physique beneath it, jointed and gilded in the fashion chosen by the Sacred Band at its inception.

Tempus did not need to see the face, by then, to know that he was not being visited by a god, nor an archmage, nor even a demon, but by a creature more strange: as the chariot emerged fully from the miasma around it and the horses snorted and plunged, dancing in place, and the wheels screeched to a halt, Tempus saw a hand raise to a brow in a greeting of equals.

The greeting was for him, not for Theron, who cowered with wide eyes. The face of the man in the chariot smiled softly. The eyes resting upon Tempus so fondly were as pale and pure as cool water. And as the vision opened its mouth to speak, the god-din in Tempus's ears subsided to a rustle, then to whispers, then to contented sighs that faded entirely away when Abarsis, dead Slaughter Priest and patron shade of the Sacred Band, wrapped his blood-red reins casually around the chariot's brake and stepped down from his car, arms wide to embrace Tempus, whom Abarsis had loved better than life when the ghost had been a man.

There was nothing for it, Tempus realized, but to make the best of the situation, though seeing the materialization of a boy who had sought an honorable death in Tempus's service wrenched his heart.

The boy was now a power on his own-a power from beyond Death's Gate, true, but a power all the same.

"Commander," said the velvet-voiced shade, "I see from your face that you still have it in your heart to love me. That's good. This was not an easy journey to arrange."

The two embraced, and Abarsis's upswept eyes and high curved cheeks, his young bull's neck and his glossy black hair, felt all too real-as substantial as the splinters that had somehow gotten under Tempus's fingernails.

And the boy was yet strong-that is, the shade was. Tem-pus, stepping back, started to speak but found his voice choked with melancholy. What did one say to the dead? Not "How's life?" surely. Certainly not the Sacred Band greeting....

But Abarsis spoke it to Tempus, as he had said it so long ago in Sanctuary, where he'd gone to die. "Life to you, Riddler, and everlasting glory. And to your friend ... to our friend... Theron of Ranke, salutations."

Hearing his name shook Theron from his funk. But the old fighter was nearly speechless, quaking visibly.

Seeing this, Tempus recovered himself: "You scared us half to death. Is this your darkness, then?" Tempus stepped back and waved a hand toward the sky beyond the corbeled ceiling overhead. "If so, we could do without it. Scares the locals. We're trying to settle in a military rule here, not start a civil war."

A shadow passed quickly over the beautiful face of the Slaughter Priest and Tempus, seeing it, wanted to ask, "Are you real? Are you reborn? Have you come to stay?"

The shade looked him hard in the eye and that glance struck his soul and shocked it. "No. None of that, Riddler. I am here to bring a message and ask a favor-for favors done and yet to be done."

"Ahem. Tempus, will you introduce me? It's my palace, after all," the emperor growled, bluffing annoyance, straining for composure, and casting covetous glances at the horses- if such they were-which stood at parade rest in their traces, ears pricked forward, just a bit of steam issuing from their nostrils. "Favors," Theron murmured, "done and yet to be done...."

"Theron, Emperor of Ranke, General of the Armies and so forth, meet Abarsis, Slaughter Priest, former High Priest of Vashanka, former-"

"Former living ally," Abarsis cut in, smooth as a whetted blade, "and ally still, Theron. We've a problem, and it lies in Sanctuary. Speaking through priests is a matter for gods; my mandate is different. Tempus, whom we both love, must listen to gods, not priests, but on this occasion, I am... well equipped..." His grin flashed as it had once in life: "... to interpret." Then he shifted and his gaze caught Tempus's and held: "The message is: the globes of Nisibisi power must be destroyed; all the gods will rejoice when it is done. Destroyed in Sanctuary, where there are tortured souls of yours and mine to be released. The favor is: grant Niko's wish in a matter of children ... yours and Ours."

Ours? There was no mistaking the upper-case tone Abarsis had used-a tone reserved for deific matters and one word 'spoken by the dead High Priest of Vashanka who had come so far to utter it. Liking the smell of things less and less, Tempus took a step backward and sat upon the table's edge, thinking, For this, he comes to me. Wonderful. Now what?

For Tempus, who could refuse a god and obstruct an arch-mage, knew, looking at Abarsis, that he could refuse this one nothing. It was an old debt, a mutual responsibility stretching far beyond such trifles as life and death. It was a matter of souls, and Tempus's soul was very old. So old that, seeing Abarsis yet young, yet beautiful in his spirit and his honor in a way Tempus no longer could be, the man called the Riddler felt suddenly very tired.

And Tempus, who never slept-who had not slept since he had been cursed by an archmage and taken solace in the protection of a god three centuries past-began to feel drowsy. His eyelids grew heavy and Abarsis's words grew loud, echoing unintelligibly so that it seemed as if Theron and Abarsis spoke together in some room far away.

Just before he collapsed on the table, snoring deeply in a sleep that would last until the weather broke the following day, Tempus heard Abarsis say clearly, "And for you, Tempus, whom I love above all men, I have this special gift... not much, just a token: on this one evening, my lord, I have haggled from the gods for you a good night's rest. So now, sleep and dream of me."

And thus Tempus slept, and when he woke, Abarsis was long gone and preparations for Theron, Tempus, and a hand-picked contingent to depart for Sanctuary were well under way.

Trouble was coming to Sanctuary; Roxane could feel it in her bones. The premonition cut like a knife to the very quick of the Nisibisi witch, once called Death's Queen, who now huddled in her shrouded hovel on Sanctuary's White Foal River, beset from within and without.

Once she had been nearly all powerful; once she had been a perpetrator, not a victim; once she had decreed Suffering and marshalled Woe upon human cattle from Sanctuary's sorry spit to Wizardwall's wildest peaks.

But that was before she'd fallen in love with a mortal and paid the ancient price. Perhaps if that mortal had not been Stealth, called Nikodemos, Sacred Bander and member in good standing ofTempus's blood-drenched cadre of Stepsons, it would not seem so foolish now to have traded in immortality for the ability to shed a woman's tears and feel a woman's fleeting joy.

But Niko had betrayed her. She should have known; if she'd been a human woman she would have-no man, and most especially no thrice-paired fighter who'd taken the Sacred Band oath, would feel loyalty or honor toward a woman when it conflicted with his bond with men.

She should have known, but she hadn't even guessed. For Niko was the tenderest of souls where women were concerned; he loved them as a class, as he loved fine horses and young children-not lasciviously, but honestly and freely. Now that she understood, it was an insult: She was no waif, no fuddle -headed twat, no inconsequential piece of fluff. And there was injury to add to insult's sting: Roxane had given up immortality to love a mortal who wasn't capable of appreciating such a gift.

She had been betrayed by her "beloved" over a matter that should have been towering only in its insignificance: the "life" of a petty mageling, a would-be wizard called Randal, a flop-eared, freckled fool who fooled now with forces beyond his ability to control.

Yes, Niko had dared to trick Roxane, to distract her with his charms while this posturing prestidigitator, whom she'd thought to have for dinner, got away.

And now Niko lurked in priestholes, palaces, and princely bedrooms, protected by Randal (who had a Globe of Power similar to Roxane's own, and more powerful) and the countermagical armor given Niko by the entelechy of dreams. Not once did sweet Stealth venture riverward, though his de facto commander, Straton of the Stepsons, rode this way on evenings to visit another witch.

This other witch, too, was an enemy of Roxane's-Ischade the necromant, whom by rights the Stepsons should have hated more than they did Roxane, vilified in their prayers as they nightly did Death's Queen.

There was some irony to that: Ischade, a tawdry soul-sucker with limited power and unlimited lust, was a friend of the Stepsons, ally of the mercenary army that was all that stood between Sanctuary and total chaos now that the town was divided into blood feuds and factions as the Rankan Empire's grasp grew weak and the Rankan prince, Kadakithis, was barricaded in his palace with some salmon eyed Beysib slut from a fishy foreign land.

