The Face of Chaos

THE CORNERS OF MEMORY by Lynn Abbey

1

A door that had been obscured by shadows opened to admit a hunched-over figure in dark, voluminous robes. The laboured wheezing of the intruder filled the little room as, with quick, bird-like movements, the winding sheet was opened and the naked corpse revealed. Light entered the austere room from a single barred window high on one wall, illuminating the face of a young woman who lay on a narrow, wooden table, masking her waxen pallor so that it seemed she rested in the gentle sleep of youth, rather than the deeper sleep of eternity.

Ulcerous fingers uncurled from the depths of the shapeless robe sleeves, fingers more morbid and repellent than the corpse they probed. From within the cowl came a sound like a laugh - or a sob - and the grotesque hands brushed the young woman's hair away from her neck. His dark robes concealed her as the crippled creature sighed, sniffed, and bent to her throat. He stepped back, examining a slim phial of blood in the faint light.

Still silent, except for his strained breathing, the robed figure lurched back into the shadows, where he conjured an intense blue light and, drop by drop, emptied the blood into it. He inhaled the vapours, extinguished the light with a gesture, and returned his attention to the corpse. His fingers re-examined every part of her without finding any mark other than the small bruise on her neck from which he had removed the blood.

Sighing, he drew the edges of the shroud together again and carefully rearranged the folds of coarse linen. He smoothed her ash-brown hair over the bruise on her neck and, reluctantly, folded the cloth over her face. There was no doubt, this time, that a sob escaped from the shadowed depths of his cowl. There had been many women when he had been young and handsome. They had pursued him and he had squandered his love on them. Now he could remember no face more clearly than the one he had just covered with the linen.

The mage, Enas Yorl, shuffled back into the shadows, lit an ordinary candle, and sat at a rough-plank desk, his face cradled in his unspeakable hands. She had been a woman from the Street of Red Lanterns; from the Aphrodisia House, where blue-starred Lythande was a frequent guest. Yet they'd brought her to Enas for the postmortem. And now he understood why.

Dipping the stylus in the inkwell, he began his report in a script that had been antique in his own youth. ' Your suspicions are confirmed. She was poisoned by the concentrated venom of the beynit serpent.'

Lythande had most likely suspected as much, but the Order of the Blue Star neither knew nor taught everything. It fell to such as himself, more shunned than feared, to research the arcane minutiae of the eon; to recognize the poison for what it was or was not. Enas Yorl continued:

The mark on her neck concealed two punctures - like those of the beynit serpent, though, my colleague, I am not at all certain that a serpent slithered up her arm to strike her. Our new ruler, the Beysa Shupansea, has the venom within her - as she has shown at the executions. It is said that the Blood of Bey, the envenomed blood, flows only in the veins of the true rulers of the Beysib, but you and I, who know magic and gods, know that this is most likely untrue. Perhaps not even Shupansea knows how far the gift is spread, but surely she knows she is not the only one ...

A weeping ulcer on Yorl's hand burst with a foul odour, and a vile ichor seeped on to the parchment. The ancient, cursed magician groaned as he swept the fluid away. A ragged hole remained on the parchment; grey-green bone poked through the ruined flesh of his hand. The movement, and the pain, had loosened his cowl. It fell back to reveal thick, chestnut-coloured hair, which glittered crimson and gold in the candlelight - his own hair - if the truth were known or anyone still lived who remembered him from before the curse.

He did not often feel the pain of his assorted bodies; the curse that disguised him in ever-shifting forms did not truly affect him. He still felt as he'd felt the instant before the curse had claimed him. Except - except rarely when in mocking answer to a yearning he could not quite repress, he was himself again: Enas Yorl, a man twice, three times the age of any other man. A shambling, rotted-out wreck who could not die; whose bones would never be scoured clean in the earth. He hid the radiant, unliving, and therefore uncursed, hair.

The ulcer was congealing with a faintly blue, scaly iridescence. Yorl prayed, as much as he ever prayed and to gods no mortal would dare worship, that sometime it would end for him as it had ended for the woman on his table. He no longer wished that the curse be removed.

The blueness was beginning to spread, bringing with it dis-orientation and nausea. He would not be able to complete his message to Lythande. With a trembling hand, he clutched the stylus and scrawled a final warning:

Go. or send someone you trust, to the Beysib wharf where their ships still lie at anchor. Whisper 'Harka Bey' to the waters; then leave quickly, without looking back -

The transformation sped through him, blurring his vision, softening his bones. He folded the paper with a gross, awkward gesture and left it on the shroud. Paralysis had claimed his feet by the time he'd fumbled the door open and he retreated back to his private quarters, crawling on his hands and knees.

