Stealers` Sky

QUICKSILVER DREAMS by Diana L. Paxson

"Aglon! I thought they'd killed you!"

He stands in her doorway, a pale figure in the moonlight that filters through the gauzy curtains, but no other man she knows has such fine shoulders or such a head of dark curly hai-r

"I'm surprised they let you come up to me at this hour-were you off on some mission? Why did they tell me you were dead?" Joia sits up in bed, throwing the covers aside in welcome. It must be late indeed, for the Aphrodisia House is silent.

He does not answer. Shadow veils him as he comes towards her. Then he's by the bed and once more the lightIalls across him. She sees him pale as a marble statue of a god-all except for the black gash in his throat where the blade went in ... She opens her lips to scream, but his touch freezes her.

Cold! He is so cold ...

"Eshi's tits! Joia, you gone crazy?"

The sharp slap was muffled by bed-curtains. Still whimpering, the girl fell back against the silk cushions. A dark figure moved; light sparked from the flints and a wavering spark of lamplight firmed and grew.

"You're not Aglon!"

"Aglon's dead! You little bitch, have you had so many men you can't even remember?"

"Ricio ..." The name ended in a little catch of the breath. The girl pushed herself onto one elbow, brushing tumbled auburn curls away from her eyes. "Thank the gods! I thought Aglon's ghost was ... after me! I was so afraid."

She reached out to him, but he shrugged away her hand. He was very young, and the welts where she had scratched him were already rising red on his chest.

"Ricio, sweetest," whispered Joia. "You're not going to get mad just because I had a little nightmare? Look, I'm awake now. Don't want to waste the rest of the night, do you?"

"What's the use, if every time I touch you, you think I'm Aglon! I suppose all us garrison men are alike to you!" He sounded sullen, and she hid a smile.

"Oh, Ricio, it was a nightmare! He didn't mean anything to me once I met you!" This time he did not brush away her caress, but he was still frowning. "Look-this is the only thing he ever gave me-" Lamplight played like quicksilver on the glimmering surface of the ball the girl took from the night table. His belt pouch was hanging on the bedpost, and she dropped it in. "You take it, Ricio. I don't need it .anymore!"

Despite his pique his body was responding. Joia's hands grew bolder.

"You scratched me ..." he said hoarsely, turning at last.

"I'll kiss it better, so?"

The guardsman groaned and eased back against the cushions as she bent over him.

"He came to me-last night. It was terrible ..." Joia took a very small sip from the porcelain teacup that Valira pressed into her hand, then set it down again. Valira sighed. She was only twenty-two; even at the Aphrodisia House that was not yet old. The careful bleaching that lightened her Ilsigi-dark hair into something nearer gold hid no grey. Perhaps it was having a little daughter of her own that had made the other girls think of her as motherly.

"You were with Ricio?"

"He paid for the whole night," explained Joia. "In my nightmare I thought he was Aglon and I woke up fighting. And then he got jealous when I told him what was wrong."

"Puppy-" said Valira, resting her elbows on the inlaid wood of the table- It was new, like most of the furnishings, like most of the facade of Sanctuary-a glossy surface to hide the fact that underneath, not that much had changed. "You'd think he would sympathize. Aglon was his comrade."

Joia shook her head. "Ricio is very young." Her hennaed curls hung limp, and the violet shadows around her eyes owed nothing to the paint pot. "I told Ricio that I never loved Aglon, but it wasn't true. Oh, Valira, I fought him, but I wanted him. He was like ice inside me, and ne just kept on. And now I can't seem to get warm."

Joia was wrapped in a fluffy shawl of silk and wool which had probably been looted from some northern valley, and Valira felt the smooth skin of her own forearms pebble with chill despite the sultry heat of the day. One of the new girls came into the breakfast room, heavy-eyed and abstracted, nursing her own cup of tea.

"I wanted him," said Joia, "and now I'm afraid." "Did you have a nightmare?" asked the other girl. Flaine was new, and pretty in a kittenish sort of way, another escapee from the streets of Sanctuary.

"I hope that's all it was!" muttered Joia,

"I had bad dreams too-" said Flaine. "They must have been dreams ... he promised me-" Her pouting lips closed tightly.

"Something pinched me all night!" said another girl. "Couldn't sleep a wink, an' when I woke I felt all black-an'-blue!"

Valira raised one eyebrow. The child looked hagged, but she could see no marks on the dark skin.

"We seem to have an epidemic-"

"If Lythande were still in town I'd ask Myrtis to talk to him," Joia said suddenly. "Do you know anyone in the Mageguild who'd take out the price of his help in trade?"

Valira laughed. "When a wizard gets homy all he has to do is summon up a few succubi! Anyway, I've never seen any of that crowd here."

"But you grew up in Sanctuary!" said Joia. "You must know someone!"

Valira frowned, remembering a little man with ginger hair whose painting had shown her her soul. He had recommended her to Myrtis, had taught her that even a half-penny whore from Sanctuary's waterfront could have a future. And when his wife, Gilla, stayed here during the False Plague Riots a few seasons back, she had been kind.

"You do know a mage!" exclaimed Joia, watching her. "Please help me, Valira-I'm afraid!"

"Lalo is not exactly a wizard - . . and his wife is more than enough woman for him," Valira said slowly. "I don't know if he can help. But I'll take you to see."

"Go back to the Mageguild if you want formulae'" Lalo exclaimed. "I've told you-I don't work that way!" He pushed the diagram back across the worktable to Darios. His easel was waiting beside the window with the finest imported paints beside it. Why was he wasting the moming light talking?

"All arts have rules. Can it hurt you to try and think systematically?" the young man asked patiently, "Why do you think the gateway you visualized to reach my spirit when my body was walled up in that vault worked so well?"

"Because I'd painted the thing in the first place-" Lalo began.