And Roxane, who'd been Death's Queen on Wizardwall and flown high, ruler of all she once surveyed, was shunned by Stepsons and even by lesser factions in the town-all but her own death squads, some truly dead and raised from crypts to do her bidding, some only a hair's-breadth away from mossy graves like One-Thumb, the Vulgar Unicorn's proprietor, a.k.a. Lastel, and Zip, guttersnipe leader of the PFLS (Popular Front for the Liberation of Sanctuary) rebels who couldn't get along without her help.

And Snapper Jo, of course, her single remaining fiend-a warty, gray-skinned, wall-eyed beast, snaggle-toothed and orange-haired, whom she'd summoned from a nearby hell to serve her-she still had Snapper, though lately he'd been taking his spy's job of day-barkeep at the Vulgar Unicorn too much to heart, thinking silly thoughts of camaraderie with humans (who'd no more accept a fiend as one of them than the Stepsons had accepted Roxane).

And she had her snakes, of course, a fresh supply, whom she could witch into human form for intervals (though Sanctuary's snakes weren't bred for masquerading and turned out small, sleepy in cold weather, and even more dull witted than the northern kind).

Still, it was a pair of snakes-a butler-snake and a bodyguard-whom she called to build a fire in her witching room, to bring her chalcedony water bowl and place it on a column of porphyry near the hearth, to stay and watch and wait with her while she poured salt into the water and words came from her mouth to make the salt into her will and the water bowl into the open wounds in Sanctuary. Not wounds of flesh, but wounds of spirit-the arrogance of loyalty given and withheld, the gall of greed, the acne of innocence, the lacerations of love, the pustules of passion which prickled such hearts as Straton's, as Randal's. as those of the prince/governor and his flounder-faced consort, Shupansea (fool enough to keep snakes herself, thinking that Beysib snakes might be immune to Nisibisi snake magic), and even as Niko's own consuming compassion for a pair of children he wet-nursed like some useless Rankan matron.

And the water in her bowl took chop as the salt hit it, then began to cloud and then to bubble as if salt had turned to acid in hearts all around the town. The color of the water grew grayer, more opaque, and outside her skin-covered window, snow began to fall in giant flakes.

"Go, snakes," she crooned, "go meet your brothers in the palace of the prince. Meet and eat them, then defeat the peace between the Beysib and her Rankan host. And find those children, both, and bite them with the poison of your fangs, so that death beats down on midnight wings and Niko will be forced to come to me... to me to save them." Almost, she didn't get those last words out, because a chuckle rose to block the speech's end-especially the word "save."

For as she'd looked into the bowl she'd seen a vision, then another. First she'd seen riders, and a boat with a lion rampant on its prow: one rider was her ancient enemy, Tempus, called the Sleepless One, avatar of godly mischief; another was Jihan, a more potent enemy. Froth Daughter, princess of the endless sea, a copper-colored nymph of matchless passion, a sprite with all the strength of moon and tides between her knees; another was Critias, Strat's partner and better half, the coldest and boldest of the Stepsons, and the only man among the lot of them who didn't need more-than mortal help to do his job. And on the boat, now seeming like a wedding gift, all wrapped in gilt and gloriously colored sails as it drew nearer, was a man she'd helped become a king, one who owed an unequivocal debt to Death's Queen-Theron, Emperor of Ranke, who was so anxious to pay Roxane's price he was trekking to the empire's anus to bow his knee.

Oh, yes, she thought then. Trouble, let it come. For Roxane, once the visions were cleared from the salted water of her bowl by an impatient, dusky hand, had an idea-a thought, an inspiration, a vengeful task to undertake fitting to all the harm past and present denizens of Sanctuary had done her: She'd seen the error of her ways, and now she'd seen a new solution. She'd given up too much for Nikodemos, who'd turned on her and spumed her. She'd trade this batch of hapless souls to get back what she'd so foolishly bargained away.

And then it was left to her only to dismiss the snakes, drink the water in the bowl, and settle down spread-legged in the middle of her summoning room floor, awaiting the Devils of Demonic Deals, the Negotiators of Necromancy, the Underworld's Underwriters, to appear, to take the bait a witch could offer and then, when sated, be tricked into giving Roxane back immortality in exchange for the deaths of a pair of children who might be gods if ever they grew up, and that of Nikodemos, who deserved no better if he'd thought to spurn the witch who loved him and survive it. Of course, she'd throw in Tempus, too, for fun. He'd make an undead of choice to send raping and pillaging up and down the streets of Sanctuary of an evening, streets so thick with hatred and slick with blood no one would even think to worry about what kind of death they got.

For Sanctuarites cared only for this life, not the next. They were ignorant of choices made beyond the grave, or given up today for trifles. They didn't know or care that an eternity of hell could be had for cheap, or that the gods offered out another way. • -

This was why she liked it here, did Roxane. Even once she'd sacrificed Niko and his ilk-the entire Sacred Band and unpaired Stepsons, if she got lucky-she'd stay around. Once there was no more Ischade to interfere, no silly priests like the Torchholder to try to resurrect a dead god's cult, the place would let her have her way.

And so, decided, she crooked a finger and, from nowhere visible, a sound like hellish hinges squeaking reverberated through her chamber, a non-door swung down, and a Globe of Power could be glimpsed, spinning gently on its axis of golden glyphs, its stones beginning to glow as its song of sorcery spun louder aild, from hells Sanctuary wasn't used to accommodating, a demon choir began to chant.

It was the old way, the only way: evil for evil, tenfold. And she'd promised hell to pay, visited upon this town for its of-fenses and its slights.

There remained only to touch flesh and nail to the globe spinning larger, closer, right before her eyes.

She reached out and braced herself, for a demon lover would come with contact: One did have to pay as one went, even if one was Nisibis's finest witch.

Her nail screeched into the high peaks' clay, and a demon screeched into existence between her knees, and a hellish gale whose like was known as wizard weather up and down the land stretched from Sanctuary's southernmost tip up along the Ran-kan seaboard where the imperial ship was under way.

And everywhere men remarked that, even for wizard weather, the gale was fierce and loud, and full of sounds the like of a goddess being raped in some forgotten passion play.

Sanctuary promised nothing of the sort to Critias, who'd ridden downcountry at an ungodly rate with Tempus and his inhuman consort, Jihan, daughter of the primal power men called Stormbringer (when they were so unlucky as to have to call Him anything at all).

The ride-across No Man's Land, a shortcut full of shades and mirages through a desert the party shouldn't have been able to cross in twice the time-hadn't been the sort of trip Crit liked. It was too fast, too easy, too full of magic-or whatever the equivalent was when power was fielded not by a human mage, but by Jihan, daughter of Stormbringer, lord of wind and wave.

Now that they'd nearly reached the town, it was too late for Crit to ask his commander questions-whether, as rumor had it, Abarsis had really appeared to the Riddler in Theron's palace; why, even if that were true, Tempus had seen fit to split his forces: the three of them were worth more than the score of fighters accompanying Theron on his ocean voyage.

But straight answers were lacking in the Rankan Empire this season, and Tempus, with Jihan around, was more obscure than usual.

So it came to pass that Tempus said to Crit as they came down the General's Road to the ford at the White Foal River: "Make your own way henceforth. Stepson, among the pigs in their mire. Find Straton and reconvene your covert actors: I want the whereabouts of Roxane and her power globe by midnight."

"Is that all?" Crit asked, sarcasm finding its way into his tone-no disrespect, but gods whispered in the Riddler's ears and never spoke to Critias at all, so that orders like these always seemed impossible, issuing from nowhere, though he'd hardly ever failed to carry through a task, however vague, that the Riddler set him.