There was much more he could have told Lythande about the powerful, legendary beynit venom and the equally powerful and legendary Harka Bey. A few months ago even he had thought that the assassin's guild was only another Ilsigi myth; but then the fish-eyed folk had come from beyond the horizon and it now seemed some of the other myths might be true as well. Someone had gone to considerable trouble, using distilled venom and a knife point to make the wound, to make it seem as if the Harka Bey had slain the courtesan. He did not personally believe the Harka Bey would trouble themselves over a Red Lanterns woman - and he did not truly care why she had been killed or who had killed her. His thoughts surrounded the knowledge that the methods of the Harka Bey, at least, were real and might be turned towards ending his own misery.

2

Of late life had been kinder to the woman known in the town simply as Cythen. Her high leather boots were not only new but had been made to fit her. Her warm, fur-lined cloak was new as well: made by an old Downwinds woman who had discovered that, since the arrival of the Beysib and their gold, there were more things to do with a stray cat than eat it. Yes, since the Beysib had come, life was better than it had been -

Cythen hesitated, repressed a wave of remembrance and, reminding herself that it was dangerous folly to remember the past, continued on her way. Perhaps life was better for the Downwinds woman; perhaps her own life was now better than it had been a year before, but it was not unconditionally better.

The young woman moved easily through the inky, twilight shadows of the Maze, avoiding the unfathomed pools of detritus that oozed up between the ancient cobblestones. Tiny pairs of eyes focused on her at the sound other approach and scampered noisily away. The larger, more feral creatures of the hell-hole watched in utter silence from the deeper shadows of doorways and blind alleys. She strode past them all, looking neither right nor left, but missing no flicker of motion.

She paused by an alley apparently no different from any of the dozens she had already passed by and, after assuring herself that no intelligent eyes marked her, entered it. There was no light now; she guided herself with her fingertips brushing the grimy walls, counting the doorways: one, two, three, four. The door was locked, as promised, but she quickly found the handholds that had been chipped into the outer walls. Her cloak fell back as she climbed and, had there been light enough to reveal anything, it would have shown a man's trousers under a woman's tunic and a mid length sword slung low on her left hip. She swung herself over the cornice and dropped into the littered courtyard of a long-abandoned shrine.

A single patch of moonlight, brilliant and unwelcome here in the Maze, shone amid the rubble of what had been an altar. Holding her cloak as if it were the source of all bravery and courage itself, Cythen knelt among the stones and whispered: 'My life for Harka Bey!' Then, as no one had forbidden it, she drew her sword and laid it across her thighs.

Lythande had said - or rather implied, for magicians and their ilk seldom actually said anything - that the Harka Bey would test her before they would listen to her questions. For Bekin's sake and her own need for vengeance, Cythen vowed that they would not find her wanting. The slowly shifting moonlight fed her terror, but she sat still and silent.

The darkness, which had been a comfort while she had been a part of it, now lurked at the edge of her vision, as her memories of better times always lurked at the edge of her thoughts. For a heartbeat she was the young girl she had once been and the darkness lunged at her. A yelp of pure terror nearly escaped her lips before she pushed both memory and old feats aside.

Bekin had been her elder sister. She had been betrothed when disaster had struck. She had witnessed her lover's bloody death and then had been made the victim of the bandits' lust in the aftermath of their victory. None of the brigands had noticed Cythen: slight, wiry Cythen, dressed in a youth's clothes. The younger sister had escaped from the carnage into the darkness. Waiting until the efforts of drinking, killing, and raping had overcome each outlaw and she could bundle her senseless sister away to the relative safety of the brush.

Under Cythen's protection, Bekin's bruises had healed, but her mind was lost. She lived in her own world, believing that the bulge in her belly was the legitimate child of her betrothed, oblivious to their squalor and misery. The birthing, coming on an early spring night, much like this, with only the moonlight for a midwife, had been a long and terrifying process for both of them. Though Cythen had seen midwives start a baby's life with a spanking, she held this one still, watching Bekin's exhausted sleep, until there was no chance it would live. Remembering only the half-naked outlaws in the firelight, she laid the little corpse on the rocks for scavengers to find.

Again Bekin recovered her strength, but not her wits. She never learned the cruel lessons that hardened Cythen and never lost the delusion that each strange man was actually her betrothed returning to her. At first Cythen fought with Bekin's desires and agonized with guilt whenever she failed. But she could find no work to get them food, while the men often left Bekin a trinket or two that could be pawned or sold in the next village - and Bekin was willing to go with any man. So, after a time, Bekin earned their shelter while Cythen, who had always preferred swordplay to needlework. learned the art of the garrote and dressed herself in dead men's clothes. .

When the pair reached Sanctuary, it was only natural that Cythen found a place with Jubal's hawkmasked mercenaries. Bekin slept safely in the slaver's bed whenever he desired her and Cythen knew a measure of peace. When the hell-sent Whoresons had raided Jubal's Downwinds estate, the younger sister again came to the aid of the elder. This time, she took her to the Street of Red Lanterns, to the Aphrodisia House itself, where Myrtis promised that only a select, discriminating clientele would encounter the ever-innocent Bekin. But now, despite Myrtis' promise, Bekin was four days dead of a serpent's venom.