"You didn't make up the design!" Darios shook his head. "The details you remembered so clearly came from S'danzo tradition. Without those symbols the Otherworld would be impossible for the human mind to comprehend. The images let us focus our perception of reality, just as we control our emotions through words." The young mage paused for breath. "Look-here is the first plane-that's the world around us, the world you know-" He tapped the crudely drawn diagram.

Lalo glared at him. The boy was unnatural. Lalo was the one who should have been making the careful explanations, complaining about hotheaded youth when his apprentice protested as his own master used to do. But it was only a fluke of fate that had made the mageling his student at all.

"You're wasting your time, Darios. Why don't you go back to the Mageguild? Now that things have settled down, they're trying to rebuild the school," Lalo exclaimed. It was not yet noon, but the day was hot already. He could feel perspiration adhering his thin tunic to his skin like one of Cholly's glues. "What in the name of Us do you think you can leam from me?"

"The things that no one at the Mageguild knows." Darios combed his fingers through his curly black beard. Young as he was, it flowed across his chest like a master's. Gilla's feeding had filled him out. He took refuge sometimes in a dignity that gave him the air of a much older man.

"You can kick me out, but no one can force me to go back there. Even in the old days wizards like Enas Yorl and Ischade could go their own ways, and now Markmor is back, and there are half a dozen other independent operators trying to hide the fact that there's precious little of the old magic left in this town."

"Well, if my magic has survived because it's different," Lalo said triumphantly, "why are you trying to change me?"

"Because magic draws magic," Darios replied. "You've got it, and you can't get rid of it-wouldn't if you could-" The dark eyes lifted, and Lalo grimaced, remembering the days when he had thought both mortal and magical sight lost. He knew better now. Even if fate should blind him again, he could see in the Otherworld.

"Randal tried once to recruit you, and as things calm down, others will be after you-others who fear you and want to get you out of the way. Or who want to use you, as Molin Torchholder is using your paintings of Sanctuary's past to shape the future. Don't you wonder about some of those symbols he's having you put in? Here's the key to them-" He tapped the diagram. "I'm just trying to help, you know. Molin or Randal or anyone else with knowledge can use you as you use your own paints until you learn!"

Lalo covered his eyes. His head still hurt sometimes since the concussion that had temporarily blinded him. There was a pounding in his temples now-if he was going to have the headaches, he might as well start drinking again!

"The second plane," said Darios implacably, "is the sphere of the moon. It governs all things fluid, both the ocean and the astral sea. A good source of symbols for operations involving the Beysib, wouldn't you say?"

This afternoon, thought Lalo, Darios is going to practice drawing until his fingers wear away!

They had reached the fourth sphere when the sound of feminine laughter from the kitchen broke Darios's concentration.

"I doubt I'll remember even what we've done so far-" said Lalo, taking pity on him. He could hear Gilla and their oldest son, Wedemir, but neither of the other two voices sounded like the girl with whom both Wedemir and Darios were in love. Darios can't hear the difference, he realized. Maybe I do know a few useful things after all. He opened the door.

A wave of chypre scent tantalized his nostrils even before he saw the two women who were eating Gilla's Enlibar orange nut cake at the new kitchen table. Gowns of sheerest gauze struck a compromise between Sanctuary's minimal demands for decency and the unseasonable heat. They were a strange sight in Gilla's kitchen, brightened though it was by the burnished copper pots and bunches of peppers that hung from the beams.

Parasols of painted silk leaned against the whitewashed wall. One of the women had a tumble of garnet curls dressed high through a circlet of pearls. The intricately knotted dark braids of the other seemed dusted with gold. It was only when she turned to face him that the sophisticated veneer vanished and he saw the bright spirit within, as he had seen it once through garish face paint and the pinched face of poverty.

"Valira! You're looking well!"

Darios, following him through the door, stopped short, staring.

"Joia and Valira are from the Aphrodisia House," said Gilla, suppressing a smile. "Ladies, this is Darios, my husband's apprentice."

"He's wearing a mage-robe-" said the second girl. Her voice was strained.

"He used to study at the Guild," explained Gilla. The girl looked up then and Lalo recoiled, seeing the naked face of fear.

"Sabellia be praised. Perhaps they can help me!"

Darios sent Lalo a glance in which panic and professional interest warred. The limner found himself relaxing. Magic might still frighten him, but mere physical beauty had no power over him now. Wedemir leaned back in his chair and grinned at the mageling's discomfort.

"Have another slice of cake," said Gilla. "You girls worry about your figures too much to eat properly, but troubles are best faced with a full belly. We'll get some real food into you as soon as the sausages are done."

Valira set down her teacup and laughed. "I remember-you used to feed half the neighborhood when I was a child."

"It's not food I need, but sleep!" said Joia.

Lalo cleared his throat. "Neither of which I can help you with. So just what is wrong?" Joia wiped away tears without smudging her eye paint and began to tell her tale.

"And Joia is not the only one," said Valira when they had finished. "Doree has been having nightmares too, and some of the others. Well, after the past few years there's hardly a one of us who hasn't lost someone she cared for. We're supposed to be professional, but when a man has been kind to you, it's hard."

"I wanted Aglon alive! Why is his ghost trying to kill me?"

"His ghost, or is it something else, taking that form?" asked Darios.

"A demon lover?" Wedemir laughed. "At the Aphrodisia House?" He sobered as Valira glared at him. "Sorry, lass-but you have to admit-"

"I hope Aglon's ghost comes to the barracks to haunt you!" Joia exclaimed. "You were his friend!"

"Aglon-" said Gilla into the strained silence. "The name sounds familiar. Did we ever meet him, dear?"

"He was one of the lads who helped me dig out Darios," Wedemir said bitterly. "Got knifed in a little cleanup action Downwind a few days ago."