But this time, as his sorrel stallion pawed the White Foal's mud and lewdly eyed the blue roan Jihan rode, Crit was more than usually defensive: Down in Sanctuary, across the Foal somewhere, was Kama, Tempus's daughter, whom Crit had got with child. It had been in the Wizard Wars, against the Riddler's orders, and ill had come of it for everyone involved. He'd not thought of her-an act of will, not fortune-until this moment, but looking out across the Foal where the lights of Sanctuary's whorehold, the Street of Red Lanterns, were twinkling in the dusk, suddenly the mercenary fighter could' think of nothing else.

And Tempus, who understood too much too often, who healed from every mortal cut he took, who buried everyone he loved in time and enjoyed the confidence of gods and shades, said softly in a voice like the river coursing gravel, "No, not all. A start. Take a unit of your choosing, find Straton, use what he has, destroy Roxane's power globe by dawn, then seek me in the palace."

"And is that the whole of it. Commander?" Crit asked laconically, as if the task were simple, not a death sentence or an invitation to mutiny.

Crit saw even Jihan's feral eyes go wide. The Froth Daughter, achingly attractive to a fighter with her form clothed in scale armor shining like the dusk, looked between the two men and whispered something to the Riddler, then looked back at Crit.

The long-eyed Riddler did not, just stroked his gray's arched neck. "It's enough," replied the man Crit served and often had thought he'd die to please.

That evening, later, riding alone through the Common Gate in search of Straton, Critias was^ no longer so sure that an honorable death would be a privilege-not when it was here.

Sanctuary hadn't changed, or if it had, the change was for the worse. There were checkpoints everywhere and Crit had to bully his way through two of them before finding a soldier he knew-someone who had an armband he could commandeer.

By then he'd skirted the palace, green-walled because some sort of fungus or moss was growing there, and entered the Bazaar where illicit drugs, girls and boys, and even lives were hawked openly in twisting streets.

His back unguarded, his sorrel spooked and dancing, he was heading for the Maze, a deeper slum than this one, against his better judgment because he didn't want to look for Strat where his erstwhile partner probably could be found-lying in with the vampire woman who held sway in Shambles Cross and used the White Foal to dispose of victims.

From between two produce stalls Critias heard a hiss and a low whistle-old northern recognition signs. Adjusting the armband (a dirty rainbow of cloth specked with long-dried blood), he looked about: to his right was a fortune teller's tent-a S'danzo girl, Illyra, worked there. He saw her standing in the door.

They'd never met, yet she waved-a hesitant gesture, part warding sign, part blessing.

The last thing Crit wanted was his fortune told: he could feel it in his pouch, where amulets grew heavy; on his neck, where hairs stood on end; in his gut, which had frozen solid when Tempus had calmly ordered him to his death on a flimsy pretext. Crit had never thought the Riddler'd held a grudge about his daughter and her miscarried child. But there was no other reason to send Stepsons up against a witch like Roxane.

Was that, then, what Abarsis had come to say to him? That it was time a few more Sacred Banders made their way to heaven? Was Abarsis lonely for his boys? Before Tempus had led the Band, Crit had fought for the Slaughter Priest. But in those days Abarsis had been of flesh and blood, even if obsessed with tasks done for the gods.

"Psst! Crit! Here!"

Between the stalls, opposite the fortune-teller's tent, were too many shadows. Crit sat his horse, arm crooked over his pommel, and waited, watching where his mount's ears pricked like dowsing rods.

Out from the gloom came a hand, white and long-a woman's, despite the leather bracer.

Crit squeezed with his right knee and the sorrel ambled forward-one pace, two. Then he said, "Hello, Kama. What's that you've got there, friend or captive?"

Beside the woman half in shadow was a waif-a flat-faced boy with almond eyes and scruffy beard who wore a black rag bound across his brow.

The boy didn't matter; the woman, crossbow pointed half to port so that its flight would skewer Crit's belly if she pulled its trigger mechanism back, mattered more than Crit liked.

Tempus's daughter laughed the throaty laugh that had gotten Crit in trouble long ago. "Looking for someone?" Kama never answered stupid questions. She was as sharp as her father, in her way. But not as ethical.

"Strat," he said simply, to make things clear.

"Our 'acting' military governor, now that Kadakithis lies abed with Beysibs? The leader of the militias and their councils? The vampire's fancy man? You know the way-down on the White Foal. But do take an unfortunate or two to appease her hunger-for old time's sake, I'll warn you."

Crit didn't react to Kama's acid comments on Strat's faring-for all he knew, it might be true; and he'd never show her she could still reach him, let alone hurt him. He said, "How about this pud you've got here? Will he do?" For the signs of something intimate between the woman and the street tough were clear to see-hips brushed, though Kama held the crossbow; whispers went back and forth through motionless lips.

And the youth was armed-slingshot on one wrist, dagger at his hip. The slingshot was arrogantly aimed at Crit's eyes by the time Kama said, "Don't make the mistake of thinking you understand what you're seeing, fighter. You'll need help. If you're smart, you'll remember where and how to get it- Strat's part of Sanctuary's problem, not its solution."

Everyone found comfort where they could in wartime, and Sanctuary was war's womb, a microcosm of every horror man could foist upon his brother-worse now with factions holding checkpoints and militias ruling blocks whose inhabitants were never certain. The idea of Strat being a part of Sanctuary's problem nearly made him draw his own bow-Crit knew Kama well enough to know, if quarrels were loosed, his would find its mark first: her woman's hesitation would be her last.

And he might have, right then, no matter what her provenance, but for the pud who didn't know him and didn't like any northern rider, especially one talking to his girlfriend. The slingshot grew taut, the boy's eyes steady as his stance widened.

So there was that-a deadly interval of stalemate broken only when a drunk caromed off a nearby doorway and knelt down, retching in the street.

Then Crit cleared his throat and said, "If you're still a member of the Stepsons, woman, I'll want you at the White Foal bridge two hours before dawn. Spread the word among the Third Commando, too; I'll need some backup on this-(/ the Third's still led by Sync, and if he's not succumbed to Sanctuary's blight, I should be able to expect it."

"Old debts? Words of honor?" Kama rejoined. "Honor's cheap in thieves' world. Cheapest this season, when everyone has a power play to field."

"Will you take my message, soldier?" He gave her what she wanted-recognition, though he'd rather call her whore and take her over bended knee.

"For you, Crit? Anything." Teeth flashed, a chuckle sounded, and he heard her mutter, "Zip, relax; he's one of us," and the youth behind her grumbled a reply before he slouched against a daub-and-wattle wall. "Before the break of day we'll be there.... How many would that be you'll need?"

And Crit realized he didn't know. He hadn't a plan or a glimmer. What would it take to wrest the Globe of Power from Roxane, the Nisibisi witch? "Randal'll know-if he's still our warrior mage. Don't ask questions woman-not here. You know better. And Niko, find him-"

"Seh," the young tough behind her swore. 'This one's walking wounded, Kama. Niko? Why not ask the-"

"Zip. Hush." The woman stepped out a pace from shadows, smiling like her father a show of teeth with no humor in it. "Critias... friend, you've been away too long, doing what high-bom officers do in Rankan cities. If not for... past mistakes ... I'd ride with you and explain. But you'll find out enough, soon enough, from your beloved partner. As for Niko, if you want him, he's in the palace these days, playing nursemaid to kids the priesthood loves."

Before he could escalate from shock to anger, before he thought to move his horse in tight and take her by the throat and shake her for playing women's games when so much was on the line, she melted back into her shadows and there was a grating sound, followed by scrabbling, a square of light that came and went, and when his horse danced forward, both Kama and the boy called Zip were gone-if they'd ever been there.