The pool of moonlight shifted as the night aged and Cythen waited. She was bathed in silvery light and blind to the shadows beyond it: undoubtedly the Harka Bey had chosen the rendezvous carefully. She held only her sword hilt and endured the cramps the cold stone left in her legs. Rising above the pain, she sought the mindlessness she had first discovered the day her world had ended and the future closed. It was not the fantastic mindlessness that had claimed Bekin, but rather an alert emptiness, waiting to be filled.

Even so, she missed the first hint of movement in the shadows. The Harka Bey were within the ruins before she heard the faint rustle of shoes on the crumbling masonry.

"Greetings,' she whispered as one figure separated from the rest and whipped out a short, batonlike sword from a sheath she wore slung like a bow across her back. Cythen was glad of the sword beneath her palms and of the sturdy boots that let her spring to her feet while the advancing woman drew a second sword like the first. She remembered all Lythande had been able to tell her about the Harka Bey: they were women, mercenaries, assassins, magicians, and utterly ruthless.

Cythen backed away, masking her apprehension as the woman spun the pair of blades around her with a blinding, deadly speed. By now, five months after the landing, almost everyone had heard of the dazzling swordwork of the Beysib aristocracy, but few had seen even practice bouts with wooden swords and none had seen such lethal artistry as advanced towards Cythen.

She assumed the static en garde of a Rankan officer - who until the Beysib had been the best swordsmen in the land - and fought the mesmerizing power of the spinning steel. The almost invisible sphere the Beysib woman constructed with the whirling blades was both offence and defence. Cythen saw herself sliced down like wheat before a peasant's scythe - and cut down in the next few heartbeats.

She was going to die. . .

There was serenity in that realization. The nausea dropped away, and the terror. She still couldn't see the individual blades as they twirled, but they seemed somehow slower. And no one, unless the Harka Bey were demons as well, could twirl the steel forever. And wasn't her own blade demon-forged, shedding green sparks when it met and shattered inferior metal? The voice of her father, a voice she thought she had forgotten, came to her: 'Don't watch what I do,' he'd snarled good-naturedly after batting aside her practice sword. 'Watch what I'm not doing and attack into that weakness!'

Cythen hunched down behind her sword and no longer retreated. However fast they moved, those blades could not protect the Harka Bey everywhere, all the time. Though still believing she would die in the attempt, Cythen balanced her weight and brought her sword blade in line with her opponent's neck: a neck which would be, for some invisible fraction of time, unprotected. She lunged forward, determined that she would not die unprotesting like the wheat.

Green sparks showered as Cythen absorbed the force of two blades slamming hard against her own. The Beysib steel did not shatter - but that was less important than the fact that all three blades were entrapped by each other and the tip of Cythen's blade was a finger's width from the Harka Bey's black-scarved neck. Cythen had the advantage with both hands firmly on her sword hilt, while the Harka Bey still had her two swords, and half the strength to hold each of them with. Then Cythen heard the unmistakable sound of naked steel in the shadows around her.

'Filthy, fish-eyed bitches!' Cythen exclaimed. The local patois, usually unequalled for expressing contempt or derision, had not yet taken the measure of the invaders, but there was no mistaking the murderous disgust in Cythen's face as she beat her sword free and stepped momentarily back out of range.

'Cowards!' she added.

'Had we wished to slay you, child, we could have done so without revealing ourselves. So, you see, it was simply a test; which you passed,' her opponent said in slightly breathless, accented tones. She sheathed her swords and, unseen still in the darkness, her companions did the same.

'You're lying, bitch.'

The Harka Bey ignored Cythen's remark, but began unwinding the black scarf from her face, revealing a woman only a little older than Cythen herself. The clear racial stamp of the Beysib unsettled Cythen as much, or more than, the twirling swords. It wasn't just that their eyes were a bit too round and bulging for mainland taste but -flick - and those eyes went impenetrable and glassy. To Cythen it was like being watched by the dead, and with the corpse of her sister still foremost in her mind, the comparison was not at all comforting.

'Do we truly seem so strange to you?' the Beysib woman asked, reminding Cythen that she, too, was staring.

'I had expected someone... older: a crone, from what the mages said.'

The Harka Bey hunched her shoulders; the glassy membrane over her eyes flicked open, then closed without interrupting her stare. 'No old people came on the ships with us. They would not have survived the journey. I have been Harka Bey since my eyes first opened on the sun and Her blood mingled with mine. You needn't fear that I am not Harka Bey. I am called Prism. Now, what do you wish from the Harka Bey?'