"He was a lovely boy when he was alive-" sniffed Joia. "Always gentle with me; he used to give me things-"

Lalo sighed. "I understand your sorrow, but what can I do? If you want an exorcism, perhaps Darios-"

"Oh, I'm just a pleasure-giri, a hysterical bit of fluff! Of course you don't believe me!" Joia began to cry in earnest now and Wedemir gallantly offered her his military scarf when her wisp of a handkerchief failed. She accepted it with an automatic flutter of her lashes, but Lalo did not think she really saw.

"I have been certificated as an exorcist by the Mageguild," said Darios stiffly. "I would be willing to conduct a purification of your chambers tomorrow if you desire."

Joia opened her eyes at the polysyllables and Valira's lips twitched.

"Well, Joia, at least he is taking you seriously," the older girl replied. "Why don't we let him try?"

"Now on this panel," said Molin Torchholder, "I want you to paint a design of crossed swords and spears on the border of Lady Daphne's gown."

"Hakiem didn't mention that detail," said Lalo, looking from the design he had already roughed in on the plaster to the drawing again. He pulled his straw hat forward to shade his eyes. It was another in the string of very hot days that had been baking Sanctuary, and sunlight blazed back from the white wall with a painful glare. He supposed that he should be grateful he was not working on the new walls outside the city, as had been at first proposed. It was the newly resurfaced wall around the palace that Torchholder had decided should display Lalo's skill.

"Hakiem isn't paying you," said the priest. He stepped back from the wall, and the servant who held the broad parasol moved with him. That was a good idea, thought Lalo. They had already put up hoardings to protect the unfinished work from curious eyes. Maybe he could get a portable canvas sunshade as well. Torchholder turned. "I was there too, remember. Are you doubting me?"

The limner frowned. He had sketched from the storyteller's descriptions without thinking, and as Hakiem spoke he had seen, as if the images were flowing directly from the old man's memory through his fingers onto the page. Those scenes had felt right. What Lord Torchholder was telling him now did not. And this was not the first time.

The picture of Prince Kadakithis's first entrance into the city showed a rising sun haloing him with gold. But the prince had actually arrived through the north gate. Along with most of the rest of the population, Lalo had been there to see him ride in. He had made the change in the picture, but it had rubbed him the wrong way- Like this. Now he began to wonder about the devices he had been told to paint on the parade shields of the prince's guards. Unimportant details, he had thought them, but what if they were something more? He shivered a little despite the heat of the sun. Danos's warnings were beginning to make more sense to him now.

"If I'm going to make a change in the design, I want to know what it means-"

"What it means?19 Torchholder stared at him. "Why should it have to mean something?"

"In that case, I think it would be more aesthetic to give her gown a pattern of eagles with outstretched wings. In gold, since she comes of noble kin."

The priest's gaze sharpened. "Limner, you presume! You are only a tool in my hand, and you will do as I say!"

"No." Lalo held out his paintbrush, then laid it down. "This is a tool. It has no choice but to do my will- But though you can put me down and hire another painter, you cannot force me to work for you. And there is no other artist in Sanctuary who can do what you really hired me for, is there, Torchholder? There is no one else in the Empire, perhaps in the world ..."

The silence stretched out between them. Beyond the hoardings he could hear a beggar cursing two soldiers with demon-haunted sleep as they ordered him to move on, the whining song of the water seller, a distant scream-all the normal sounds of a Sanctuary summer day. Finally the priest grimaced and looked away.

"Don't argue with me, limner," he said. "Don't meddle with things you don't understand."

Lalo started home down the Wideway as dusk began to shade the streets and the sea breeze lent a welcome coolness to the air. In the end he had agreed to paint the gown as Torchholder had ordered it-for now. It had occurred to the limner that Gilla was a crony of Glisselrand, and the prima donna of Feltheryn's company seemed to be on good terms with the people at Land's End. If he wanted to know what Daphne had really worn that day, he could ask. But the priest had a point. Even Darios must agree that there was no use in standing up for a principle he did not understand.

He felt exhausted. He wondered how Darios's day had gone-Lalo's lips twitched as he visualized his apprentice trying to maintain his dignity in the Aphrodisia House. He would have to keep a straight face tonight when he asked him how the exorcism had gone.

"Lalo ..." The croak of a call came from close behind him.

Lalo stopped short in the street, then whirled, hand going to the hilt of his dagger as someone stumbled into him.

"Cappen Varra!" Lalo stared. "Where in Shalpa's name have you sprung from? It's been years!"

"You recognized me!" The minstrel straightened, pushing back the hood of the extremely tattered cloak that covered disreputable breeches and a tunic scarcely less worn.

"Of course-" the limner began, then flushed, realizing which kind of sight he had been using, for such a getup was inconceivable garb for the dapper musician he had known. Only the battered harp case was the same. "But this is no place to stand talking. You look thirsty, man, and here's the Unicorn-let me buy you some beer!"

"I'm not going to tell you where I've been," said the harper when they were settled in a back booth with two big tankards of brew. It was early yet for the Unicorn; except for two guardsmen they had the place to themselves, and a slatternly girl was still wiping down the bar.

"You don't want to know, and I don't want to remember. Not sure it's safe to tell you anyway." For a moment the minstrel's fingers closed over the silver amulet at his neck and his gaze went inward. "All I'll say is that when I walked through the gates this place really did look like a sanctuary."

Lalo stared. "Well, it's true that things here have finally settled down. Trade's reviving, too."

"Your trade is prospering, I can see!" Cappen Varra surveyed Lalo's smock-stained now with paint and perspiration, but good linen, and new. "You never used to offer to pay for the beer!"

Lalo took a long draft and grimaced, wondering whether this batch was a little off or he was losing his taste for the stuff.

