Soul of the City

PILLAR OF FIRE by Janet Morris

Death was riding the feral wind that blew in off Sanctuary's harbor-even Tempus's Tr6s horse could smell it on the sooty breeze as horse and rider picked their way down Wideway to the wharf and the emperor's barge made fast there.

The Tr6s danced and snorted, its hooves sending up sparks from ancient cobbles that seemed, in the dusky air, to have lives of their own. The sparks whirled round the Tros's legs like insects swarming; they darted hither and thither on smoky gusts drawn seaward from the pillar of fire blazing between the heavens and the Peres house uptown; they skittered along Tempus's clothing like dust motes from hell, stinging when they touched his bare arms and legs; they lighted upon the Tros's distended nostrils and that horse, wiser than many human inhabitants of this accursed thieves' world, blew bellowing breaths to keep from inhaling whatever dust it was that glowed like fire and burned like hot needles when it landed on the stallion's dappled hide.

The hellish dust was the least of Tempus's troubles on this morning that had lost its light, as if the sun had slunk away to hide from the battle under way beneath the sky. Oh, the sun had risen, brazen and bold, illuminating the flaming pillar raging up to heaven and the storm clouds with their lightning ranged round it. But it had been eaten by the stormclouds and the soot of the fire and the lightning spewing up from the grounds around the uptown Peres house and down from the furious heavens of the gods, who smote at witches' work and cheeky demons with equal force.

And it was this absence of the morning, this vanquishing of natural light, that bothered Tempus (accustomed to analyzing omens and all too familiar with godsign) as he rode down to greet Theron, the man he'd helped bring to Ranke's teetering throne, and Brachis, High Priest of Vashanka, while around the town civil war and infamy reigned, unabated.

If the chaos around him (which he'd once been sent here to banish) weren't enough of an indictment of his performance, then the skittishness of the Tr6s horse made it certain: he was failing ignominiously to bring order-even for a day-to Sanctuary.

And though some men would not have taken the responsibility and clasped the fault for all Sanctuary's catalogue of evils to his bosom, Tempus would and almost gladly did-the state of town and loved ones fulfilled his own dire prophecy.

Only the Tr6s horse's distress truly touched him now: animals were pure and honest, not dour and divisive like the race of men. It might not be his fault that Straton lay, somewhere, in the clutches of the revolution (Crit was sure), dead or held for ransom; it might not be because of Tempus, called the Riddler, that Niko was the perennial pawn of demons and foul witches; it might not be directly attributable to him that his daughter, Kama, was now sought as an assassin and revolutionary by his own Stepsons and the palace guard, thus creating a rift between her unit, the Rankan 3rd Commando, and the other militias in the town that no amount of diplomacy would ever bridge if she were executed; it might not be on his account that Randal, once a Stepson and the single "white" magician Tempus had ever trusted, was a burned-out husk, or that Niko stared sightlessly at the pillar of flame uptown in which Janni, his one time partner and a Stepson who'd sworn Tempus a solemn oath of fealty, burned eternally, or that Jihan had been stripped of her Froth Daughter's attributes, humbled to the lowly estate of womankind, or that Tempus's own son, Gys-kouras, looked at him with fear and loathing (even trying to shield his half-brother, Alton, from Tempus whenever the children saw him come).

But it probably was-he was the root and cause of all this slaughter: it was his curse, habitual (as Molin Torchholder, a Nisi-blooded slime in Rankan clothing, maintained) or invoked by jealous gods or hostile magic. He didn't know or care which force now drove him: he'd lost interest in which was right and which was wrong.

Like the day around him, black and white and good and evil had lost their character, merging like the sullen dusky noon in an unsavory amalgam to match his mood.

But it bothered him that the Tr6s was nervous, sweating, and distressed. He reined it down a side street, hoping to avoid the greater gusts of dust. For he knew that dust as he knew the voices of the gods who plagued him: each particle was a remnant of pulverized globes of Nisi power, magical talismans reduced to pinprick size and myriad in number.

If Sanctuary needed anything less than a dusty cloak of Nisi magic wafting where it willed, he couldn't think what it might be.

And then he realized what lay ahead, down a shadowed alleyway, and drew his sword: a little honest swordplay might cheer him up, and ahead, where PFLS rebels in rags and sweat-bands fought Rankan regulars in the street, he knew he'd. find it.

Though he was overqualified for street brawls-a man who couldn't die and had to heal, whose horse shared his more-than-human speed and more-than-mortal constitution-numbers made the odds more honest: four Rankan soldiers, against a mob of thirty, were trying to shield some woman with a child from whatever the mob had in mind.

He heard shouts over the Tros's hoofbeats as it lifted into a lope and trumpeted its war cry as it sped gladly toward the fray.

"Give her up, the slut-it's all her doing!" cried one hoarse voice from the mob.

"That's right!" a shrill woman's voice seconded the rebel demand: "S'danzo slut! She bore the accursed Stormchild's playmate! S'danzo wickedness has taken away the sun and turned the gods' ire upon us!"

And a third voice, streetwise and dark, a man's voice Tempus thought he ought to recognize, put in: "Come on, Walegrin, give her up and you go free-you and yours. We're only killing witches and their children today!"

"Screw yourself. Zip," one of the Rankans called back. "You'll have to take her from us. And we'll have a couple lives in exchange-yours for certain. That's a promise."

Tempus had only an instant to realize that Walegrin, the garrison commander, was one of the Rankans under siege, and to add up all he'd heard and realize that the blond soldier's sister-of-recoro, Illyra, must be the woman whose life was the subject of a traditional Sanctuary streetcorner debate.

Then the Tr6s was sighted by the rebels at the rear of the crowd, which began to part but not disperse.

Missiles pelted him, some barbed, some jagged, some meant for rolling bread or holding wine-and some designed for war.

He ducked an arrow hurtling toward him from a crossbow, his senses so much faster that he could see the helically-fletched blue feathers on its tail as it sped toward his heart.

The Tros was hit between the eyes with a tomato: it had seen the missile coming, but never flinched or ducked, its ears pricked like a sighting mechanism aligned upon the crowd: it was a warhorse, after all.

But Tempus found this affront unacceptable, and took exception to the brashness of the crowd. Reaching up with his left hand while still holding his reins, he plucked the arrow from the air when it was inches from his heart and, as he seldom did, flaunted his supernatural attributes before the crowd, holding the arrow high and breaking it between his fingers like a piece of straw as he bellowed in his most commanding voice: "Zip and all you rebels, disperse or face my personal wrath- a retribution that will haunt you till you die, and then some: you'll leave my fury to your descendants as a bequest."

And Zip's voice called back from a gloom in which all white faces looked alike and darker Wriggly skins faded to invisibility: "Come get me, Riddler. Your daughter did!"

He set about just that, but not before the crowd surged inward as one body, pinning the four Rankans and the girl they thought to shield against the wall.

He kneed the Tros in among confusion, took blows, and swung back and down with his sharkskin-hiked sword, inured to the death he dealt, his conscience salved before the fact by giving warning, so that his blood-lust now reigned unimpeded and rebels fell, like wheat before a scythe, under his blade, a sword the god of war had sanctified in countless bodies just like these, across more battlefields than Tempus cared to count.