'A woman from the Street of Red Lanterns has been murdered. She slept secure in the most guarded House in Sanctuary and yet someone was able to kill her leaving the mark of serpent fangs on her neck.' Cythen spoke the words Lythande had taught her, though they were far from the ones she would have freely chosen.

Though the Sanctuary woman believed it impossible. Prism's eyes grew wider, rounder and the glassy membrane fluttered wildly. Finally her eyelids closed and, as if on cue, the loose, dark clothing she wore began to writhe from her waist to her breasts, from her breasts to her shoulders, until the bloodred head of the woman's familiar peeked above her collar and regarded Cythen with round, unblinking eyes. The serpent opened its mouth, revealing an equally crimson maw and glistening ivory fangs. Its tongue wove before Cythen's face, drawing a faint murmur of disgust from her.

'You needn't fear her,' Prism assured Cythen with a cold smile, 'unless you're my enemy.'

Cythen silently shook her head.

'But you do think that I, or my sisters, killed this woman who was, in some way, dear to you?'

'No - yes. She was mad; she was my sister. She was protected there and there was no reason for anyone to want her dead. She lived in the past, in a world that doesn't exist any more.'

The cold smile nickered across Prism's face again. 'Ah, then, you see it could not have been Harka Bey. We would never kill without reason.'

"There were no marks besides the snakes fangs' puncture anywhere on her. Myrtis even called Lythande to examine the body -and he arranged for Enas Yorl to study the poison. And Enas Yorl sent us to you.'

Prism turned to the shadows and spoke rapidly in her own language. Cythen recognized only the names of the two magicians; the native Beysib language was very different from the mix of dialects common in Sanctuary. A second woman joined them in the moonlight. She unwound her scarf to reveal a face that shimmered orchid as it stared at Cythen. Cythen let her hand rest once again on her sword hilt while the two women conversed rapidly in their incomprehensible tongue.

'What else did your magician, Enas Yorl, tell you about us -besides how to contact us along the wharves?'

'Nothing,' Cythen replied, hesitating a bit before continuing. 'Enas Yorl's cursed. We left Bekin's corpse in his vestibule and returned later to find a note tucked in her shroud. Lythande said it was incomplete; that the shifting curse had claimed him again. Beyond saying that you, the Harka Bey, would know the truth, the note was indecipherable.'

There was another brief exchange of foreign words before Prism spoke again to Cythen. 'The shape-changer is known to us - as we are known to him. It is a serious charge you and he bring before us. This woman, your sister, was not our victim. You, of course, do not know us well enough to know that we speak the truth in this; you will have to trust us that this is so.'

Cythen opened her mouth to protest, but the woman waved her back to silence.

'I have not doubted the truth of your words,' Prism warned. 'Do not be so foolish as to doubt mine. We will study this matter closely. The dead woman will be avenged. You will be remembered. Go now, with Bey, the Mother of us all.'

'If it wasn't you, then who was it?' Cythen demanded, though the women were already melting back into the shadows. 'It couldn't have been one of us. None of us has the venom, or knows of the Harka Bey ...'

They continued to vanish, as silently and mysteriously as they had arrived. Prism lingered the longest; then she, too, vanished and Cythen was left to wonder if the alien women had been there at all.

Still full of the delayed effects of her terror, Cythen clambered loudly over the wall. The Maze was still black as ink, but now it was silent, caught in the brief moment between the activities of night and those of the day. Her soft footfalls echoed and she pulled the dark cloak high around her face, until the Maze was behind her and she was in the Street of Red Lanterns, where a few patrons still lingered in the doorways, shielding their faces from her eyes. The great lamps were out above the door of the Aphrodisia House. Myrtis and her courtesans would not rise until the sun beat on the rooftops at noon. But her staff, the ones who were invisible at night, were working in the kitchens and took Cythen's hastily scribbled, disappointed message, promising that it would be delivered as soon as Madame had breakfasted. Then, weary and yawning, Cythen slipped back into the garrison barracks where Walegrin, in deference to her sex, had allotted her a private, bolted chamber.

She slept well into the day watch, entering the mess hall when it was deserted. The gelid remains of breakfast remained on the sideboard, ignored by the endemic vermin. It would taste worse than it looked, though Cythen was long past the luxury of tasting the food she ate: one ate what was available or one starved. She filled her bowl and sat alone by the hearth.

Bekin's death was still unexplained and unavenged and that weighed more heavily upon her than the greasy porridge. For more years than she cared to remember, her only pride had been that she had somehow managed to care for Bekin. Now that was gone and she stood emotionally naked to her guilts and unbidden memories. If the Harka Bey had not appeared, she might still have blamed them but, despite their barbaric coldness, or perhaps because of it, she believed what they had said. The warmth of tears rose within her as her brooding was broken by the sound of a chair scraping along the floor in the watchroom above her. Rather than succumb to the waiting tears, she went to confront Walegrin.