"A lot of things are different now, including me," he agreed. He looked at his old friend, wondering if here was someone who might understand.

"You haven't-made- anything else, have you?" whispered Cappen Varra. Involuntarily they both looked at the blank wall where once Lalo had drawn the accumulated evil of the Vulgar Unicorn and breathed into it a soul.

"No. I wear a mask over my mouth when I paint these days so tHat I won't breathe life into anything by chance," said Lalo. "But I've learned to do a few other things. Sometimes it's hard to tell the difference between imagination, or art, and what's real!"

"I understand-" The harper held out his tankard to be refilled. "I nearly got lynched once when I sang a story I thought I'd made up and it turned out to be true."

"How can that happen?" exclaimed Lalo. "When I paint, or you sing, are we spying on reality without knowing it, no more to be blamed than a mirror going down the road that reflects both the sky and the mire- or are we shaping it somehow?"

"Do the stars or the cards create our futures, or does the person who reads them define what will be?" echoed Cappen Varra. The beer had put the sparkle back into his eyes. "That's a question for the Mageguild, not for me!"

"Not the Mageguild!" Lalo shuddered. "They'd look for a way to sell it. I only ever met one mage who cared for magic more than money. He was the Imperial Magelord, and he taught me how to seek truth in my painting. But that was years ago. He's probably dead by now."

"Got a theory-" said Cappen Varra, whose tankard had just been refilled for the third time. "Reality's not solid. 'S like clay, but most people don't have th' strength to mold it, or know how. The gods can. Mages can shape it with their spells, 'n' artists, sometimes-" he gazed at Lalo owlishly over the rim of his tankard, and the limner realized abruptly that after Cappen Varra's privations, even the Vulgar Unicorn's sour beer had been too much for him. And evening was coming on. The limner could not possibly leave his old friend alone and incapable in this part of town.

"Gilla will have dinner ready by now-" he said briskly. "Why don't you come along home with me?"

Cappen Varra grinned. "Think I'm drunk? Maybe so. Easier this way. I know about changing things, see-I sang a door open to th'other world, sang up a crowd o' demons to kill the folks who'd captured me. Killed everybody. Just like th' Black Unicorn-" His eyes filled with tears. "Even th' children!"

Lalo cast a swift look at the wall. As the lamps were lit he seemed to see that demonic form still shadowed there. But he had banished it! And after that they had scraped down and replastered the wall!

"Come on! We're getting out of here!" He tossed some coins on the table and grasped his friend's arm. Why had he started asking these questions? The concept of an unalterable fate was bad enough, but the idea of a malleable reality at the mercy of anyone who could master it terrified him.

"Were the girls at the Aphrodisia House very beautiful?" Latilla stared into Darios's face earnestly.

"Yes, of course." The young man blushed, and Lalo hid a smile. "But some of them were very silly as well."

"And so are you," said Gilla repressively. "Eat your supper, Tilla, and let the poor boy tell his tale."

The color faded from Darios's face and he turned to Lalo again. "I wish you had been with me, sir. It was hard enough to do the exorcism with them all chattering around me like magpies, but I managed to complete the ceremony. 1 don't know if it will do any good, though. Each dream I heard from one girl seemed to inspire the next to tell of something even more terrible. By the time I got through, the girls were all hysterical."

"Did you sense anything demonic?" asked Cappen Varra curiously, pushing his bowl away. Drunk or sober, Cappen Varra retained his good manners, but the last of the beer fumes seemed to have worn off.

As usual, Gilla had risen to the occasion. After a disapproving sniff at their breath, she had ladled out enough fish stew with rice and red peppers for everybody. And the minstrel had eaten with an appetite that endeared him to his hostess, who beamed upon him now. She had even agreed to let him stay in Ganner's old room for a while.

Darios shrugged. "The atmosphere was upset, but that's only to be expected. I couldn't concentrate well enough to say."

"I can add some more cream sauce if the stew is too hot for you," said Gilla, eyeing his plate.

"What?" Darios looked down and took another spoonful. "No, it's wonderful mistress-I was just distracted."

Cappen Varra cleared his throat and began a long and convoluted story about a camel drover, a prostitute, and a priest of Anen.

He was just finishing when the door swung open and Wedemir strode in.

"I've sewn the new insignia on the tunic you brought me, dear. Have you eaten? I can make up some more pilaf-" Gilla began, but Lalo motioned her to silence. Wedemir's eyes met his gratefully.

"I need to apologize to Valira," he said. "Whatever is wrong at the Aphrodisia House is catching! Last night half the men woke up shouting about demons!"

"What do you mean-what exactly did they say?" Darios asked.

Wedemir's face grew grim. "Valira told us that the girls dreamed of lost lovers. Well, the bonds between fighting men are just as strong-and our losses-you know how many have died these past few years!"

"Are their ghosts returning?" whispered Gilla. "Are the dead going to walk among us again?" Lalo shuddered, remembering that terrible time.

"It would be impossible," said Darios. "That kind of manifestation requires a power source of a magnitude unavailable in Sanctuary anymore!"

"They are not returning in their bodies, thank the gods!" exclaimed Wedemir. "But there's enough magic coming from somewhere to power these hauntings. The lads feel they're being watched, things break, they have stupid accidents. The amulet sellers in the Bazaar are doing a brisk trade!"

"Perhaps the exorcism you did at the Aphrodisia House today will stop it, Darios-" suggested Lalo.

"I'll have you up to the barracks tomorrow to repeat the process if it does'" said Wedemir, "Another few days of this and the men will be no use at all!"

But Darios was still looking worried, and that night Lalo's sleep was haunted by memories of the Black Unicorn. In the morning they were awakened by a messenger from the Aphrodisia House, bearing a chyprescented letter from Myrtis herself begging Lalo to come to her.