But when, finally, the crowd broke to run and none clawed at his saddle or bit at his ankle or tried to blind the Tros horse with their sharpened sticks or hamstring it with their bread knives, he realized he'd been too late to save the day.

Oh, Walegrin, bloody and with a face pummeled beyond recognition so that Tempus could only recognize him by his braided blond locks and the tears streaming from his blackened sockets unheeded, would live to fight another day: he'd been innermost, protecting Illyra-the S'danzo seeress who should have forseen all this-with his own big body. But of the other three soldiers, one's gullet was split the way a fisherman cleans his catch, one's neck was hanging by a thread, and the third was hacked apart, limb from limb, his trunk still twitching weakly.

It was not the soldiers, however, who drew Tempus's attention, but the woman they'd tried to shield, who in turn had been protecting her child. Illyra, S'danzo skirts heavy with blood, cradled a young girl's body in her arms, and wept so silently that it was Walegrin's grief, not her own, that let Tempus know that the child was surely dead.

"Lillis," Walegrin sobbed, manliness forgotten because an innocent, his kin, was slain; "Lillis, dear gods, no... she's alive, 'Lyra, alive, I tell you."

But all the desperate wishes in the world would not make it so, and the S'danzo woman, whose eyes were wise and whose face was tired beyond her years and whose own belly bled profusely where the axe that had hewn her daughter had gone through child and into mother, met Tempus's eyes before she turned to the field commander who could no longer command so much as his grief.

"Tempus, isn't it? And your marvelous horse?" Illyra's voice had the sough of the seawind in it and her eyes were bleak and full of the witch-dust settling all about. "Shall I foretell your future, lord of blood, or would you rather not read the writing on the wall?"

"No, my lady," he said before he looked above her head and beyond, to where graffiti scribed in blood defaced the mud-brick. "Tell me no tales of power: If doom could be avoided, you'd have a live child in your arms."

And he reined the Tros around, setting off again toward Wideway and the dockside, forcing his thoughts to collect and focus on the audience with Theron soon to come, and away from the writing on the wall behind the woman: "The plague is in our souls, not in our destiny. Ilsig rules. Kill the witches and me priests or perish!"

It sounded like a good idea to him, but he couldn't throw in his lot with the rebels: he'd made a truce with magic for the sake of his soldiers; he'd made a truce with gods for the sake of his soul.

And perishing wasn't an option for Tempus. Sometimes he wondered if he might manage it by getting himself eaten by fishes or chopped into tiny pieces, but the chances were good that his parts would reassemble or-worse-that each morsel of him would reconstitute an entire being.

It was bad enough existing in one discrete form; he couldn't bear to be replicated countless times. So he smothered the rebellious impulse to throw in his lot with the rebels and see if it was true that any army he joined could not lose its battles.

He was bound by oath to Theron, to the necromant Ischade in solemn pact, to Stormbringer in another, and to Enlil, patron god of the armies now that Vashanka was metamorphosing into something else within the body of Gyskouras, their common son. And he'd spent an interval with the Mother Goddess of the fishfaces in which he'd learned that Mother Bey had lusts as great as any northern deity.

So he alone, acquainted with so many of the players intimately and capable of standing up to more-than-human actors, was competent to negotiate a settlement among the heavens through supernal avatars and earthly rulers, the representatives of their respective gods.

This task was complicated, not helped, by Kadakithis's impending marriage to the Beysib ruler, as it was obstructed, not advanced, by Theron's arrival here and now, when all was far from well and men had brought their hells to life by meddling with powers they did not understand.

So he didn't care, he decided, what happened here, beyond his personal goals: to protect the souls of his Stepsons and those who loved him, to reward constancy where it had been demonstrated (even by mages and necromants), to clear his conscience so far as possible before he trekked back north, where the horses still grazed in Hidden Valley and the Successors on Wizardwall would welcome him back to what had become the closest thing to home he could remember.

But to do that, he must see Niko on the mend and on his way back to Bandara; he must do what Abarsis had counseled, and more.

He must get rid of that thrice-cursed pillar of fire burning with renewed fervor uptown, and spewing fireballs and attracting lightning and spitting bolts into the sea, before a storm blew up from the disturbance.

For if a storm came riding the wake of all this chaos, then Jihan's powers would be restored, and Tempus would be sad dled with the Froth Daughter for eternity.

Now he had a chance to slip away without her and let her father, the mighty Stormbringer, keep His word: find Jihan some other lover.

So he was hurrying, as he reined the Tros toward dockside where the Rankan lion blazon flapped in a sea-wind too strong not to be promising wild weather.

And the Tros, scenting the sea and his mood, snorted happily, as if in agreement: the Tros would as soon be quit of Jihan, who curried him to within an inch of his life daily, as would he.

And if a storm would bring the dust to ground, and all the magic of Nisi antiquity with it, then that was not his problem- not if he played his cards right.

For once, Crit was grateful for the witchy weather that plagued Sanctuary worse than all the factions fighting here.

"Getting Strat" was not going to be the easiest thing he'd ever done, but he wasn't arguing that the job was his to do: Ace was his partner; their souls were too bound up to chance letting Strat die with any strings on him, no matter which witch was holding the end of them.

And Strat wasn't going to die in flames, not in some burning house that wouldn't burn down but only burned on and on like no natural fire.

Not that common sense was saying otherwise: crouched at the heat's end, where waves of burning air licked his face despite the water he was palming over it intermittently. As he stared at the flaming funnel waiting for a plan to come clear, Crit reflected that his Sacred Band oath made no distinction between natural and unnatural peril. He hadn't swom to stand by Strat, shoulder to shoulder, until death separated them if it must, only in cases where it was convenient, or magic wasn't involved, or Strat was behaving as a rightman ought, or the problem didn't involve an urban war zone and the possibility of being roasted alive.

The oath was binding, under any circumstances.

Watching the fiery tornado, like nothing he'd ever seen but the waterspouts of wizard weather or the cyclone that had fought in the last battle on Wizardwall, he was trying to determine whether it had a pattern to its burning and its wriggling, whether the lightning spewing from the cloud above was dependable as to target or random, and in general just how the hell he was going to get in there.

Because Strat was in there. Everything pointed to it; Randal was sure of it; no ransom demands had come forth from the PFLS. His orders were to fetch Strat and Kama.

Kama could wait until all the hells froze over and Sanctuary sank into the sea, for all he cared. He'd had an affair with Tempus's daughter, true: he was willing to pay for his indiscretion, not complaining. But Strat was his partner Strat came first.

If they'd had arguments, then that was normal-they'd have them again... over women especially. It went with pairbond, and he'd beat Strat silly if he had to, to win his point. As soon as he had the porking bastard back where he could pull rank, they'd settle things.

But you couldn't settle anything with a dead man, unless he became undead like the freakish bay horse who was partially present, trotting around the Peres house on ghostly hooves, its coat looking as if it reflected the flaming whirlwind around which it circled-or was a part of it. The horse was insubstantial, sort of. But if he could catch it, maybe he could ride it up the back stairs.