The straw-blond man didn't notice as she opened the door. He was absorbed in his square of parchment and the cramped rows of figures he had made upon it. With one hand on the door, Cythen hesitated. She didn't like Walegrin; no one really did, except maybe Thrusher - and he was almost as strange. The garrison's officer repelled compassion and friendship alike and hid his emotions so thoroughly that none could find them. Still, Walegrin managed to provide leadership and direction when it was needed - and he reminded Cythen of no one else in her troubled past.

'You missed curfew,' he greeted her after she closed the door, not looking up from his figures. His hands were filthy with cheap ink, the only kind available in Sanctuary. But the numbers themselves, Cythen saw as she moved closer, were clear and orderly. He could read and write as well as swing a sword; in fact, he had education and experience equal to her own, and at times her feelings for him threatened to take wild leaps beyond friendship or respect. Then she would remind herself that it was only loneliness that she was feeling and the remembering of things best left forgotten.

'I left word for you,' she stated without apology.

He kicked a stool towards her. 'Did you find what you were looking for?'

She shook her head and sat on the stool. 'No, but I found them all right. Beysib, and from the palace, by the look of them.' She shook her head again, this time recalling the strange faces of the two women she had seen. 'They sneaked up on me; I couldn't see how many there were. One came after me with a pair of those long-hiked swords of theirs. She spun them so fast I couldn't see them any more. Fighting with them's like walking into the mouth of a dragon.'

'But you fought and survived?' A faint trace of a smile creased Walegrin's face. He set his quill aside.

'She said they were testing me - but that's because she couldn't kill me like she'd planned. Her swords couldn't stop mine, and mine didn't break hers; that Beysib steel is good. I guess we were both surprised. And then she figured she better talk to me, and listen ... But she never blinked while I talked to her so this Harka Bey, whatever it is, really must be from the palace and around the Beysa, right? The closer they are to the Imperial blood the more fish-eyed they are, right? And while I was talking to her a snake, one of those damned red mouthed vipers, crawled up out of her clothes and wound up around her neck, lookin' at me as if its opinion was the one that really mattered. And the other one - the one who came forward after the test - her face was shiny and purple!'

'Then she should be fairly easy to identify if she's the one who killed your sister.'

Cythen froze on the stool, searching the past few days, the past few months for any slip of the tongue when she might have let him know what Bekin was to her; that she pursued the killer of a Red Lanterns courtesan out of anything more than outrage or simple compassion.

'Molin told me,' Walegrin explained. 'He was looking for a pattern.'

'Molin Torchholder? Why in the name of a hundred stinking little gods should Vashanka's torch know anything about me or my sister?' The anxiety and guilt transformed themselves into anger; Cythen's rich voice filled the room.

'When Myrtis asks Lythande and Lythande asks Enas Yorl and they ask for a specific person to escort the corpse from pillar to post then, yes - somehow Molin Torchholder hears about it and gets his answers.'

'And you're his errand boy? His messenger?' She had touched a sore point between them in her anger, and by the darkening of his face she knew to regret it. Back in the first days of chaos after the Beysib fleet heaved over the horizon, Molin Torchholder had been everywhere. The archetypical bureaucrat had kept his beleaguered temple open for business; his Prince well-advised, the Beysib amused and, ultimately, Walegrin and his band employed in the service of the city. In return, Walegrin had begun to hand back a portion of the garrison's wages for Molin's speculations. It was not such a bad partnership. Walegrin's duties kept him apprised of the merchant's activity anyway, and Molin seldom lost money. But for Cythen, whose family, when she'd had a family, had been rich in land, not gold, the rabid pursuit of more gold than you needed was degrading. And, though she would never admit it directly, she did not want Walegrin degraded.

'He told me,' Walegrin replied after an uncomfortable silence, his voice carefully even, 'because you are still part of this garrison and if something is going to make you act rashly he would want me to know about it. Bekin's death isn't the only one that's got us edgy. Each night since she died at least two Beysib have been found dead, mutilated, and the lord-high muckety-mucks are thinking about showing some muscle around here. We're all under close watch.'

'If he was so damned all-fired concerned about how rashly I might act, then why in his departed god's name didn't he keep Bekin from getting killed in the first place?'

'You hid her too well. He didn't know who she was until she was dead, Cythen. You bought Myrtis's silence; she was the only one beside you who knew - and maybe Jubal, I guess. But, did you know she was working the Beysib traffic on the Street?' Walegrin paused and let Cythen absorb the information she obviously had not had before. 'Most of the women won't, you know. I guess it's not just their eyes that're different. But she was killed by a Beysib serpent - a jealous wife maybe? And, now that Beysibs are getting killed by an ordinary rip-and slash artist in numbers and places that can't all be written off to carelessness, you are a suspect, you Know.'