"A four and a three!" cried Ricio as the dice bounced across the wooden floor. "I'll stake you my new saddlecloth you can't better that, Ottar!"

Wedemir looked up from his tally sheet as the voices rose. There was no rule against dicing among his soldiers as long as it stayed friendly, but for a moment there had been a disturbing sharpness in the boy's tone. He knew already that Ricio couldn't carry his wine, but all they had here was thin beer.

There was a murmur of agreement from the other man. Once more the dice cup rattled, he heard a shout from the kibitzers as the cubes fell.

"He's taken you proper, Ricio, lad-" said someone. "Better call it a night, now. I know for a fact that you've lost all your pay, and it's against regs to wager your gear!"

"I'm not rolled up!" said Ricio- "Got this!" Laughing shrilly, he held up a shimmering silver ball. "Love gift from a lovely lady. Ottar! Stake you this for all you've won and your back pay!"

"Give it up, Ricio!" called his friends. "Your luck is out. What's Joia gonna think if you lose that too?"

He rounded on them, waving his tankard so that the liquid inside splashed his friends. "Shut up, you! Don't you say her name!" He turned back to Ottar, who was watching him speculatively. "You Traid to try again? You 'fraid my luck'll change?" Ottar shrugged fatalistically. Ricio laughed, shook the dice cup, and threw. "Five and five!" he cried, slapping the cup into his opponent's hand.

"Hey!" cried one of the others, licking his wet hand, "he's got brandy in here!"

As Wedemir got to his feet he heard the click of dice across the floor.

"Six and six," said Ottar, reaching for the silver ball.

"No!" shrieked Ricio. "You barbarian swine!" Wedemir took another step towards him, and then everything changed. The room was filled with pale-haired northerners, waving bloody knives; Wedemir smelled smoke. He started to turn, saw Ricio's knife flash. Instinct took over and his callused fist connected with the boy's jaw.

There was a sudden silence. Wedemir blinked and rubbed his fist, staring at men who looked back at him with equally astonished eyes. Where had the barbarians gone? No one made a sound but Ricio, who moaned as the silver ball rolled from his hand, and Ottar picked it off the floor. One of the other men sniffed at Ricio's tankard. "Well," he said sadly, "there's nothing but beer in here now."

"Lalo my dear, surely you understand that this has got to end!" Myrtis poured fragrant spice tea into a cup and handed it to him. "The worst of the nightmares seem to be over, but the girls are haunted by their memories. It is bad for trade."

Lalo shifted uneasily on the overstuffed cushion, hoping he would not slide off and spill tea all over the ivory satin brocade. He was a little unnerved by Myrtis's trust. Even Darios, sitting quietly behind him, wore an exasperating expression of calm expectance.

"My pictures won't be what the girls expect, you know-"

"I've told them it's for publicity," said Myrtis. "They'll come in one by one, and you'll draw them. If I don't like the results I don't have to use them, you know."

Lalo put down his teacup and picked up his drawing pad, and Myrtis rang her little bell.

The Aphrodisia House accepted only the most beautiful. Darios's flushed face showed Lato what it was like to look at them simply as a man. No wonder the lad had found his exorcism hard going. But the limner saw them with other eyes. As he began to work, outer awareness fell away.

Not many had spirits as beautiful as Valira's, but in several he found depths of faith and fortitude that would have astonished their customers. He saw on their souls the scars of neglect and cruelty and despair. In many he found jealousy or greed. In almost all of them he saw fcar.

"Afraid?" Myrtis laughed bitterly when the last girl had gone. "Of course they fear. Age, illness, poverty-all they have is their beauty. Every one of them fears what will happen when it is gone. The attention their lovers pay them is their reassurance. But you should look again, Lalo-that's not all your pictures show."

Blinking, he focused on the shaded backgrounds with which he had surrounded his sketches, and realized that they were more than random lines. It was not only the portraits that showed fear-the fears themselves were pictured on the page. He shook his head in pity, understanding now what had made the faces that way.

"There are your hauntings, Madam Myrtis," said Darios.

"Destroy them!" she exclaimed.

"I cannot-" said Lalo. "They are not my fears. But perhaps I can change them." A sweep with the eraser and a few deft strokes transformed a demon to a godling, emaciated old age to serenity. Another change took the lines of discontent from a pretty mouth, put hope back into sullen eyes. The sketches had been simple. Altering them into something the girls would be flattered to hang in their bedchambers did not take long.

"Let us see if this improves the atmosphere-" He handed the pictures to Myrtis.

"But that's not what you saw!" objected Darios.

"No, but when Madam Myrtis gives these sketches to her girls, perhaps this is what they will see-and believe-and believing, make it so," answered Lalo, remembering what Molin Torchholder had asked him to do. "I only wish I knew what it was that suddenly gave their fears such power!"

"My lady Kurrekai is one of the great ones that attend the Beysa herself"-the palace maid laughed at her soldier-"with a serpent for a neckpiece an* all. She has a different headdress for every day of the week, an' she's generous. What do I need with presents from you?"

"Even this one?" growled Ottar. He pulled something from his pouch and offered it shyly. The girl exclaimed as the wrapping fell away and the sun glittered on the silver ball. "Pretty, huh? Does your lady have one o' these? You come out with me and I'll be generous too!"

The girl gave him a calculating glance. Ottar wasn't bad-looking, really. He pressed a wet kiss into the palm of her hand and she felt a warm glow.

"Tonight, then?"

She nodded, laughing, and dropping the silver ball into the pocket of her apron, skipped away. She had scarcely turned the comer before her swain was forgotten. The silver glittered so charmingly. She could hardly keep from pulling it out to fondle, even when she was working.