Riding Mazeward on a horse suddenly and unreasonably skittish, he cursed himself for a fool. No proof that it was Kama-what he'd seen could have been some apparition, even the witch, Roxane, in disguise. He'd touched nothing; only seen something he thought was Kama-there were undeads in Sanctuary who resembled the forms they'd had in life, and some of those were Roxane's slaves. Though if any such had happened to Kama, he told himself, Strat would have sent word to him. At least, the Strat he used to know would have. Right then, Critias could count the things he knew for certain on the fingers of one hand.

But he knew he was going to the vampire woman's house to find his partner. It was just a matter of time; Kama's allegations were already eating at his soul. He had to leam the truth.

Kadakithis's palace was full of fish-eyed Beysibs: Beysib men with more jewelry on their persons than Rankan women from uptown or Ilsigi whores; Beysib women female shock troops with bared and painted breasts and poison snakes wound about their necks or arms-who seemed never to blink and gave Tempus gooseflesh.

Kadakithis wanted to introduce Tempus and Jihan to his Beysib flounder, Shupansea; before Tempus could protest, in the prince/governor's velvet-hung chamber, that he needed no more women in his life, the Rankan prince had called the woman forth.

Jihan, beside him, took Tempus's arm and squeezed, sensing what passed on first glance between her beloved Riddler and the lady ruler of the Beysib people.

For Tempus, noises lessened, the world grew dim, and in his heart a passion rose, while in his head a voice he'd not heard clear for years urged: Take her. For Me. Ravage the slut upon this spot/

The woman's fish-eyes widened; a snake slithered on her arm. Her breasts were fair and gilded; they stared at him with come-hither charms and it was only Jihan who restrained him, prince or no, from doing what Vashanka wanted then and there.

What Vashanka wanted? Tempus, who never backed away from any fight, took three retreating steps as Jihan whispered, "Riddler, my lord? What is it? Has she witched you? I will tear her legs off one by-"

"No, Jihan," he muttered through clenched teeth in Nisi, a tongue neither prince nor consort understood. He shook Jihan's grasp from his arm and rubbed the depressions her fingers had made: the Froth Daughter's strength nearly equaled his own. But neither of them was a match for Vashanka who, Tempus was now certain, in some way had come again. He was here- more infantile, more tempestuous than ever, but here.

And what that meant to a man who'd forsaken the Pillager and taken up with Enlil to balance a curse no longer so sure upon his head Tempus couldn't say. But there was no doubt in him that soon he'd take some woman-this one if Vashanka had His way of it-and consecrate whatever wench into the service of the god.

He just stepped forward, on his best behavior where the prince could see, one palm sweating on the hilt of the sharkskin-pommeled sword, and took her hand. "My lady, Shupansea, men call me Tempus-"

She interrupted: "The Riddler. We have heard tales of thee."

And then from behind a curtain came Isambard, acolyte and priestly apprentice to Molin Torchholder, running without regard to his priestly dignity, calling out: "Quickly! My lady! My lord! There are dead snakes in the palace! There are more snakes than there ought to be! And in the children's rooms, where Nikodemos is ... he's cut one of the sacred snake's heads off!"

Isambard skidded to a stop an arm's length from Tempus's chest and lapsed into panicked silence until his master entered the chamber. Molin Torchholder, ever mindful of his position and demeanor, did not immediately clarify his acolyte's exclamations but appraised the assembly as if they, not he, were the breathless intruders.

"Ah, Tempus. Back in town at last?" Sanctuary's hierarch inquired, his voice carefully modulated to conceal the manifold anxieties which that man's unexpected presence caused him.

"That I am." Tempus detested priests, especially this one. And so he grinned once more, thinking that Brachis, when he arrived with Theron's sailing party, would put this foul, dark-skinned priest in his proper place. "Well, Torch, your minion seemed to have a problem moments ago. Surely you've got it as well?" His sword was out by then, and Jihan's also.

Kadakithis was scratching his golden curls, his handsome but vacant face inquiring: "What's this, Molin? Dead snakes? Is your state-cult out of hand again? I told you Nikodemos was no fit guardian for those children. I-"

The Beysib monarch interjected smoothly: "Let me see these dead snakes, priest. And mind you, I'm never sure that these troubles aren't made by the Rankans who announce them."

By then Tempus and Jihan were running down the hall, toward secret passages Tempus knew like the back of his sword-hand or Jihan's female mysteries, which led to the lower chambers where, near the dungeons, Niko and the children-whom some said were more than that-were being kept.

Ischade's Foalside house was more home than haunt, less forbidding than Roxane's to the south, but hardly an inviting place to visit.

Unless, of course, one was Straton, her lover whom she'd guided to de facto power in Sanctuary's factionalized streets, or an undead such as Janni or Stilcho (both of whom had once been Stepsons), or a mageling such as Haught, who learned what he could from the witches and sought to wake the power in his Nisibisi blood.

Strat had been with Ischade hardly long enough for a candle to bum low when Haught, whom Straton hated, came gusting in the door.

The place was softly lit and full of colors; precious gems and silks and metals strewed the floor.

Straton was, by then, the finest thing she had, though-a human man, with all his prowess, not an animated corpse or witchling.

She could love him, could Ischade, with a finer passion than the rest. But she could feel in him a struggle, one that made shoulders sweat and muscles twitch. She'd known that, hold him though she would, the day must come when holding Straton would be hard.

His narrow Rankan eyes were haunted, deep-set, his jaw squared with indecision lately when he came. And now, rolling off her at the sight of Haught, a hated, half-understood rival, a symptom of all about Ischade Strat couldn't justify or wish away, he reached for a robe she'd found him, shrugged it on and, with just his swordbelt, stalked outside.

"When you're done with... it, him, whatever... I'll be seeing to my horse."

Strat still grieved for his lost bay warhorse; its death was something she could and would undo, if only she thought Stra-ton could handle the revelation that death was no barrier to Ischade.

Oh, he'd seen Janni, seen Niko embrace an undead partner. And Strat had not reacted well.

"What is it, Haught?" she asked, impatient. She didn't like the hubris growing in this Nisi child. He was difficult, growing stronger, growing bold. And she wanted to get back to Straton, who served her ends, who worked her will and excused her wiles and helped her hold her interests in the town. Ischade's interests were important. And they were too tied up with Strat now to let Haught get in the way.

So she thought to dance around the Nisi ex-slave, freed by her but not free of her. She'd only started her mesmerizing when a sanguine hand reached out and grasped her wrist.

Impertinent. This one soon would need an object lesson. She swallowed his will with a stare and let him see he couldn't even blink without her say-so. She whispered, "Yes? Your business, please."

And Haught, so pretty, so fiery underneath his slave's face, said, "I thought you'd want a warning. His boyfriend's coming. ..." Haught's chin jutted Mazeward. "What use he'll be once Crit's come hence, you might not like. So if you want, I could-"

There was murder in the slavebait's eyes. Murder sure of itself and offered teasingly, a sexual ploy, a sensuous violence.

She denied it, not telling Haught that Strat was so much hers that Crit couldn't get between them... because she wasn't sure. But she was sure that Straton's leftside leader, Critias, could not be murdered by one of hers. Not ever. Not and allow Ischade to keep what she had now-subtle power over more factions than any other had, even those who dwelled in the winter palace and looked to gods to aid them.

The dusky wraith that was Ischade said a second time, "I don't want, Haught. I never want. You want. I have. And I have need of both Stepsons-of Straton and his... friend. Go back uptown, see Moria, talk to Vis; we'll have a party for returning heroes tomorrow evening-in the uptown house. Wherever Crit is, Tempus is as well. Find the Band's best and invite them all. We'll play a different game this season; you tread carefully, do you hear?"