The anger had burned itself out, leaving Cythen with gaping holes in her defences; the grief slipped out. 'Walegrin, she was mad. Every man looked the same to her - so of course she'd work the Beysib, or Jubal. She didn't live here. She couldn't have known anything, or done anything to make someone kill her. Damn, if Molin cares who services the Beysib stallions he could have protected her anyway.' A few tears escaped and, shamed by them, Cythen hid her face behind her hands.

'You should tell him that yourself. You're not going to be any use to me until you do.' Walegrin rolled the parchment, then stood up to fasten his sword-belt over his hips. 'You won't be needing anything - let's go.'

Too surprised to object, Cythen followed him into the palace forecourt. A handful of gaudy Beysib youths, brash young men and lithe, bold women, pushed loudly past them, the exposed, painted breasts of the women flashing from beneath their capelets in the sunlight. Walegrin affected not to notice; no man in Sanctuary would notice the flaunted flesh - not if he valued his life. The Beysib had made that very clear in the first, and - thus far - only, wave of executions. Cythen stared, though not as well as the Beysib could stare, at their faces and finally looked away, unable to find any individuality in the barbaric features. Prism could have walked beside her and she would not have known it.

One of the Beysib lords strode by, magenta pantaloons billowing around him, a glittering fez perched atop his shaved head, and a well-scrubbed Sanctuary urchin struggling with a great silk parasol behind him. Both Walegrin and Cythen halted and saluted as he passed. That was the way now, if you accepted their gold.

She was grateful for the shadows of the lower palace and the familiar sound of servants shouting in Rankene at each other as they approached the much-reduced quarters of Kadakithis and his retainers. In truth, though, she no longer wanted to see the priest, if indeed she had ever wanted to see him. Her anger had escaped and now she only wanted to return to her tiny room. But Walegrin pounded on the heavy door and forced it open before the Torch's pet mute could lift the latch.

Molin set down his goblet and stared at Cythen in the old-fashioned way that said: What has the cat dragged in this time? Cythen tugged at her tunic, well aware that the clothes of a garrison soldier, no matter how clean or cared for, were unseemly attire for a woman - especially one who had been an earling's daughter. And if he knew about Bekin, then he might have known the rest as well. She would have run from the chamber, had that been an option, but since it wasn't, she squared her shoulders and matched his appraising look with one of her own.

The priest was Rankan and he'd managed to retain all the implied power and majesty that that word had ever carried, despite the low ceilings and the laundry-women battling outside his window. Bands of gold decorated the hems of his robes, adorned his boots, and circled his fingers. His midnight hair was combed to surround his face like a lion's mane - yet it was not so dark or shiny as his eyes. If the Torch's god had been vanquished, as some claimed; if the Prince was simply a puppet in the hands of the Beysa; if his prospects for wealth and honour had been reduced, then none of it showed in his appearance or demeanour. Cythen looked away first.

'Cythen has some questions I can't answer for her,' Walegrin said boldly as he laid the parchment on the priest's table. 'She wonders why you didn't protect Bekin when you first suspected there might be danger in dealing with the Beysib, as she did.'

The Torch calmly unrolled the parchment. 'Ah, three caravans yesterday; seventy five soldats. We've almost enough. They agree the first boat should be bought with Rankan gold, you know. The longer we can keep the capital ignorant of our situation here, the better it will be for all of us. If they knew how much gold was floating in our harbour, they'd bring half the army down here to take it from us - and neither we nor they want that.' He looked up from the parchment.

'Have you found me a man to take the gold north yet? I'll have other messages for him to carry as well. The war's not going well; I think we can lure Tempus back to his Prince. We're going to need that man's unique and nasty talents before this is over.' He rerolled the parchment and handed it over to the mute.

Walegrin scowled. He had no desire to have Tempus back in the town. Molin sipped at his wine and seemed to notice Cythen for the first time again. 'Now then, for your companion's questions. I was not aware of the unfortunate woman's relationship to Cythen until after she was dead. And I certainly did not know there was danger in bedding a Beysib until it was too late.'

'But you were watching her. You must have suspected something,' Cythen snarled, grinding her heel into the lush wool-and-silk carpet and banging her fist on the priest's fine parquet table.

'She was, I believe, a half-mad - or totally mad, you'd know better than I harlot at the Aphrodisia. I can not imagine the dangers or delights of such a life. She entertained a variety of Beysib men, one of the few who would, and as the welfare of the Beysib is important to me, I kept tabs on them, and therefore her. It is a pity she was murdered - that is what happened, isn't it? But, mad as she was - sleeping with the Beysib - isn't it better that she's departed? Her spirit is free now to be reborn on a higher, happier level.'

Theology came easily and sincerely to the priest. And Cythen, who knew her own sins well enough, was tempted to believe the resonant phrases.

'You knew something,' she said pleadingly, clutching her resolve. 'Just like the Harka Bey suspected something when I told them.'