That night she dreamed of riding in a gilded litter borne by matched slaves, while a whole troop of barbarian warriors who looked like Ottar marched behind. But the litter turned into a darkened alley. She screamed as it was set down roughly, but no one heard. And then hard hands were pulling her out into the street, tearing at her clothing. Hard bodies thrust against hers.

The next morning, she was clumsy as she served breakfast for her Beysib lady, who was on duty with her mistress that day. As she started to pass a basket of oranges, she tripped, and the silver ball fell out of her apron and rolled across the floor.

"How lovely!" said the Beysa, and held out her hand.

Lalo laid in the undercoat of color for the background with long, smooth strokes of his brush. He knew that Molin Torchholder was watching him, but he continued to paint tranquilly. It was mindless labor, but the durability of the final product might depend on the care he took now. At least there was no way the priest could quarrel with him about this part of the job. The air was beginning to heat as the day wore onward, but it was still reasonably comfortable beneath the awning's dappled shade. He painted quickly.

"You're not stupid, and I know you don't lack imagination," said Molin Torchholder suddenly. "I don't understand how you remain so calm."

The brush splattered paint across white space, and Lalo reached for a rag. He finished wiping the color away, then turned to stare at his patron, his own self-mockery deepening as he realized that Torchholder had not even noticed his clumsiness.

"Other people wear me out with their pleas for place and position, or their accusations against those to whom I've given them. Other people wear themselves out suspecting each other of exotic forms of treason. But not you, Lalo . . - why?"

Lalo washed out his paintbrush, considering the question. "Perhaps because I want different things?"

"Ah-" The priest nodded. He did not look as if he had slept well. "And what are your ambitions. Master Limner?"

"To feed my family ... to paint the truth ... to stay alive ..." Lalo said slowly. "That's seemed ambition enough, these past few years."

Molin Torchholder answered with a snort of laughter,

"I envy you. The palace was a madhouse this morning ... a madhouse. Two people came to tell me that someone had bribed the workmen to leave weaknesses in my walls. One thought it was agents of the old Emperor. The other was sure that it was the new one, setting things up so that he can attack Sanctuary. Vashanka's rod! If Theron showed up right now I'd hand him the keys!"

Lalo suppressed a smile. In the Aphrodisia House they had demon lovers. In the palace it stood to reason that they would have nightmares about intrigue,

"Somebody else said that the prince had been poisoned, and just as I was escaping from him, one of the astrologers came running up with some tale that a piece of the Nisibisi Power Globe had been found! No truth to it, of course. I checked. But that one had me remembering when staying alive was almost ambition enough for me!"

Lalo dropped his brush.

I'm calm. he told himself. I'm calm. Torchholder just said so. But the priest's words reminded him uncomfortably of what Gilla had said. He straightened slowly and found that the priest was staring at him.

"Now why, I wonder, should that news trouble you?"

"No one wants those days to come again." Lalo dipped his brush in the paint and carefully stroked along a borderline. "Some of the girls at the Aphrodisia House were having bad dreams too. I drew pictures of them, changed the pictures a little, and the trouble seems to be going away. I'm sure there's no connection, though."

"Of course not." Molin Torchholder rose to his feet and stood looking over Lalo's shoulder. "But you didn't do badly, Master Limner. You learned a lot in those days. You want to paint the truth, you say. But we both know that you already can. I keep wondering when you're going to do something with that power."

And with that parting shot he moved onward, leaving Lalo staring unseeing at the wall.

The dead man gets to his feet grinning, his skin still-the color of a fish's belly from the beynit venom in his veins.

"You betrayed me!" The Seysa takes a step backward, aware of the muscular grip of her serpent around her upper arm as its head darts forward defensively. "I killed you!"

"Yes ... yes." The creature grins. "And how many more? You killed your own people, Beysaf Their blood cries out for revenge!"

"But it was my duty!" Dimly she remembers that this has happened to her before. She must deny it, but it has never been so real! "And for you above all to betray me ... I let you love me, Tovek-you were a Burek man!"

"The killing went on too long ..."He comes towards her with outstretched hands and the beynit hisses angrily.

"I stopped it," she cries. "House Burek fled the Empire. Why are you haunting me? We live now in another land!"

"Beysa, you will bring destruction to all who love you. You cannot escape the past!"

Tovek's hands close on her shoulders, cold, slippery with blood, but she cannot get away. The beynit strikes at him and he laughs. And now his face is changing; alien features writhe beneath the pallid skin. She sees fair hair and light, astonished eyes that harden as they focus on her. Then the serpent strikes again ...

"Ki-thus! Kadakithis! No!" Her shriek tears the heart from her breast. Hissing-the beynit's hissing roared in her ears. Her fingers tightened on muscular coils that constricted beneath smooth skin.

"Shupansea! My lady, be still now-it was a dream ..."

"The prince-" she whispered.

"He is here."

The Beysa's eyes flew open. His hair was still tousled with sleep, his eyes alarmed, just as in her dream. For a moment she thought she saw that other figure too, shadowy, already fading away. As the prince started towards her, Lady Kurrekai stepped between them. The Beysib woman's arm already bore the twin puncture marks where the beynit had struck her. Her own snake coiled around her neck protectively, tongue flickering as it tested the air; the bite of the Beysa's would do her no harm beyond a little dizziness, but Kadakithis had no such immunity!

"Kurrekai, keep him away from me!" He looked hurt. She choked back a sob.

"Wait a few moments longer, my lord," Lady Kurrekai said quietly.

"When she is fully awake the serpent will calm itself. Then you may come to her."

Shupansea lay back, breathing deeply. It had been a dream. Of course it had been a dream. Tovek's bones were dust in the earth of the Glorious Home, and she was safe in Sanctuary.

"And this was not the first nightmare?" the prince was saying now.