Haught, motionless and unblinking till she loosed him. sought the door with the slightest inclination of his head and the most refined swirl of his cloak.

Trouble, that one, by and by.

But in the meantime, if she must fight for Straton, would she? She didn't know. She had a horse to raise, now, to see for certain what would happen. Strat would have more decisions to make tonight than one.

Niko was holding one child under either arm when Tempus and Jihan came upon them in the nursery.

One babe, Alton, had thumb in mouth; the other, Gyskouras, gave a single cry on seeing the interlopers.

Then Gyskouras-god-child, Niko was certain-held out his tiny hands and Jihan, mayhem forgotten, stepped over a decapitated snake oozing ichor, her own arms outstretched and the red fires of Stormbringer's passion in her eyes.

"Give him here. Stealth," Jihan crooned, calling Niko by his war-name. "My comfort's what he seeks."

Niko's gaze flickered questioningly to Tempus, who made a sour face and shrugged, sheathing his sword and squatting down to examine the snake.

Niko gave the child up to Jihan and shifted Alton, who immediately began to wail. "Me, too! Me, too! Take Alton, or tears come! Take Alton!"

In moments, Jihan held both children, the dark-haired and the fair, and Niko was kneeling opposite Tempus, the snake between them.

"Greetings, Commander. Life to you."

"And to you. Stepson. And glory." The words were only formula tonight, an afterthought from Tempus, who had out a dagger and with it turned the snake's head toward him.

"How did you kill this thing. Stealth?" asked the Riddler.

"How? With my sword...." Niko's brows knit. His canny smile came and went and his hazel eyes grew bleak as he slipped his weapon from its sheath and laid it across his knee. "With this sword, the one the dream lord gave me. You mean it's not an ordinary snake?"

"That's what I mean. Not a Beysib snake, anyway. Look here." He turned the snake and Niko could see tiny hands and feet, as if the snake had been starting to turn into a man when Niko's stroke had killed it.

And the ichor, now, was steaming, eating like acid into the. stone of the palace floor.

"Why did you kill it?" said the Riddler gently. "What made you think it would attack you? Did it threaten? Did it rear up? What?"

"Because..." Niko sighed and tossed back ashen hair grown long enough to flop into his eyes. He'd shaved his beard and looked too young for what he was and what he'd been through; his scars were pale and the haunted look he bore made Tempus glance away. These two were each other's misery: Niko loved the Riddler and feared the consequences; Tempus saw in the youthful fighter the curse of a man the gods desire.

"Because," Niko said again, voice low and heavy with words he didn't want to say, "Alton told me to. Anon-the dark-haired-he's the prescient one. He knows the future. He protects the god-child. I'm glad you're here. Commander. It's hard trying to-"

But Tempus got abruptly to his feet. "Don't say that. You can't know it, not for sure."

"I know it. My Bandaran... my maat knows what it sees. Maat-my balance, my perception-shows me too much, Commander. We have things to talk over; decisions must be made. These childlren must go to the western isles, else there'll be havoc. I don't want the blame of it. Gyskouras, he's yours ... your son-or your god's. I prayed.... Did the gods inform you?"

Tempus turned away from the young fighter and the words came back over his shoulder to Niko and hit as hard as a blow from the Riddler's hand. "Abarsis. He came and told me. Now we're all down here. Why in any god's name didn't you just take them and go, if that's the answer? Theron will be here by and by." He turned on his heel and faced Nikodemos. "You're sequestered here like a babysitter while Sanctuary is torn by the wolves of civil war? Are you no longer a Sacred Bander? Do you command some regiment, a cadre of your own? Or did Strat give you leave to-"

"It was by my order. Sleepless One," came an unctuous voice from behind: Molin Torchholder. The priest was accompanied by Kadakithis and by the prince's side was the Beysib woman, streaming tears, holding a dead and definitely Beysib snake in her arms and weeping over it as if over a stricken child.

"Your order, Molin?" Tempus said and shook his head. "I own I didn't think you'd have the nerve."

"He's trying to help, Tempus," said Kadakithis, looking worried and drawn, trying to comfort the weeping Beysib monarch and keep peace as best he could. "You've been away too long to judge this at face value. Nikodemos has been of exceptional help to the State and we thank you for his loan." The prince's eyes strayed to Jihan, a child on each hip and a beatific look in her inhuman eyes. "Let's go to the great hall and talk about this over food and drink. I warrant you're all tired from your long journey. We have much to decide and little time. Did I hear that Theron is coming? Tempus," Kadakithis's princely smile was strained and worried, "I hope you've told him good things of me-I hope, in fact, that you'll remember your oath. I wouldn't want to end up like my relatives in Ranke-spitted and bled out like pigs in the town square."

If the curse-or its ghost-was still in effect, it would mean that all the Riddler loved were bound to spurn him and those who loved him doomed to perish.

It was this that bothered him as he put a hand on Kadakithis's shoulder and assured the prince that Theron would look with kindness on Kadakithis's particular problems here in Sanctuary, that "he's coming because the Slaughter Priest manifested in the Rankan palace and told a soldier to look to the souls of his soldiers. That's why we're all here, boy-and lady."

He didn't tell them not to fear. Both the prince/governor and the Bey matriarch were too familiar with statecraft to have believed him if he had.

It wasn't until after dinner that everyone realized there were too many dead Beysib snakes in the palace for Niko-or the single snake he'd killed-to be responsible. And by then, it was nearly too late.

Strat's horse was at the gate. The bay horse he'd loved so well, who'd carried him through so many campaigns. And Ischade was standing in her doorway, where night blossoms bloomed, watching with that look she had which cut through the shadows of her hood.

She'd healed the horse, obviously. She had the healing touch, when she wanted to, had Ischade. He was so glad to see the bay, who nuzzled in his pockets for a carrot or the odd sweetmeat, it took him a while to clear his throat and make sure his eyes were dry before he turned to thank her: "It's wonderful having him back. There's not another in my string to equal him-not his size, his stamina, his conformation. But why didn't you tell me? I'd not have believed he could be..." His words slowed. He looked harder at her. "... healed. That's what you did, isn't it? Spirited him away somewhere after I had to leave him for dead, and nursed him back to health?" The horse's teeth felt real enough, nipping his arm for attention. "Ischade, tell me that's what you did."

Her words were wispy as the wind. "I saved him for you, Straton. A parting gift, if this visitor of yours..." She pointed up the road, where a figure could be seen if one looked hard through the moonlight-a rider so far away the sounds of his horse's hooves were yet masked by the breathing of the bay. "If this visitor makes an end to what is-was-between us. It's yours to say."

With that, she turned and went into her house and the door closed, of its own accord, with an all-too-final sound.

He'd never heard it close that way before.

He examined the bay from head to tail, from poll to fetlock, waiting for whoever it was Ischade said was coming, but he couldn't find a scar. It was bothering him more and more. He'd seen Janni, once a Stepson, now a decomposing thing motivated by revenge upon its Nisibisi murderers; he'd seen Stilcho, in better shape but still not one to be mistaken for a living man. But the bay was just exactly what he'd been-all horse, all muscular quarters and deep-hearted chest. The bay couldn't be a zombie horse. At least he didn't think it could.

He was just thinking to mount up and see how it went when the approaching rider drew close enough to halloo: "Yo! Strat, is that you?"

And that voice froze Straton like a witch's curse: it was Critias. Critias, his leftside leader; Critias, to whom he'd sworn his Sacred Band oath. "Crit! Crit, why didn't you tell me you were coming?"

Crit just kept riding toward him, inexorable on a big sorrel. Crit, seeking him here. That meant that Crit had heard. That he knew, or thought he knew, the hows and whys of something Straton barely understood himself.