Strat had ridden it. And the horse and Crit were both here for the same reason: Strat.

He decided to follow the horse on its rounds and forsook the cover of jumbled stone, remnants of the Peres's garden wall, behind which he'd been crouching.

The heat waves emanating from that spinning horror of flame struck him with awesome force; he could feel his eyelashes singe and his lips start to blister. Head down, following echoing hoofbeats as much as the flickering glimpses he could get of this "horse," he edged along in its wake.

If the house would just bum down, like any normal fire did once a fire had consumed its fuel, things would be so simple: he could begin mourning.

He'd thought of just considering the whole unsightly and unnatural mess as a funeral pyre, calling for reinforcements, and making the Peres estate Strat's bier. They'd say the rites, play some funeral games, he'd put everything he owned up as prize or sacrifice.

But he couldn't do that, not until he knew for certain that Strat really was dead, and wholly dead: not likely to be resurrected by Ischade.

For that was what he feared the most: that the necromant wouldn't be content to let Ace stay dead, that she'd pine for her lover and eventually call him up from ashes, make him an undead like poor Janni, who was somewhere in the cone of the fire-Crit couldn't imagine how or why, but he could see, if he squinted, the dead Stepson, fully formed and unconsumed, doing something that looked like bathing under a waterfall, but doing it in a heat that would melt bone in seconds.

Crit had learned, fighting magic and sometimes fighting it with magic, not to ask questions if he didn't want to hear the answers. So he left the matter of Janni to those who ought to tend it: to Ischade, who'd raised his shade after a proper Sacred Band funeral; to Abarsis, who'd come down from heaven and escorted Janni's spirit on high, and done it where the whole Band could see it. If there was an argument about propriety here, it was between the necromant and the ghost of the Slaughter Priest: it wasn't a matter for a decidedly unmagical fighter like himself. If Janni hadn't once been Niko's partner and a Sacred Bander, it wouldn't have been the business of any Stepson what Ischade had done. As things stood, all you could do, if you were so inclined, was pray for Janni's soul.

But "it bothered Crit intensely because the same thing could happen to Strat Ischade could make it happen.

He wondered idly, trailing the ghost-horse on its rounds about the Peres estate, how you went about killing a necromant. If Strat didn't come through this intact, he was going to find out. Maybe Randal would know-if Randal ever again was capable of doing more than swallowing when you put a spoon of gruel in his mouth.

There had been a few minutes, he'd been told, when it \ seemed that Randal and Niko had come through their battle with Roxane and the demon in good shape.

But physical flesh-even mageflesh and Bandaran adept's flesh-could take only so much. The two were alive; they'd live; whether they'd ever be as hale or as smart as they once were, only time would tell.

Rounding a burned-out wall, the heat lessened perceptibly and Crit could stop squinting and raise his head.

The ghost-horse was still right in front of him. In fact, when Crit stopped, it stopped.

When he took a linen rag and wetted it from the waterskin dangling from his belt, the specter craned its neck to look back at him, ears pricked, as if to ask what he was doing.

What he was doing was anybody's guess, but he didn't try to tell the ghost-horse that. The bay was still bay: it had a black mane and tail (although when the hot wind ruffled them they streamed out like charred cinders, not horsehair); it had a red-gold haircoat (now flame red and flickery as the patterns from the fire chased each other along its flanks); it had black stockings (which resembled burnt timbers). But it was more substantial than it had been around front, where the fire was brighter.

Then it pawed the ground and whickered, still fixing him with a fire-light centered gaze from liquid horse eyes.

The come-hither look and the forefoot pawing the ground were unmistakable to any horseman: the bay wanted Crit to hurry up, climb aboard: it wanted to go for a ride.

"Oh no, horse," he said out loud to it. "I came by myself- no reinforcements, no backup. I did that because nobody else ought to risk his life-or sacrifice it, if that's what's going to happen here... because this is a matter between pairbonded partners."

The horse snorted disapprovingly, as if to remind Crit that it knew he was trying to cover his own fear. Then it slowly turned around, so that its rump was no longer facing him, and ambled toward him.

The big, liquid, obling-centered eyes said: Strut is mine, too; horses and men are partners; mount up and let's stop playing games. He's waiting.

"Strat, damn you to hell," Crit whispered, shaking his head to clear it of horse-thoughts and horse-needs and horse-loyalties. This wasn't even a living horse, just a ghost, something Ischade had conjured from a dead animal.

But the thing kept coming, head high, feet carefully placed to avoid stepping on its dangling bridle reins.

Bridle reins? Had they been there before? He didn't think so.

The horse, now an arm's-length away, stopped still. It whickered softly and the whicker said, / love him too. The forefoot, pawing the ground impatiently, added. We don't have much time. And then the horse, in the manner of high-school horses like Tempus's Tros, bent one foreleg at the knee, curling it and lowering his forequarters, the other front leg outstretched, while it arched its neck in a bow meant to enable a wounded man or a high-bom lady to mount up without difficulty.

"Crap, all right," Crit said through clenched teeth and strode resolutely toward the bowing ghost-horse, trying hard not to think too much about what he was doing, or whether he might be imagining the whole thing-maybe a piece of timber had fallen on him, a piece of masonry collapsed so fast he hadn't had time to realize it, and he was dead too, dead but denied a peaceful rest, trapped in some netherworld with the ghost-horse, on which he'd wander forever, seeking his lost rightside partner.

But no: The sky was full of lightning, there were shouts and mutters on the breeze from somewhere near by where factions fought. There was a plague in Sanctuary, all right, but not some spurious one that turned your lips blue and made your armpits sore: it was a plague of human failing, of confusion, of greed and desire and endless power plays.

It wasn't, he admitted as he mounted the bay (which felt surprisingly substantial, for a ghost-horse), the magic or the gods which made Sanctuary such a foul pit, but human excess; magic was no more to blame than sword or spear or rock. There were enough rocks on the earth to eradicate the race; magic couldn't do a better job, only a more colorful one. But rock or spear or wand or Nisi globe didn't murder on their own, nor enslave-the weapon must be wielded; the true culprit was human greed and human will. And the killing never stopped- in the name of magic or the name of god or the name of honor or nationalism or progress or liberation, it was just killing.

And because it had always been so, and would always be so, Critias had come to the profession of arms himself: the only protection he could see was to be a perpetrator, not a victim.

That was why Strat had made him so angry when he'd become entangled with Ischade: Strat had become a victim, and Crit had a horror of helplessness. Even if Strat were just a lovesick fool, Crit still thought he'd been right when he had shot past his friend that night on the balcony-if it had served to bring Straton to his senses, then Crit wouldn't be here, pulling himself up into the sometimes-saddle of Strat's sort-of-corporeal bay, riding into he-didn't-know what for abstracts of honor and duty that weren't going to keep him alive if the steaming stable toward which the bay was ineluctably heading crashed down upon his head.

The stables weren't exactly ablaze, but they had corn magazines and straw and hay in them and sparks smoldered on the roof.