"There was only one yesterday," said Kurrekai, "but this is the third tonight, and it is not yet dawn. She will not let me try to drug her, but she must sleep. Perhaps she will listen to you."

The Beysa pushed herself upright against her cushions with a sigh.

"Shu-sea, love, what were you dreaming of?" The prince settled himself carefully on the foot of her bed and took her outstretched hand.

"A man who betrayed me before I ever laid eyes on you!"

"The traitor Tovek ..." said Kurrekai bitterly.

"Holy Mother Bey," whispered the Beysa, "did you see him too?" Aroused by her emotion, the beynit lifted its head, then settled between her full breasts again.

"And before that it was two of those Stepsons," said the lady-in-waiting implacably, "marching bold as brass down the hall! The guard saw them too, but he thought it was his own nightmare!"

"Lock the snake up and sleep with me!" cried the prince. Both women stared at him. "I know you don't like to leave it, but you have to rest'"

"Kadakithis, I could kill you ..." Shupansea said slowly. "Even without the beynit. My blood is poison, Ki-thus! Oh! If you were Beysib you would understand!" They gazed at each other across a chasm of race and culture that mocked their clasped hands.

"I understand that I love you," he said finally. "And I am still prince in Sanctuary. If you cannot rest, then no man of learning in this town is going to sleep either until you are free!"

"Another week and I should be able to get rooms of my own," said Cappen Varra, handing his empty plate to Gilla for a second helping of pie. "Playing during the intermissions at Feltheryn's theater may not be exactly what I would have chosen, but the work is regular'"

"You're welcome to stay on here," said Gilla.

"Well, I need more privacy to practice, you know-I don't like to think I'm disturbing you!" Cappen's glance caught Lab's in warning, then flicked away again.

"But who could mind listening to your music?" Gilla exclaimed.

Lalo suppressed a smile. He suspected that it was not the practice of music that the minstrel had in mind. Feltheryn had hired a new actress for their latest production, and Cappen was already courting her.

Replete, they were all pushing their plates aside when there was a knock on the door.

"Open up! Lord Torchholder's orders-open up in rhere!"

Latilla, too young to remember the times when a knock on the door was a signal to hide, was already scampering to obey. Lalo opened his mouth to call her back, then shut it again. If they were Torchholder's men he had nothing to fear. Did he? He fought back memories of the night when Coricidius the Vizier had sent the Hell-Hounds to pluck Lalo from his bed. Surely the priest who had been the closest thing he ever had to a patron could mean no harm to him.

"What does Lord Torchholder want with me at this hour?" he asked as the guardsmen pushed into the room.

"Didn't say. You're to come with us, bring your drawing things."

"He can't be wanting Lalo to draw a picture for him at this hour!" exclaimed Gilla. The man shrugged.

"Got my orders. That's all I know."

It had to be more than artwork, thought Lalo, gathering up his things. Suddenly he remembered his conversation with the priest the previous morning. Darios was watching him, a little pale, biting his lip as if he wanted to speak but was not sure-

"I want to bring my apprentice with me too-" Lalo turned, satchel in hand, and Darios stood up eagerly.

"Got no orders-" the guard began.

"Oh, what does it matter!" exclaimed one of the other men. "He said to get the limner quickly. Can't hurt to take two!"

They moved quickly through the streets of the city. Even in the Maze folk got out of the way of a well-armed troop who seemed to know their business. Lalo had never gone across town so fast. But it was only as the guards conducted him up the broad staircase towards the royal suites instead of downward to the Hall of Justice lockup that he realized how great his fear had been.

The air in the upper corridor was heavy with the scent of incense and expensive perfume. Embroidered hangings glowed on the walls and Lalo blinked, seeing with doubled vision the flicker of lamplight on figured tapestries and the glimmering afterimages of richly robed courtiers and armored men.

He took a deep breath and closed his eyes, opened them abruptly as he heard a low laugh and saw before him the agile form, the sardonic grin, and the gleaming knife of the assassin Zanderei.

"Watch out!" He stopped short and the guard behind him bumped into him, swearing. "He's got a knife!"

"Who? Where?" Swords flared from their sheaths and Lalo was thrust hard against the wall. "You fools, jumping at shadows! There's nobody here!"

Lalo blinked. There was no one now, but he had seen something, or why should he suddenly think of a man who had been dead for years?

"They're all jumping at shadows here, if you ask me," muttered one of the men as they started forward again.

Darios pressed close to him, twitching like a nervous horse. "I thought I saw my old master," he whispered. "But maybe it's the incense-Lalo, somebody has been doing exorcisms here!"

Why? wondered Lalo, unless ... Before he could follow that thought to its conclusion the gilded doors at the end of the hall were pushed open and they were thrust into the presence of the prince and the Beysa and their attendants. Lord Torchholder was brooding like a thundercloud by the window. As they entered he turned. A gesture sent the soldiers away-

"You told me that you cured the bad dreams of the girls at the Aphrodisia House with your drawings," the priest said abruptly. "I want you to do it again!"

"'For you?" He stared around him. Molin Torchholder simply looked angry, but the Beysa appeared haggard, and even the prince was pale.

"For everybody-" said Prince Kadakithis. "It started with the Beysa's nightmares, but everybody's seeing things now. Damn place is haunted! Can't go on like this, you know."

Lalo nodded. Zanderei was his own personal nightmare, but the potential number of specters who might haunt a prince boggled the imagination, especially in Sanctuary. But it was one thing to see, and to alter, the simple secrets of girls in a house of joy. The hidden fears of princes might recall deeds that for the safety of the city must not be changed! And even if that could be accomplished, how could they allow the man who had seen all their sins to live?

And it might not work anyway. He had not painted living nightmares, but memories.

"Are the dreams all that is wrong?" he asked carefully, playing for time.