They'd come together to Ischade's house the first time- met her together. Then, Crit had tried to "protect" Straton from the necromant. Now, if damage there was, it was done.

Crit said, "Am I too late?" crooking one leg over his saddle and fishing in his pouch for the makings of a smoke. In Ischade's garden there was always a weird light and it underlit the line officer's face so that Strat couldn't tell what Crit was thinking. Not that he ever could.

Something inside him tensed. He said, because there had been no Sacred Band greeting between them, "Look, Crit. I don't know what you've heard or what you think, but she's not like that...."

"Isn't she? Still got your soul. Ace? Or wouldn't you know?" Crit's eyes were slitted and he fingered the crossbow hanging from his saddle.

Strat noticed that there was an arrow nocked, and that the bow would fire, from that position, straight into him at the click of a safety and the touch of a trigger. He tried to shrug away the suspicion he felt, but he couldn't. "You're here to save me from myself? She's the only reason we've survived here-the Band, the real Stepsons-while you and the Riddler have been upcountry playing your palace games. I'm not asking you where you've been. Don't ask me how I've spent my time. Unless, that is, you're ready to be reasonable."

"I can't. I haven't time. Riddler wants us to roust Roxane, get the Globe of Power and destroy it by sunup. Maybe your soul-sucking friend'll have a few ideas as to how to help us, if she likes you so well. If she does, maybe I'll let her live until you can explain. Otherwise..." Crit lit the smoke he'd rolled and the spark illumined a carefully arranged face that Straton knew wasn't one to argue with. "Otherwise, I'm going to bum her ass to a crisp and then do what I can to beat some sense back into you... partner. Before it's too late. So, you want to call her out? Or just come with me and we'll die like we're supposed to, shoulder to shoulder, fighting the Nisibisi witch."

Strat didn't have to call Ischade; she was beside him, somehow, though he hadn't heard the door open or seen light spill out and he didn't think Crit had, either.

She was so tiny in her cowl and long black cloak. He wanted to put an arm around her shoulder, dared not, then dared. "She's on our side, Crit. You've got to-"

"The hell I do," Crit said, and shifted his gaze to her. "I bet I don't have to explain one whit to you, honey. I just hope you're not too hungry to wait awhile. We've got something on that's just your style."

"Critias," said Ischade with more dignity than Strat would ever have, "we should talk. No one has been hurt, no one has to be. You come-"

"-to get my partner. We can leave it at that."

"And if he is unwilling to leave?"

"Doesn't have squat to do with it. I've got responsibilities; so does he, even if he's forgotten them. I'm here to remind him. As for you, we can use you. Come help out, and I'll let you have your say-later. Right now, I've got orders. So does he." Critias gestured to Strat, who looked at Ischade and could not, in front of Critias, plead with her for patience, for help, or even for his partner's life.

But Ischade didn't strike Crit dead, or mesmerize him. She nodded primly and said, "As you wish. Straton, take the bay horse. He'll serve you well in this. I'll ride your dun. And we'll give Critias what he wants-or what he thinks he wants." She turned then to Crit.

"And you, afterwards, will give me the courtesy of a hearing."

"Lady, if any of us can hear anything after sunrise, I'll be more than willing to listen," said Crit as Ischade raised a hand and Strat's dun trotted toward her.

Roxane had been waked abruptly from exhausted sleep when Niko lopped the head from her finest minion-she would miss the bodyguard snake. And Stealth would regret what he had done.

She'd paid a heavy price this evening; her thighs ached and her buttocks smarted as she got out of her bed and felt her way through the dark.

Her Foalside home was small sometimes, large at others. Tonight, it was cavernous with all the forces she'd disturbed.

She found her witching room and and sluiced the sweat from her body as she filled her scrying bowl herself.

Then, trembling with pain and fury, she spoke the spell to open the well that held the power globe, and another to summon a fiend of hers-the slave named Snapper Jo who spied for her in the Vulgar Unicorn where he tended bar.

Before the fiend arrived, she spoke her spell of utmost power and in the bowl she saw a fate she didn't understand.

Men were there, and the cursed Beysa, and a goddess called Mother Bey locked in love or hate with Jinan's terrible father, Stormbringer. And these two deities straddled the winter palace while, inside, Niko played with children and Tempus with the fates of men.

She trembled, seeing Tempus and Niko in one place-the very place where her surviving snake (more talented than most) slithered corridors in Beysib-snake disguise, biting and killing where he could.

Good. Good, she thought, and brought back Niko's face to the surface of her bowl. But this time, the vision was not of him alone. Over one of Niko's shoulders she could see the Riddler-or the Rankan Storm God, whose aspect was the same; over the other, a woman's face and that face was comely in an awful way-her own.

The meaning of it, remaining hidden, chilled her.

She could do only so much; she had certain words to say.

She said them and the dark witching room was lit with balefire. The light touched the globe in its hidey-hole of nothingness and the globe began to spin.

If there was some bond of fate between her and egregious Tempus, the thread must be cut. Even if it were Niko's life, she must do the deed. And the baby god could not be suffered to survive. Both children's lives and souls were promised to a certain demon of her recent, intimate acquaintance.

And the cold she felt, which raised gooseflesh on sanguine Nisi skin as smooth as velvet, which drew back lips as beautiful as any that had ever spoken death for men-that cold had to do with failing and winning, with perishing and surviving.

As the door to her outer chamber shivered from something scratching on its farther side, she decided.

She let the globe spin faster, let the colors from its stones bathe her in their light.

A rushing wind filled the scrying room and in its midst was a woman's form, changing shape.

Black mist spun around the comeliest of female guises. Black wizard hair grew long and covered limbs cut clean and meant to hypnotize any man. Her fine long nose grew chitinous, then hooked; her firm flesh sprouted feathers.

And by the time Snapper Jo, still wiping his claws on his barman's apron, thought he'd better open up the door himself, an eagle with a wingspan ten feet wide stood where Roxane was before.

And Snapper, her spy among the Sanctuary denizens, who tended bar at the Vulgar Unicorn, clacked prognathic jaws together and wrung his clawed and warty hands.

"Mistress," he gurgled in his fiendish, grating voice, "is that you?" His eyes that looked every which-way squinted at the eagle swathed in dusky light. He squatted down, gray gangly limbs akimbo in submission. "Roxane?" said the fiend again. "Call Snapper, did you? Here I be, for what? Some murder? Murder do, tonight?"

And the eagle cocked its head at him and let out a screech no fiend could misconstrue, then took wing and flapped by him, out the door, leaving him bleeding from a flesh wound made by claws much sharper than his own.

Muttering, "Damn and damn and murder damned," the fiend scuttled after her. Looking askance at her black shadow in the moonless sky. Snapper Jo chewed a long orange lock of hair in dark frustration. To be human was his wish; to be free of Roxane his hidden dream. But sometimes he thought he never would be free of her.

And the trouble was, at times like these, he didn't care. He was hungry as the night for blood; just the thought of carnage made him giddy.

So he scuttled on, following the eagle in the night, cackling wordlessly under his breath as Roxane, in eagle's guise, led him toward the winter palace, then lost him in Shambles Cross when he came across a fresh and bleeding morsel of a corpse.

Jihan was alone with the two children, her scale-armor discarded, cuddling one to either breast on Niko's bed in the nursery when the snake, man-sized but silent, slithered in.

The Froth Daughter was not human, but she was lonely. Tempus was no man for progeny-he considered nothing but himself.

Jihan had wanted children of her own and been refused by him. Now, thanks to her father, fate, and Niko, she had two fine boys to care for-one of them Tempus's own.

She would never give them up. She was ecstatic in her joy, and drowsy.

Thus she didn't see the snake until it reared, fangs wide and gaping, and struck like lightning, biting Arton on the arm.