Crit reached forward to catch up the bay's reins, but the beast had had a mouth like iron in life and it was no better in afterlife.

He sawed on the reins to no avail, then quit trying in time to duck as the horse trotted determinedly through the open stable doors and headed for wide stairs which must lead to the stable's loft.

Crit shifted his weight, thinking to throw one leg over the saddle and check out the stable loft on foot, when the horse started climbing.

"Vashanka's balls," the task force leader swore, flattening himself to the horse's neck as it climbed a flight never meant for anything of its size and boards creaked and groaned. "Horse, you'd better be right."

It was: at the stair's head was a landing, and as the bay's bulk appeared there, a woman stifled a scream.

It was hard to accustom his eyes to the dark; the climb up the stairs had been too fast-everything was still milky green to Crit's fire-dazzled vision.

But Crit heard voices and slipped from the bay's back, his sword in hand.

Together, man and ghost-horse ventured into the dimness; horse's head snaked low, man's sword paralleling its questing muzzle.

"Dear gods, what's that smell?" Crit muttered to himself.

And someone answered: "Strat. Or me, Critias. Which smell do you mean?"

And the voice of Stilcho was familiar to Critias, who had once thought him the best of his kind of Stepson. Blinking, Crit strained to see the ruined visage of the undead soldier. Stilcho was one of Ischade's minions. He should have known the witch would still have her talons in Strat, one way or the other.

He was going to swing his sword up, cut the one-eyed, ghoulish head from Stilcho's torso and hope decapitation would provide the poor soul what rest Ischade had denied-not be cause he expected his poor quotidian blade to do the job against magic, but because he was a soldier and he could only do what he was trained to do, when his vision cleared enough to see that Stilcho's face was neither so ruined nor so hostile as it ought to be.

And a hand touched his right shoulder, squeezed, and rested there-Stilcho's hand, warm and with the pulse of mortal blood in it so strong Crit fancied he could feel it coursing.

"That's right," said Stilcho softly through a mouth hardly scarred, "I'm alive again. Don't ask-"

Crit's question, "How?" hung in the air until Stilcho volunteered, "It's just too complicated. Stepson. Ask about Strat, that's what you're here for... or at least that's what he's here for." Stilcho jerked a thumb toward the bay horse, head low, snuffling, taking slow, careful steps toward a shadow that might be a prostrate man with a woman crouched by his side.

"That's right, Stilcho-Strat. That's all I want. Not you or your witch woman." It was Ischade there, hulking over Strat- it must be. Ischade's ghost-man and ghost-horse, and the nec-romant herself, ringing Strat round with magic.

Crit considered seriously for the first time the possibility that he was going to die here. He didn't believe for a moment that Stilcho was "alive" in the way that Crit-or Strat, please gods-was alive.

He said to Stilcho, "That's him, then? He's alive, if he can't control his bowels. I'll just take him and be-"

A voice from the shadowed loft said, "Shit, Stilcho, he'll kill me," as a hand which was also Strat's reached up feebly to stroke the ghost-horse's questing muzzle and the horse started to bow down again, not realizing that Strat was too badly wounded to mount, no matter how easy the ghost-horse tried to make it.

Crit found that he was blinking back tears. Unreasonably, he wanted to sit down crosslegged where he was, let things take their course-even if it meant burning to death in this damned loft with a partner too sick to be moved but well enough to remember that Crit had shot at him.

Crit said, "I wouldn't-couldn't. I busted my butt getting here, Strat," but it came out hoarse and low and he said it to the straw scattered on the loft's floor at his feet.

The woman was trying to help Straton, who didn't realize he couldn't get on that horse by himself.

Crit sheathed his sword and put his hands in the air, then walked over to the place where the ghost-horse nuzzled its master encouragingly.

Strat, half-prone, was staring at him. The big fighter's hand was clutched to his chest or belly-Crit couldn't tell from all the blood in the way.

"Strat... Ace, for pity's sake, let me help you," Crit said, bending down on one knee, empty hands outstretched.

The ghost-horse neighed impatiently and butted Straton's shoulder. Behind the pair, the woman stood-the woman named Moria from the Peres estate, but dressed in street rags so that he hardly recognized her.

Stilcho said, "Strat, maybe you'd better... it's not going to be safe here much longer. They can take care of you better than we-"

"Stilcho," Moria hissed, "come away. It's for them to talk out."

"Talk?" Strat laughed and the laugh choked him, so that he gurgled and wiped his mouth with a hand that came away bloody. "We just did."

The wounded fighter reached with his bloody hand to take one of Crit's. "Well, Crit, you going to watch, or you going to give me some help?"

"Strat..." Crit embraced his partner, oblivious of might-be enemies about him, searching for harm, testing strength, mouthing harsh words that covered too much emotion; "You stupid bastard, when I get you fixed up I'm going to beat some sense into you."

And Strat said, "You do that," just about the time the bay horse trumpeted joyously as he felt Strat's weight on his back and Crit began the arduous process of leading the mounted, wounded man out of the stable's attic to safety at least of the sort a Sacred Band partner could provide.

Fire raged inside Ischade, now that she had quenched it in her clothing and her hair. It might have been her wrath that caused the houses across the alleys on either side of her to flame up as she passed-uptown alleys she'd traveled before and now again on her way to Tasfalen's velvet stronghold.

An ache and a fury was in Ischade and perhaps it spread around her. But perhaps it was just the pillar of flame and the young fires it set, so that better uptown streets (where Sanctuary's troubles never spread and rebels never sped) were a smoking labyrinth like some upscale version of the Maze.

Rebels skulked here now, and peasants, looting: Wrigglies, arms laden with pilfered, sooty treasure, jostled her, saw whom they bumped, and slunk away.

She saw rape and nearly stopped to feed-these mortal murderers wasted the best part of their victims, let the manna go, let the essence, precious soul and energy, escape. Ischade was weakened by the struggle in Peres's, somewhat. Somewhat. But not too much.

She moved on, through a day mercifully veiled in clouds and soot and a storm now rising off the sea. She wondered, as the sky blackened with thunderheads boiling up, if the storm was natural or summoned-then thought it didn't matter: it was convenient, either way.

She saw an enclosed Beysib wagon, overturned by brigands. Bald heads of Beysib males littered the environs like playballs from some devil's game, their accustomed torsos near but not attached. She saw what fate was dealt a pair of Beysib women. and wondered what the rebels thought to gain. If they kept their war to downtown, they might win it. Up here, they asked for retribution that would last for generations.

Amid pathetic cries, she stopped awhile, and closed her eyes-trusting to a cloaking spell to hide her. When she moved on, she was emboldened, strengthened, but sick at heart: for her to be reduced to scavenging was demeaning. But war did what it willed.

Thunder wracked the streets and she looked upward, grateful for the lowering, stormy dark but wary: she'd finish what she started, unless the stormgods intervened. She owed Tempus something. And she owed Haught a different thing.

She had her word to make good. She had her interests to secure. She had work to do before retiring to the White Foal's edge.