Torchholder swallowed his pious words and looked to Walegrin for confirmation. The blond, ice-eyed man simply nodded his head slightly and said: 'It had been suggested by Yorl. Cythen seemed the most appropriate one for the task; she volunteered anyway.'

'Harka Bey,' the priest repeated, mulling over the words. 'Vengeance of Bey, I believe, in their language. I've heard rumours, legends, whatever about them, but everybody's denied that there's anything to the legends. Poison-blooded female assassins? And real enough that Cythen met with them? Very interesting, but not at all what I'd expected.'

'I believe, your Grace, that Yorl only suggested contacting the Harka Bey. It seems unlikely that they would have killed the girl: Indeed they deny it,' Walegrin corrected, clenching Cythen's upper arm in a bruising grip to keep her quiet.

'What did you expect?' Cythen demanded of Molin, wrenching free of Walegrin and raising her voice. 'Why is it so important that she slept with the Beysib men? Which one of them do you suspect of murder?'

'Not so loudly, child,' the priest pleaded, remember, we survive on sufferance; we can have no suspicions.' He gestured to the mute, who went to the window and began playing a loud folktune on his pipes. 'We have no rights.' Taking Cythen's arm, he ushered her into a cramped, windowless alcove, hidden behind one of his tapestries.

Molin began to speak in a hoarse whisper. 'And keep quiet about this,' he warned her. 'The Aphrodisia is the favourite gaming place of our new lords and masters, especially the younger, hot-headed ones. There's an element among them that does not appreciate the current policy of restraint. Remember, these people are exiles; they've just lost a war at home; they've got something to prove to themselves. Sure, the older men say "Bide your time," "We'll go home next year, or the year after that, or the one after that." They weren't the ones on the battlefields getting their asses kicked.

'The Beysa Shupansea listens to the old men, but now, with the murders of their own people, she is becoming nervous herself. The clamour for a stronger hand is rising ...'

Molin was interrupted by the sound of someone banging on the outer door. 'The palace is a sponge,' he complained, and he was in a position to know the truth. 'Wait here and stay quiet, for god's sake.'

Walegrin and Cythen pressed back into the shadows and listened to a loud, unintelligible conversation between Molin and one of the Beysib lords. They did not need to understand the words; the shouts told them enough. The Beysib was angry and upset. Molin was having small success at calming him down. Then the Beysib stormed out of the room, slamming the door behind him, and Molin rushed back into the alcove.

'They want results.' He rubbed his hands together nervously, releasing the scent of the oils he used on his skin. 'Turghurt's out there calling for vengeance and his people are listening. After all, no Beysib would kill another Beysib in such a crude manner!' Molin's voice spewed sarcasm. 'I've got no great love for the natives of this town but one thing they are not, to a man, woman or child of them - stupid enough to taunt the Beysib like this!'

Walegrin frowned. 'So they believe it's a Sanctuary man, or woman, behind it. But at least one of the bodies was found on the rooftops, right here, in the palace compound. This place is guarded, Molin. We guard it; they guard it. We'd have seen him, at least.'

'Exactly what I've told them. Exactly why I'm sure it isn't one of us. But no; they've been frightened. They're convinced the town is smouldering against them - they don't intend to be pushed any further and they're not about to listen to me.

'I figure it works this way: there are malcontents in this court just like anywhere else. I knew the bulk of the hotheads congregated at the Aphrodisia. I didn't think there was danger to it; I just meant to keep those young men watched. Their leader is the eldest son of Terrai Burek, the Beysa's prime minister. And a child more unlike the father you can't imagine. It's no secret the boy hates his father and would do anything to spite the old man - though I expect bullying the townspeople would come naturally to him anyway. Yet, the father protects his son and the common laws of Sanctuary can't reach him.'

'You're talking about Turghurt, aren't you?' Walegrin asked, obviously recognizing the name, though Cythen didn't recall having heard it before. 'Still, Cythen's sister was killed by venom - and the Harka Bey are all women.'

'True enough, but if the Harka Bey is real then it's likely a number of other things are - like the rings with reservoirs for venom and razor-sharp blades to simulate the fangs. They've told me the venom can't be isolated, but I don't believe them now -'

'Who is this Terket Buger?' Cythen inquired, her thoughts warming to the idea of a name and face she could blame and take vengeance upon. 'Would I recognize him?'

'Turghurt Burek,' Walegrin corrected. 'Yeah, you've probably seen him. He's a big man, a troublemaker. Taller than most of the Beysib men here by a head or more. He's a coward, I'm sure, because we can never find him alone. He's always got a handful of cronies around. We can't lay a hand on him anyway - though this time we're talking about killing.' He looked hopefully to the priest.

'Not this time, either.'

They were once again interrupted by a hammering on the outside door and the sounds of masculine voices shouting in the Beysib language. Molin left the alcove to deal with the intrusion and fared worse this time than before. He was roundly berated by two men who, it appeared, had made up their minds about something. The priest returned to the alcove, visibly shaken.