Then, wide awake with two terrified babes to hold, one wounded and screaming, the other howling just as loudly, she cowered.

To reach her sword or freeze the snake, arching high above the bed and glaring fire-eyed down upon her, she'd have to put down one or both children.

This the frustrated mother could not do. She tried to shield Gyskouras with her body, interpose her own arm, even force it like a gag into the snake's gaping jaws.

But the snake was wise and quick and its jaws unhinged, so that it bit right through Jihan's arm and punctured the godchild's flesh and shook the Froth Daughter and the child, stapled together by its fangs.

Jihan wailed in rage and agony-a sound the like of which had not been heard in Sanctuary since Vashanka battled Storm-bringer in the sky at the Mageguild's fete.

And that brought help, though she barely knew it as her body fought the poison and her arms, about the snake's neck, grew weaker as she wrestled it. Even Tempus and Niko paused in horror at the sight of Jihan locked in bodily combat with the viper, the god-child being crushed in between.

Beside Tempus, Niko drew a breath and then reached out: "Riddler! Quickly! Take this dagger."

The dagger, like Niko's sword, was dream-forged and it felt hot in the Riddler's hand.

He raced his Stepson, on his right, to reach the snake and the two of them began to hack away.

With every stroke acid ichor spouted, so that Tempus's skin sizzled, blistered, and peeled.

There was no time to fear for Niko, beside him as if they were once more a bonded pair.

Jihan was wound in coils, protecting one child who was absolutely silent. The other, Arton, was curled up moaning, forgotten on the floor except when ichor struck him and he squealed at the pain.

The snake didn't flail or shrink from the damage Niko's sword did, though Tempus's deeper cuts could give it pause.

The Riddler realized just in time what must be wrong-just as the snake was tensing and Jihan, mouth open and eyes bulging as the breath was squeezed from her, called his name and the viper fixed Niko with a gaze that pushed Stealth backward and made him drop his sword.

For no snake, not even a Nisibisi snake, should be growing larger and bolder as it fought and bled.

Tempus looked up and around and saw the source of the snake's supernatural power: an eagle perched, bating, in the bolthole of the palace wall.

Beside him, Niko faltered, his face blistered, his ankles entangled in the ever growing coils of the snake.

Tempus knew he risked Stealth's life as he stepped out of striking range and raised his knifehand.

His eyes met the eagle's and it called softly, a cry like a baby's, and raised its head and clacked its beak.

Then the dagger Stealth had loaned him flew through the air and struck the eagle's breast.

A screech like a witch burning at the stake resounded, so that Niko lost his footing, hands clapped to either ear, and fell among the deadly coils.

But it was a chance Tempus had had to take.

And as he strode forward, faster than anything else within that room because, at last, his wrath had brought the gods awake and power rose within him, the eagle overhead burst into flame.

The flames began around the dagger in its breast and licked hot and higher as the bird took wing.

But Tempus had no more time for watching birds or taking chances; he heard a dagger fall from the bolthole's height as he waded amid the coils-first to Stealth, who still fought gamely though ichor had burned one eye shut and his limbs were bound with writhing snake.

Pitting all his strength against the failing power of the snake- now shrinking but perhaps not fast enough-the Riddler struggled.

Vaguely he heard voices behind him as palace praetorians gathered. "Stay back!" he shouted without looking.

He was watching Jihan's eyes pop, her more-than-mortal hands clutching the noose of snake still at her throat.

The damned thing was dying and as it did it was whipping back and forth, tossing Niko like a hook on a fishing line, crushing Jihan. And somewhere, in that thrashing mess of green slime and human limbs, a child was lost.

His child, Niko had said. But that wasn't why the Riddler hacked as if splitting cordwood with Niko's dream-forged sword. He'd never fought harder than he did then to free Stealth-if there was kinship between him and any here, it was strongest for his partner.

Admitting this, while all around pieces of snake flew like steaks from the block of a master butcher and smoke rose as ichor ate at stone, Tempus found reserves of strength in anger.

This youth, foolish Stealth, was not going to die on his account and leave the Riddler with that weight to bear eternally. Jihan and the god-child bom of a ceremonial rape-both of them were more than mortal. Niko was just a human fool and human foolishness-honor, valor, sacrifice, and love.-were things Tempus could not ever claim.

He didn't notice when Beysib and human help pitched in beside him-his god-given speed made them seem too slow and the task too great to make them matter.

But Jihan, once he'd cut through the widest coil at her throat, was help worth having.

And once she was free, and it was clear that she'd saved the child from certain death, the Beysibs and the Rankan priest and Kadakithis all crowded round the Froth Daughter and the child.

Which suited Tempus, who finished cutting the yet-quivering coils from the Stepson who'd fought beside him and helped Niko to his feet.

Only when the boy, through his one good eye, put a hand on Tempus's shoulder and said, "Life to you. Commander- and thanks," and collapsed into Tempus's arms did Niko's leftside leader have time for snake-bitten children or Jihan.

For he'd found out, there among the butchered chunks of snake and royal ranks of confusion, that the bond Niko and he once shared was stronger than it had ever been.

Jihan limped over to him, where he lay Stealth down, and frowned at the bums on Niko's face and his acid-eaten eye. "The placenta of a black cat, powdered at midnight, Riddler- that will heal his eye. The rest, I can do."

The Froth Daughter's hand was gentle on Tempus's face, turning it away from the boy. "We have children who are worse hurt," Jihan said. "Both poisoned by the snake who bit them." Her chest was heaving, her muscles torn; flaps of skin hung loose from her thighs as if a man-wide rope had burned her.

But the children-Arton and Gyskouras, who might be his or perhaps just the offspring of the god-had crowds to care for them and all of Sanctuary's priesthood to pray for them, while Stealth had only what a Stepson could expect.

Tempus sat flat on the floor, knees crossed under him, ignoring ichor slick which smarted and caused his skin to hiss and curl. "Get me what medicine you can, Jihan. You and I must heal this one. He wouldn't want life returned by magic."

They exchanged glances-one immortal and mortally tired, one feral and full of the fire of fierce and forgotten gods.

Then Jihan nodded, rose up, and said, "Your dagger skewered the eagle-witch. I saw it. She's wounded, maybe gone for good."

But it didn't please him, not at the price Niko always seemed to pay for others' folly.

Sometime in that interval, because Niko was conscious and could hear, Tempus affirmed and renewed their pairbond so that he had a rightside partner once again. And so that Niko, should it matter, would know that he was not alone.

Down by the White Foal Bridge, the gathered Stepsons waited: Kama was there, with a dozen hand-picked fighters from Sync's 3rd Commando.

It made Crit uncomfortable to command the Riddler's daughter's unit, so he gave them the periphery, made them the watch guards, kept what distance from her he could.

Strat, on the other hand, was comfortable with everything coming out of the dark that evening-with his bay horse, with paired Stepsons riding up, holding torches, with Ischade's whispered council, with men who once were Stepsons and now were no longer men-men who stayed in shadows when Crit looked at them straight on.

Strat had "explained" about Stilcho and Janni and Ischade's talent for raising uneasy dead. Strat said it was a favor she did them, a gift to those who'd died with their honor blighted.

Crit hadn't argued-there wasn't time. Strat was addled, bewitched, and if he got through this he was going to beat some sense into the big fool as soon as possible, do something final about Ischade or make her loose her hold on Strat.

If-

Something puffed and popped and Crit's horse shivered. Looking to his right, Crit saw Randal, the Stepsons' warrior mage, decked out in Niko's armor.

"Greetings, Crit. I heard you'd like some help." The flop-eared mage looked older, more fearsome tonight in dream-forged battle gear. He caught Crit staring at his cuirass. "This?" Randal touched his chest. "It's Niko's, still. Just a loan. We ... have an understanding, but no pairbond." The freckled face aped a smile (hat was wan in torchlight as his horse reared and Crit realized it wasn't quite a horse at all-it was definitely transparent, though horselike in every other respect.