It was not painless for Ischade, this sneaking to Tasfalen's in the daylight. Janni, one others, was still trapped in the cone of flame, where Stormbringer and demons argued, where Rox-ane had been and now was not.

What would Tempus, who wanted the souls of his soldiers freed of strings and tortures, make of Janni's plight? Hardly an honorable rest, in his terms. But a piece of bravery, in hers, the like of which she'd never seen.

All for Niko, or for something more abstract? she wondered as she found Tasfalen's gate and then his steps and her thoughts turned to Haught and Roxane and what lay ahead, as she dealt with locks of natural and other kinds, and doors likewise doubled, and, as the last portal opened to her will, a raindrop struck her cheek, and then another, and thunder rolled.

The storm would ground the dust and douse the fires and she knew it was too great a luck for Sanctuary, the most luckless town she'd ever seen. She knew also that, inside the flaming pillar back at the Peres's, evil was held at bay by one whose name could not be spoken but could be approximated: Stonn-bringer, the Weather-Gods' father-Stormbringer, whose daughter Jihan was close at hand.

And then there was no time to put it all together: there was a ring on the finger of Haught which she could see with her inner eye.

This she stroked and called home to her. Its spell, still strong, would bring the scheming apprentice-if he was not already here.

In the ground hall full of shadows she paused. The door behind her closed at a gust's whim. The slam it made was daunting.

Her hackles rose-she hadn't thought of the ring Haught had until she'd entered. Was it her will, or only her perception, that saw him here?

Why had she come here? Suddenly, she wasn't sure. She shook her head, on the ground floor landing, and touched her brow with her palm. She owed Tempus none of this-not so much. Tasfalen was dead, a minion to be summoned to the river house. Why, then, had she risked the streets and come up here?

Why? She couldn't fathom it.

And then she did, when Haught's silken voice oozed down the stairs from a shadow at their head.

"Ah, Mistress, how kind of you to visit sickbeds with so much at stake."

She reached out for the ring he wore, but the apprentice was reaching on his own: grown desperate, he was full of pain, and wanted to make her a gift of it.

Suddenly (more because she underestimated what lay behind him and what hid within him than because of Haught himself) she was dizzy, spinning in another place, a place of blood and murky water-of ice and great gates whose bars were rent as if a giant shape had bent them out of its way.

Niko's rest-place! How had she come here?... not by Haught's strength.

And a laugh tinkled-a laugh with razor edges that cut her soul: Roxane.

Yes, Roxane-but something less and something more hobbled through that gate, misshapen and huge, and shrunk until Tasfalen's beauty masked it.

And then the thing... for it was part highborn, mortal lord, part witch, and part Haught... held out its hand to take her arm as if to escort her to some formal fete.

She met its eyes and gripped her own ribs with both her hands: to touch it might imprison her here. This was where Janni had lost the last shreds of self-concern that made him act predictably in the interest of what life he still led.

The eyes that bored into hers were gold and slitted; deep behind them glowed a purple fire she knew wasn't right.

She forced her leaden limbs to work and backed a step, watching first her feet and then scanning the horizons, winding wards that worked in Sanctuary which were much weaker here.

Niko's star-shaped meadow, once ever-green and pastoral, the very essence of spirit peace, was frostbitten, brown, and gray and riddled with ice like arrows. Where trees had spread rustling leaves, their boughs now held shards of flesh and writhing things resembling tiny men who cried like kittens being drowned.

And the stream which was his life's ebb and flow ran with swirls of red and blue and pink and gold: blood shed and to be shed; magic winding it round and chasing it; Niko's faith and the love of gods bringing up behind.

Tasfalen was cajoling: "Come, my love. My beauteous one. We'll feast." He flicked a glance to the trees hung with anguished, living things. "The boughs are ripe for picking, the fruit is sweet."

And she knew the only salvation here, for her, was in the stream.

She didn't know the consequence if she should do what her wisdom told her: take a drink.

Before she could lose her nerve or be mesmerized, she whirled about and flung herself knee deep in running water.

And bent. And drank.

And saw Niko, when she raised her dripping lips, sitting on the stream's far side, his face calm, unravaged. His quick, canny smile came and went and she noticed he wore his panoply: the enameled cuirass, sword and dirk forged by the en-telechy of dreams.

"It's a dream, then?" she said, feeling the icy water with its four distinct and different tastes run down her chin and hearing a lumbering behind her much louder, and a rasping breath much deeper, than Tasfalen's form could make.

"Don't turn around," Niko advised as if he were training a student in the martial arts; "don't look at it; don't listen. This is my rest-place, after all not theirs."

"And me? It's not mine, fighter. Nor are you."

"And they are. I know." There was no abhorrence in the Bandaran fighter's glance, just infinite patience. And as Ischade looked, his visage changed, contorting through a metamorphosis that seemed to include all the tortures of his recent past- eyes rolled up, cheeks split over bone, lips purpled and torn, teeth cracked and crumbled, bruises filled with blood.

Then the entire process reversed itself, and a handsome man still in the last bloom of youth regarded Ischade once more.

"You're very beautiful, you know-in your soul," Niko said. "It shows here. In spite of everything."

Behind her, the Tasfalen-thing was shambling closer; she could hear it splash into the stream. She almost whirled to fight it; her fingers spread into a shape suitable for throwing coun-terspells.

Niko shook his head chidingly: "Trust me. This is my place. As for your welcome here-when I needed help, you came here, where risk is greater than mortals know, and tried to aid me. I haven't forgotten."

"Are you dead?" she asked flatly, though it was impolite.

His smooth brow furrowed. "No, I'm sure not. I'm reclaiming what's mine ... with a little help." Behind the fighter, the semblance of the pillar of fire came to be.

He knew it was there without looking. He said, "See, you must trust. We're giving Janni his proper funeral, you and I. At last. And you, who kept him from worse and soothed his conscience, ought'to be here."

"And... that?" Ischade meant what was behind her. All her hackles risen, she found her mouth dry and eyes aching-if she had a mouth here, or eyes. It seemed she did.

"We'll put them back where they belong-not here. They're yours to deal with, in the World."

He must have seen her frown, for he leaned forward on one straight and scarless arm that might never have been shattered when a demon raged inside him: "Roxane is ... special. Different. Less. I'm free of all but my own feelings. For that I don't apologize. Like you, I deal in more than one reality. But 1 ask you for mercy on her behalf..."

"Mercy!" Incredulous, Ischade nearly burst out laughing. The thing that was part Haught, part Tasfalen (who was dead and had housed Roxane once and now again, if Ischade understood the rules by which Niko's magic games were played), was shuffling close behind now, intent on biting off her head or munching on her soul. It had been one with a demon; it had merged with devils; it had taken fire out of the hands of arch-mages such as Randal and used it even against her. All of this, Ischade was sure, was Roxane's twisted evil come to ground. And Niko wanted mercy for the witch that had made his life a living hell and wouldn't offer him so much mercy as clean death would bring.

"That's right-mercy. I'm not like you, but we've helped each other. Tolerance, balance-good and evil: each resides within the other, part and parcel."