"No!" exclaimed the Beysa. She toyed nervously with the silver ball on the table. "There's a feeling of pervading dread! Even waking, I see shadows ..."

Lalo shivered. Even as she spoke he could feel it, and knew that this was something worse than his own fear. He felt Darios trembling beside him. He had to do something to distract them-he remembered what Cappen Varra had said about the power of people's minds.

"Darios-" As he spoke, the boy's gaze came back to him gratefully. "It's time to use some of that training you're always talking about. I want you to think of something simple-think of a color,'I don't care which one- Think of those hangings changing, that's right-" He paused as Darios's face creased in concentration. "Even the lamplight is that color, everything is-"

Then his breath caught, because everything was turning blue. The Beysa's nictitating membrane came down, her piscine heritage unmistakable in the undersea light.

"You can look now ..." he said softly, enjoying the way Darios's eyes widened as he saw the change. He trembled on the brink of understanding. If he was right ... Tensing with excitement, Lalo summoned up the memory of crimson, and visualized the blue shifting into purple that continued to warm until swirls of ruby lapped across the carpet towards Darios.

The young man's eyes danced. A deeper blue flared suddenly between them. Lalo refined his focus and the glow disappeared in a burst of flame.

"Master Limner-" Molin Torchholder's voice broke their concentration. Blue light and red pulsed for a moment, and then they were gazing at the peach and gold hangings of the Beysa's suite once more. "Just what was that demonstration intended to prove?"

"That the palace is not haunted ..." Lalo answered him. "Don't you see-it is not only your fears and nightmares; any thought, projected strongly enough, will be amplified-"

"That's it! A psychic amplifier-" exclaimed Darios. "I was so sure that everything of that kind had been destroyed-but I ought to have thought of it before! They were made by the Guild in imitation of the Nisibisi globes, but of course they possessed nothing like the same degree of power."

"But we had a Hazard," began Prince Kadakithis. "Why didn't he find this thing, if it exists?"

"It could look like anything-a toy, a jewel," answered Darios. "A mage shielded against hauntings might not be able to tell."

"Can you tell?" asked Lalo, blessing the thought that had prompted him to bring his apprentice along.

Darios frowned, and half closed his eyes. They all fell silent as a sphere of pale light appeared before him. "Lalo, watch and tell me if it gets brighter when I move around." Slowly Darios began to circumambulate the room.

"What's that?"

The sphere was blazing. Lalo pointed to the point of light that reflected it from the silver ball in the Beysa's hand.

"I ... got it from my maid," said the Beysa, dropping it. Lalo picked it up as it pooled silver light across the floor, and felt his fingers tingle. It was so innocent a thing to have caused such suffering ... He could breathe life into the things he drew, but the silver ball could take anyone's thought and make it a reality. And all those symbols Darios was trying to teach him-with this they could be as real here as in the Otherworld. It occurred to Lalo that such a thing might be more convenient than a pad and pencil, and he thrust the thought away.

"I suppose we will have to call the Hazard back to destroy it," Molin Torchholder said into the silence.

"They'll want it, but not to destroy," said Darios. "And I think it must be done away with-the violence it has seen has soured it. I think that only a mage of great strength and purity of spirit could use it for good now!"

"I don't like the thought of those fellows getting their hands on anything like this again," said the prince. "Just when we've got them under control ..." All eyes moved back to the quicksilver glitter of the thing the limner held in his hands.

"Perhaps there's another way," Lalo said then.

"It was all your fault, you know," said Molin Torchholder. Lalo lifted the brush with which he was filling in the ground color for Prince Kadakithis's robe from the plaster and turned to stare at him.

"We've traced that wretched mage-toy back from the Beysa's maid to a soldier in the garrison, who won it from another lad, who got it from his girl at the Aphrodisia House. And she got the thing as a gift from one Aglon, who picked it up when he was helping your son dig your apprentice out of the ruins of the Mageguild not so long ago." His expression was hard to read in the dappled shade.

"Then it's just as well I showed you how to get rid of it, isn't it?" Lalo answered calmly.

"How did you know that if we all closed our eyes and visualized the amplifier vanishing it would disappear?" asked the priest curiously.

"It had no power of itself. Amplifying images and emotions was all it could do-it seemed worth a try."

With an effort Lalo kept his features impassive. Better not reveal how terrified he had been that his plan would not work, or backfire. But that was over. Now his thoughts were quiet, like the city as it forgot its nightmares and returned to life's waking dream.

"You've changed. You would never have dared to suggest such a thing nine years ago."

"Changed?" Lalo began to laugh. "Who hasn't changed? Including you. And what's the use of it all if we don't learn anything?"

"What have you learned, limner?" Molin Torchholder watched him curiously.

"That I am not a silver ball, to be used or misused at will," Lalo replied. "I'll paint the truth you show me, Torchholder, but don't try to make my magic tell lies."

For a moment the priest looked at him, then he shook his head with a short laugh and turned to go.

Lalo watched as Molin Torchholder made his way around the curve of the wall to return to the palace again. Then his gaze came back to the rough outlines of the mural before him. That lower left-hand comer needed something-some detail to balance the rolling storm clouds on the right. His lips twitched suddenly, and he mixed a little white and black together to produce a silvery grey.

Kneeling, he drew in the outline of a ball between two stones. It must be done now, while he remembered the weight and size, the slick feel of it in his hand. A touch with some other colors reproduced the rainbow glimmer it had mirrored in the Beysa's room. As Darios had said, it was a shame to waste it, but where could they have safely kept such a thing?

It would be safe here. Perhaps no one would notice it. Even if they did, no one could use it-no one but him. I hope I never need to breathe it into life again-but if I have to, I will, thought Lalo as he added the last sparkle of silver and sat back on his heels. Molin Torchholder asked me what I'd learned.

I'm beginning to discover the answer now ...