"Help. Right. Well, Randal, you know the Riddler's orders, if you're here. Any advice? Or should we ride right in there, storm the place, bum it to the ground?"

At his knee came a touch as soft as a butterfly landing. "I told you, Critias, just walk right in and take it-walk in by my side, if you will.... She's not at home and, if my guess is right, quite indisposed."

Crit looked from Ischade to Randal for confirmation. Randal nodded. "That's my best guess as well." The mage scratched one ear. "Only, I'll go in with Ischade. Roxane's my enemy, not yours-at least not so much so. And you don't trust Ischade ... no offense, dear lady."

"None taken. Yet," said the woman whose head reached only to Crit's knee, but who seemed taller than anyone else about.

Strat rode up, concerned, looking at Crit as if to say, 'You'd better not start trouble now, partner or not. Don't push your luck.'

"I'm going," Crit said. "I have my orders."

"Into a witch's house?" Strat shook his head. "You may be my partner, but these are my men, until we've worked things out. We needn't risk them, or you. We've got friends to deal with magic who deal with it routinely. Ischade. Randal. Please be our guests-" As he spoke, Strat bowed in his saddle and, one hand outstretched in a sweeping gesture, motioned the mage and the necromant to precede the fighters up the cart-track to Roxane's house. And as his gesturing hand neared Crit's horse, it snatched a rein, and held it.

"Strat," Crit warned. "You're pushing matters."

"Me? I thought it was you, mixing in what you don't yet understand."

"Let go of my horse."

"When you let go of your anger."

"Fine," Crit sighed, holding up empty hands and feigning a smile. "Done."

Strat stared a moment at him, then nodded and freed the horse. "Let's go, then... partner?"

"After you, Strat. As you say, you're in command-at least till morning."

Inside Roxane's Foalside home was a smell like burning feathers and a glow as if the whole place smouldered.

Ischade was well aware that any instant, the premises might burst into flame. She said so to Randal.

They'd never worked this close, the Tysian Hazard and the necromant.

It was an eerie feeling, especially when Randal drew his kris, a recurved blade, and said, "It directs fire. Don't worry, Ischade. I didn't fight the Wizard Wars for nothing," in his tenor voice.

They walked over boards that creaked as if the place had been abandoned for eternity and Ischade's neck grew cold with trespass.

Randal said, waxing more the fighter with a woman watching, more the expert First Hazard of the Mageguild with a famous witch pacing by his side, "I'll open the rent where she keeps it, get it out for you. But you'll have to destroy it. I can't."

"Can't?" she said, disbelieving.

"Shouldn't, really. You see, I've got one of my own. I wouldn't want it to think I'd turned hostile. You should understand."

She did.

It was odd to work so closely with a rival mage of rival power. She wondered if there would be a price.

And there was, of sorts, though it did not fall on them directly.

When Randal had made the requisite passes with his hands and a flap in space fell down and the globe lay revealed, Ischade's soul wrenched: she loved beauty, baubles, precious trinkets, and the power globe was all of those and more. It was the most beautiful, potent piece she'd ever seen. If not for Randal, here and witness, even despite Strat she would have claimed it for her own.

When he got it out, the floorboards creaked and the roof above began to smoke.

She could see that it singed him and that he'd expected that, now with the timbers above flaring like tarred torches.

In the ruddy light. Randal knelt down, and she did also, and he told her what words to speak.

Then he said, "Reach out and set it spinning-just a push with your palm will do."

As she touched the globe, Ischade felt a shock more intense than any she'd known for ages-this was not a matter of raising dead or ordering the lives of lesser mortals. This was a matter of power great enough to flout the gods.

And there was a bite to all Nisi magic, a corrosion different from her own. She rocked back upon her heels, nearly mesmerized herself though nothing less could have done it to her.

Randal pulled unceremoniously at her elbow. "Up, my brave lady. Up and out before the beams fall down and roast us or she... comes back... somehow."

And then Ischade realized that her sense of Roxane's presence might be more than just echoes from the globe.

Quick as smoke she got her feet under her and ran, Randal beside her, toward an open window.

Once they'd scrambled through, there was a roar as deep as any dragon's and the whole house burst apart in flames.

And in the middle of the blaze Ischade could see the globe, still spinning, spitting colored fire of its own and spouting tongues of purer fire that licked up towards the heavens.

Horses thundered, coming near.

Strat was there, lifting her up onto the bay's rump as if she were a child, and Crit did the same for Randal.

Neither asked if the task was done. All could see the globe, spinning brighter, whirling larger, consuming the lesser flame of burning wood and stone and thatch and blazing like a star.

The horses were glad to be reined back; the heat was singeing. You couldn't hear a word or even the trumpets of mounts who hated fire as they reared and walked backwards on hind legs.

For it seemed, as the house collapsed, that the sky itself caught fire. Demons of colored light slunk through that wider blaze and slipped away.

Wings of lightning beat against the firmament where a rising sun was dwarfed to dullness by their light.

And down from purple lightning and clouds that came together, combusting to form a great cat-thing with hell-red eyes who swiped at it as it came, flew an eagle.

A flaming eagle, descending from the sky, chased by a giant cat of roiling cloud so black it swallowed all the heat, as if a house cat chased a sparrow in the dwelling of the gods.

The bird plummeted, wings bent. The cat struck, sent it spinning, struck again.

A scream like heaven rending issued from one, a growl like hell's bowels settling came from the other.

And the bird tumbled, then righted, then darkened and streaked, shrinking, into the lessening flame that had been the witch's house.

Ischade saw that bird dive among the timbers where a Globe of Power was now melted, fragments of white hot clay and parboiled jewels, and take a fragment in its beak and speed away.

When she looked away, she saw that Randal, face beaded with sweat and freckles standing out black as soot, had seen it too.

The mage gave an uneasy shrug and smiled bleakly. "Let's not tell them," he whispered, leaning close. "Maybe it's not ... her."

"Perhaps not," Ischade replied, looking up at the smouldering sky.

The morning after the sky caught fire, Tempus was sitting with Niko when Randal came to call.

"I'll see to him. Commander," said the mage, who touched his kris, from which healing water could be wrung.

Jihan had applied the powdered placenta of some unlucky cat, and Niko's eye was healing.

But these wounds would take a while, even with magic to help them.

And beside the stricken fighter, in the nursery, two children lay in sleep from which no one had yet managed to rouse them.

That, Tempus knew, was really what Randal must do here. But he had to say, "Stealth and I have reaffirmed our pairbond. Can you tend him in good conscience, with a minimum of magic?"

Randal himself had once been paired with Stealth, at the Riddler's order, and loved the western fighter still.

The mage looked down, then up, then squared his shoulders. "Of course. And the children, too... if I have- their father's permission?"

"Ask the god that; he's the stud, not me," Tempus snapped and stormed out.

He had a woman to rape to placate the god within him, a necromant to thank in person, and a welcome to prepare for Theron, emperor of Ranke, when he arrived.

But Jihan found him before he could find a likely wench on the Street of Red Lanterns. Her eyes were glowing and she squeezed his arm and wanted to know, "Just what kind of houses are these?"

He had half a mind to show her, but not the time: she'd come to get him to mediate between Crit and Strat in matters of command and to ask whether they could all attend a "fete for returning heroes" being given by friends of Ischade's who lived uptown, and whether he'd noticed anything strange about Strat's bay horse.

And since he had troubles enough of his own, and Jihan was one, he agreed to come with her, gave permission for the Band and Stepsons to attend the fete, and lied about the horse, saying he hadn't noticed anything strange about it at all.