Ischade, who'd seen too much evil, shook her head. "You must be dead, or still possessed."

"Look." Niko's diction slipped into mercenary argot. "It's all the same-no good without evil, no balance... no maat. If we lose one, we lose the other. It's just life, that's all. And as for death-we get what we expect."

"And you expect what?" Now she realized that Niko himself was not naive, or helpless, or entirely benign. "From me, I mean?"

"Mercy, I already told you." The firewell behind him began to shimmer and to dance, swinging its hips like a temple girl. "To your kind; for the record. For the balance of the thing. Janni we will take now."

"We?" It was one of the hardest things Ischade had ever done to engage in philosophical discussion with Nikodemos while, behind, the shambling thing had come so close she could feel its fetid breath upon her neck, and fancied that breath moist and felt, she thought, a strand of drool land in her hair. Don't look at it; don't turn around-it's Niko's rest-place and his rules, not mine, apply.

"We," Niko said as if it were a simple lesson any child should understand. And then she did: behind him, a ghost appeared.

She knew ghosts when she saw them: this one was a spirit of supernal power, a fabled strength, a glossy being of such beauty that tears came to Ischade's eyes when it sat down beside Niko, ruffling his hair with a fawn-colored hand.

"I am Abarsis," it smiled in introduction, and she saw the wizard blood there, ancient lineage, and love so strong it made her heart hurt: she'd given up such options as this ghost had thrived on, long ago.

"We need Janni's soul in heaven; it's earned its peace. Give it that, and we will restore you totally-all you were, all you had... including this northern pair of witches ... this amalgam behind you of all their hate-if, as Niko asks, you show them mercy, then the gods will be well pleased."

"And if not?" This was no place for Ischade-she had no truck with gods or ghosts of dead priests. Damn Tempus, who muddled all the sides and made ridiculous demands.

"That's done long since," said the ghost, unabashedly reading her mind. "We're here for Janni only, and to give a gift for your safekeeping him until we could take him home. Now name it, Ischade of Downwind. Choose well."

She wanted only to get out of there, to be whole and well and fighting on her own terms, dealing with her own kind. And before she could say that, or think of something better, Abarsis, one arm around Niko, raised his other hand to her, saying: "It is done. Go with strength and purpose. Life to you, Sister, and everlasting glory."

And the rest-place went out like a light. The icy stream of colored water, the pillar of fire which aped reality, the snuffling horror at her back which she'd never truly glimpsed but only felt-and the two fighters, one spirit, one man of balance: all were gone as if they'd never been.

She was standing on the dry floor of Tasfalen's house and Haught was taunting her to come up the stairs.

Mercy, Niko had asked of her. She wondered if she knew, still, what it was and how to show it to creatures like these.

"Ischade... Mistress, aren't you curious?" Haught was rubbing the ring and she could feel the feedback of magic twisted, a deadly loop fashioned by a brash and foolish child.

Temptation made her shift from foot to foot. She was stronger, she could feel it: Niko and his guardian spirit had given her that. She could end them, here and now-Haught and whatever animated Tasfalen. For, though she hadn't seen him yet, she knew he must be here: the rest-place revelation was like a map, a schematic, a design which fit over human ones. So he was here, reborn, animated by some power. And Niko had wanted mercy for Roxane....

Two and two fit together with a snap.

Ischade whirled on her heel and fled out the door. For a moment it resisted, but her strength prevailed.

Haught, behind her, came running down the stairs with a shout.

But she was faster: she wrenched the door open, slipped through, and bolted it with magic from the farther side.

Then, stepping back, Ischade considered mercy in all its meanings: if Tasfalen and Roxane were with Haught, in any stage of being whatsoever, mercy could only take one form.

And with strength loaned her from the rest-place of a mystery she didn't understand and under the benediction of the high priest of a god in whom she had no faith, Ischade began to weave a spell so strong and fast she had no doubt about it holding.

All about Tasfalen's house she wove the ward-a special one, one that would keep the house sealed and keep those within locked up until they learned what mercy meant.

When it was over, she realized she had worked her spells in the midst of a downpour which had soaked her to the skin.

Picking up her heavy robes, she headed homeward. Perhaps she should have found the Riddler and told him what she'd done. But there were Crit and Strat to think of, and she didn't want to think of Strat-who was with Tempus by now, alive or dead.

She wanted to think only of herself for now. She wanted things to be just as they always had been before. And she wanted to think about mercy, a quality quite strained and strange, but strengthening, in its way.

In Tasfalen's house, what had been Roxane lay abed in Tasfalen's body, half conscious, rent in memory and power, a mere fragment knowing only that it wanted to survive.

"Duuu," it mumbled, and tried again to move the lips of a corpse twice resurrected. "Dusss." And: "Dusssst. Haughttt... dussst."

The ex-slave was rattling windows barred by magic, cursing horrid spells that couldn't get outside, but bounced around the comers of the house and back upon him like ricochets, so that each one was more trouble than it was worth.

Eventually his panic ebbed and he stalked over to the bedside, looking down at the fish-white pallor of the man who'd brought him here.

Snatched him from somewhere-from elsewhere ... perchance from oblivion. Someone else might have been grateful, but Haught was too wise, too angry: he knew that all witches took their price.

He'd thought to win; he'd lost. He was captive now, captive in a mansion with fine stuffs around him, true. But he was caged like an animal by his former mistress. And he was here only because of Tasfalen.

Nothing else could have done it. So he crouched down, thinking of ways to kill the already-dead, ways to get the Roxane out of Tasfalen, where it was bodiless and weak.

But then he began to listen, to try to understand what the thing on the bed was saying: "Duuussss, duuussss, duuussss..."

"Dust?" he guessed. "Do you mean dust?"

The eyes of the revivified corpse blinked open, startling him so that he fell back and caught himself on his hands.

"Duuussss," the blue lips said, "on tonnnn."

"Dust. On your... tongue?" Of course. That was it. The dust. It wanted the dust.

Not ordinary dust, Haught realized: the hot dust, the bright dust, the fragments of the Nisi Globes of Power. And the corpse was right: the dust was their only hope-his as well as... hers.

For the first time, Haught thought about what it meant, being caged with Roxane, the Nisibisi witch-in-man's-body-or what was left of her. If she perished, those who held her soul would come for her. And Haught might be embroiled. Entangled. Taken. Swallowed. Absorbed like interest payments.

His skin hompilated: there was enough intelligence in that body to have seen the answer before he did.

What else was there, he was in no hurry to find out. And he had a long, trying task ahead of him: the dust in question must be collected, mote by mote.

It was going to be arduous: the place was full of dust, most of it nonmagical. It might take days, or weeks, or years, to gather enough-especially when he had no idea how much was enough.

And when he had it, what would he do with it? Give it to the invalid ex-corpse? Or find a way to make use of it himself? He didn't know, but he knew he had plenty of time to decide. And, since he had nothing better to do, he thought, he might as well start collecting what dust he could, mote by mote by mote....

The storm pelted Sanctuary with all the fury of affronted gods. Rain sheeted so hard that it punctured skin windows in the Maze; it ran so thick and wild in the gutters that the tunnels filled up and sewers overflowed in the better streets while, in the palace, servitors ran with buckets and barrels to place under leaks that were veritable waterfalls.

On the dockside, everything was awash in tide and downpour, which gave Tempus the perfect opportunity to suggest that Theron, Emperor of Ranke, Brachis, High Priest, and all the functionaries forget protocol and begin their procession now, to higher ground and drier quarters.

By the time the Rankan entourage reached the palace gates, Molin Torchholder had already arrived, Kama in tow.

In the palace temple's quiet, he was giving grateful thanks for the storm which had come to quench the fires (that, unattended by gods, threatened to bum the whole town down) while, at the casement, Kama stared out over smoking rooftops toward uptown, where the pillar of fire spat and wriggled.

She had sidled into the alcove, away from priestly ritual, and she couldn't have said whether it was the cold storm winds with their blinding sheets of rain so fierce that she could see it bounce knee-high when it struck the palace roof, or the demonic twistings of the fiery cone which resisted quenching that made her hair stand on end.

She was more conscious of Molin than she should have been. Perhaps that was the reason for the superstitious chill she felt: she was about to be indicted for attempted assassination and what-have-you, and she was worried about what the priest really felt in his heart-about how she looked and whether he believed her and what he thought of her... about whether anyone of her lineage ought to be thinking infatuated thoughts about anyone of his.

It wouldn't work; he was a worse choice for her than Critias. But, like Critias, it was impossible to convince Molin of that.

It was nothing he'd said-it was everything he did, the way their bodies reacted when their flesh touched. And it frightened Kama beyond measure: she'd need all her wits now just to stay alive. Her father would take Crit's word over hers without hesitation; oath-bond and honor outweighted any claim she had on the Riddler.

If she'd been born a manchild, it might have been otherwise. But things were as they were, and Torchholder was her only hope.

He'd said so. He knew it for a fact. She didn't like feeling weak, being perceived as vulnerable. And yet, she admitted, she'd spread her legs on the god's altar for the man now coming up behind her, who slid his arm round her shivering shoulders and kissed her ear.

"It's wonderful, the timely workings of the gods," he said in an intimate undertone. "And it's a good omen-our good omen. You must... Kama, you're shaking."

"I'm cold, wet, and bedraggled," she protested as he turned her gently to face him. Then she added: "While you were communing with the Stormgod, my father and Theron's party came through the palace gates. My time is at hand, Molin. Don't hold out false hope to me, or gods' gifts. The gods of the armies won't overlook the fact that I'm a woman-they never have."

"Thanks to all the Weather Gods that you are," said the priest feelingly and, after peering into her eyes for an uncomfortably long instant, pulled her against him. "I'll take care of you, as I have taken care of this town and its gods and even Kadakithis. Put your faith in me."

Had anyone else said that to her, she would have laughed. But from Molin it sounded believable. Or she wanted so to believe it that she didn't care how it sounded.

They were standing thus, arms locked about one another, when a commotion of feet and then a discreet "Hrrmph" sounded.

Both turned, but it was Kama who whooped a short bark of disbelieving laughter before she thought to choke it off: Before them were Jihan and Randal, the Tysian Hazard, arms around each other.

Or, more exactly, Jihan's arms were around Randal's slight and battered frame. She was holding the mage easily, so that his feet hardly touched the floor. His glazed eyes roamed a little but he was conscious-his quizzical, all-suffering looking confirmed it.

Jihan's eyes were full of red flames and Kama heard Molin exclaim under his breath, "The storm-of course, it's brought her powers back."

"Powers?" Kama whispered through unmoving lips. "Were they gone? Back from where?" and Molin answered, just as low, "Never mind. I'll tell you later, beloved."

Then he said, in his most ringing priestly voice, "Jihan, my lady, what brings you to the Stormgod's sanctuary? Are the children well? Is something amiss with Niko?"

"Priest," Jihan stamped her foot, "isn't it obvious? Randal and I are in love and we wish to be married by the tenets of your... faith... god, whatever. Now!"

Randal hiccoughed in surprise and his eyes widened. Kama would have been more concerned with the exhausted little wizard if she wasn't still reeling from shock: Beloved, Molin had called her.

Randal raised a feeble hand to his brow and Kama wondered whether the casualty was capable of standing under his own power, let alone making any decision about marriage.

So she said, "Randal? Seh, Witchy-Ears, are you awake? My father isn't going to like you marrying his girl ranger, not considering the use he tends to make of her. I'd-"

Jihan's free hand outstretched, pointing, and Kama's flesh began to chill.

Molin stepped in front of Kama. "Jihan, Kama meant no slight. She's in dire straits herself. With our help. Froth Daughter, you shall be able to wed your chosen mage before..." He craned his neck to peer out the window, where no sun could be seen, just the demonic pillar of fire and the lightning of Stormbringer. "... before sundown, if that's your desire, and I will wed mine. If you aid me, my gratitude and that of my tutelary god will be inscribed in the heavens forever and-"

"You're marrying a mage?" Jihan's winglike brows knitted, but her pointing finger, with its deadly cold, wavered, and her hand came to rest on her own hip.

"Not a mage. Kama, here. I can divest myself of Rosanda easily enough: she's abandoned me. But I'll need your help in securing Tempus's permission... he's your guardian as well as Kama's."

"Guardian?" Both women snapped in unison as two feminine spines stiffened and two wily women considered alternatives.

"Someone," Torchholder intoned through the objections of the two women, "must set the seal on the betrothal pacts," thinking that he'd found a way to free Tempus from Jinan and, for that boon alone, Tempus owed him any favor he cared to ask.

And for Kama's hand, Kama's freedom, and Kama's honor, he'd be glad to call their debt even. But for Kama's willing love he needed more. Standing behind her, his arms circling her in the proper pose of the protective husband, he whispered: "Trust me in this; accept a formal betrothal. I am sacerdote of Mother Bey, Vashanka, and Stonnbringer. It will take a month to untangle the necessary rituals. It will take longer-if you desire."

The tension along her spine eased. She let her breath out with a careful sigh.

Once more, Molin Torchholder gave fervid thanks to the Stormgod, who had seen fit to visit rain upon this paltry thieves' world in all His bounty, to quench the fires of chaos, and even to restore Jihan's powers.

Over Kama's head, as he looked out the window, it seemed to him that even the demonic pillar of fire was shrinking under the onslaught of the god's blessed rain.

Tempus was still trying to explain to Theron, who'd come down here to the empire's nether-parts because of that black, ominous rain falling in the capital of Ranke, Abarsis's visit, and because it was the tendency of omens to make or break a regent's rule, that the plague had been specious (a handy way to keep Brachis under wraps) and the storm merely natural; that the fires and the looting were simply consequences of the demonic pillar of flame, which had much to do with Nikodemos and nothing at all to do with Theron's arrival; and that "No one will construe it otherwise, my friend, unless we show weakness," when they came upon Molin Torchholder in Ka-dakithis's palace hall.

"My lord and emperor," Molin purred, and bowed, and Tempus stifled an urge to let Theron know that Sanctuary's architect/priest was a Nisi wizardling in disguise, a pretender and defiler, and a loudmouthed meddler to boot.

Theron, who didn't quite remember Molin but recognized the ornate robes of office, said sharply, "Priest, what's wrong with your acolytes that this place is accursed by weather, witch, and demon? If you can't restore order to your little backwater of the heavens, I'll replace you with someone who can. You've till New Year's day to set things right here-and no argument." Theron's leonine visage reddened: he'd found someone to blame for at least part of what was wrong here.

Only Tempus noticed the humor dancing in the shadows round the emperor's mouth as the Lion of Ranke bawled: "See Brachis, this is his mess as well, and tell him my decree: either Sanctuary is made pleasing in the sight of gods and their chosen representative-me-or you'll both be out looking for new jobs come year's end."

Molin Torchholder was too smart to wince or bridle. He stood stolidly, eyes fixed on Theron's hairy left ear until he was certain that the emperor was finished.

Then he responded, "Very good, my lord emperor. I'll see to it. But while I have your ear-and Tempus's-some news: Last night Prince/Governor Kadakithis pledged his troth to the Beysib queen, Shupansea... an alliance is ours now for the asking."

"Really?" Theron's manner mellowed; he rubbed his hands. "That's the sort of omen worth retelling."

Tempus found his dagger in his fingers; he cleaned dirt from its chased hilt absently, waiting for Molin's other shoe to drop.

And drop it did: "Moreover, if I have leave to continue, sire? Many thanks. Then: The esteemed Froth Daughter, spawn of Stonnbringer who is father of all the Weather Gods, will marry our own archmage, the Hazard Randal. This alliance, too, is fortuitous for-"

"What?" Tempus could scarcely believe his ears-or his good fortune. Stonnbringer, at least, kept His word.

Molin continued, not deigning to notice the Riddler's outburst: "-for us all. And to make a threesome of favorable omens, I myself propose to marry-with all suitable ceremony and with Tempus's permission, of course-the lady Kama of the Third Commando, daughter of the Riddler. Thus the armies and the priesthood will be wed as well, and internal strife ended..."

"You're going to what? You're mad. Crit says she tried to mur-" Tempus bit off words of accusation, thinking matters through as quickly as he fought in battle. Torchholder was canny; the move was one sure to bring him power, consolidate his position, put him beyond Tempus's retribution and above reproach. But it would also save Tempus's daughter from a lengthy inquisition: even Crit would admit that, since Strat was alive and would recover, Kama was more useful to them alive than dead, if she shared Torchholder's bed.

And Crit had sent word to him that there was some evidence that PFLS members had used the blue-fletched arrows: the task force leader had warned against hasty action, using all his operator's wiles to posit misdirection, to give Tempus an honorable way out of accusing his own daughter of an attempt at murder.

"So you'll make an honest woman of my ... daughter. Just don't expect a dowry, congratulations, or any leniency on my part if you later wish you hadn't: a divorce will get you killed. So will unfaithfulness, or perfidy of any sort." It was the least he could do for his daughter. And, said before the emperor, Tempus's conditions bound like law. It was a good thing that a priest of Vashanka could have more than one wife, though Tempus wouldn't have wanted to be Molin when that one's first wife heard this news.

Torchholder blanched, but smiled and said, "I'm off to tell her, then. And you'll take care of the other matter... the little misunderstanding she had with certain troops of yours?"

"That goes without saying," Tempus growled while Theron looked back and forth between the two, uncomprehending.

When Molin had hurried away in a swish of robes, Theron elbowed Tempus and said, light eyes sparkling, "Don't suppose you'd tell an old warhorse what all that was about?"

"Petty squabbles, unimportant. Now tell me about this expedition you want to mount-the one to the uncharted east, beyond the sea. It interests me; I'm restless. My men need some mortal enemies to fight-this going up against magics and the gods tends to dull an army's spirit. They want a battle they can win upon their own."

And Theron was glad to do that. They worked it out, on the way down to see Nikodemos and the fabled Stormchildren in their nursery: Tempus would take his forces-Stepsons and 3rd Commando and whomever else he chose from the empire's legions, and strike east. He'd ship the horses such cavalry must have, and weapons and provisions; he'd bring back intelligence and rare goods, if there were any; he'd set up embassies for trade and size up weak principalities for conquest. And he'd do it without any help from witch or god-taking just Jihan (and Randal) and his fighters.

The two old friends shook hands as they came down a flight of stairs and headed for the nursery, with Theron sighing wistfully, "I only wish that I could join you, Riddler. This kinging is even less than it's cracked up to be. But it makes me feel less trapped, setting you free, even for a few months...."

Tempus pushed the door inward and Theron fell silent.

The Rankan emperor remembered Nikodemos from the battle for the throne at the Festival of Man. He'd been with Tempus once when the Riddler had had to bail his Stepson out of a Rankan jail.

The ashen-haired youth sitting with a babe on either knee looked tired, wan, and somehow much too gentle to be the same much-lauded fighter. But when Niko raised his head and wished them life and glory, it was clearly the youngster whose fate was dogged by a Nisibisi witch.

Tempus left Theron's side and strode to where Niko sat.

As he did, Gyskouras buried his young head in Niko's chiton and began to weep at the sight of his natural father, and Alton, understanding more than children should, shook his dark-haired head and told his blond companion: "'Kouras, be brave. Don't cry."

"Let him. They're clear tears, and that's a blessing," Niko said softly to the children, then looked up at Tempus and beyond, to Theron: "You'll excuse me for not rising, lords. They're tired. They're undisciplined. They've had too many adventures for boys so young."

"So have you, we've heard. Stealth," Theron said kindly, remembering all that went on upcountry to win him the throne from Abakithis, and how much Niko had sacrificed to that end.

"You're still taking them to Bandara, Niko?" Tempus asked offhandedly.

"If you still agree. Commander. If you'll give me leave."

Tempus almost said that Abarsis had usurped command from him in the matter, but he was too pleased with the outcome of his talk with Theron. "Leave you have, and leave to meet us in three months back in the capital-we're mounting an expedition and I'll want you along."

Something changed in Niko's face, as if a tension had been drained. "You do? You will?" Niko let the children slide off his lap and got slowly, carefully, to his feet. The signs of all he'd been through then showed clearly: bruised bones, favored muscles, a stiffness time would have to heal. "I'm glad.. .1 mean... you might have thought me too much trouble-all I bring with me, wherever... my witch-curse and my ghosts and all."

"You're the best I've got, Niko." said Tempus levelly. "And the only man I've called partner in a century. Some things can't be changed."

And although Theron might not have understood the last bit, Niko did, and moved painfully to embrace him, stepped back, bowed as best he could to Theron, and then, with a blush of humility, mumbled that he'd best begin preparations to take the boys and make away.

Tempus took Theron out of there, then, and on the way back upstairs they chanced to glimpse the skyline out the palace window, where a hair-thin column of fire, a weakened pillar of flame, blew far right, then left, and then winked out.