'It fits together now,' he said slowly. 'The boy has boxed us all. Another Beysib woman has been found dead - and mutilated, I might add - down by the wharf. Young Burek has played his hand masterfully. That was him, and his father, to tell me that the populace must be controlled or wholesale slaughter of the townsfolk will be on my conscience. The men of Bey will not see their women defiled.'

'Turghurt Burek was here?' Cythen asked, her hands moving instinctively to her hip, where she usually wore her sword. She cursed herself for not having dared to lift the tapestry a fraction to see his face.

'The same, and he's convinced his father now as well. Walegrin, I don't know how you'll do it, but you've got to keep the peace until I can get the old man to see reason - or catch the murderers bloody-handed.' The priest paused, as if an idea had just occurred to him. He looked hard at Cythen and she fairly cringed from the plotting she saw in his face. 'Catch them bloody-handed! You - Cythen; how much do you want your revenge? What will you sacrifice to get it? Turghurt is full of himself, and he'll likely go back to the Aphrodisia to celebrate this victory. He hasn't been back since your sister died, but I doubt he'll wait much longer. If not tonight, then tomorrow night. He'll go back because he has to gloat - and because his kind get no satisfaction from these high-handed Beysib women.

'Now, somehow your sister learned something she shouldn't have and died for it. Could you lure him into the same mistake and survive to let me know of it? I'll need proof absolute if I'm going to confront his father. Not a corpse, you understand; that will only fan the flames. What I'll need is Turghurt and the proof. Can you get it for me?'

Cythen found herself nodding, promising the Rankan priest that she would get her vengeance as she got him his proof; as she spoke another hidden part of herself froze into numb paralysis. The meeting had become a dream from which she could not seem to awaken: a continuation of all the nightmares that made her past so unpleasant to remember. Bekin was dead - but not gone.

She stood mute while the priest and Walegrin made their plans. Her silence was taken for attentiveness, though she heard nothing above the screaming other own thoughts. The priest patted her on the shoulder as she left his rooms, following Walegrin into the forecourt again. Knots of Beysibs had gathered there, talking among themselves with their backs to the Sanctuary pair as they walked back to the garrison. One of the men did turn to stare at her. He wasn't tall so he wasn't Turghurt, but all the same. the feel of the cold fish-eyes regarding her finally loosened her tongue.

'Sabellia preserve me! I know nothing of Bekin's trade. I'm still a virgin!' It was as much of a prayer as she had muttered since her father went down with an arrow in his throat.

Walegrin stopped short, appraising her in surprise. 'You told me you'd worked on the Street of Red Lanterns?'

'I told you that I'd tried to work on the Street of Red Lanterns and that I couldn't. Don't look at me like that; it's not that unreasonable. Don't I have my own quarters now, and no one who'd dare to bother me there? A woman who lives with the garrison is safe from all other men, and a woman who is part of that garrison is safe from her cohorts as well.'

'Then you've got more courage than I thought,' he replied, shaking his head, 'or you're an utter fool. You'd better let Myrtis know when you get there; she'll know how to turn it to our advantage.'

Cythen grimaced and tried not to think of that evening, or the next evening. She left her sword in Walegrin's care and made her way to the Street. It was nearing dusk by the time she got there and some of the poorer, more worn women, who did not dwell in any of the major establishments, were already on the prowl, though the Aphrodisia was not yet open for business. One of them jeered at her as she climbed the steps to the carved doors: 'They won't take your type there, soldier-girl.'

She stood there uncomfortably, ignoring the comments from the street below and remembering why she always came in the morning. The doorman recognized her, however, and at length the doors swung open to her. The downstairs was beginning to come to life with music and women dressed in brilliant, flower-coloured dresses. Cythen watched them as the doorman guided her to the little room where Myrtis was getting ready for the evening herself.

'I had not expected to see you again,' Myrtis said softly, rising from her dressing table and discreetly closing the account book, which crowded out the cosmetic bottles. 'Your note said your meeting did not go well. You had not mentioned returning here.'

'The meeting didn't go well.' Cythen eyed Myrtis's smooth, clenched white hands as she spoke. There was a barely perceptible nervousness in the madam's voice and a barely perceptible rippling to the edge of the table rug beneath the account books. Both could have any number of benign explanations, but Cythen had brought Bekin here expecting, and paying for, her sister's safety. Myrtis had not provided the services she had been paid for and Cythen's vengeance could be expected in several different ways.

'I've seen the priest, Molin Torchholder, and he's made a plan; a way to snare the one he suspects. I thought he would have sent you a message by now,' Cythen said quickly.

Myrtis shrugged, but without unclenching her fists. 'Since Bekin there have been other deaths: gruesome murders, many of them Beysib women. All the reliable couriers have been kept busy. There isn't time for the death of a Sanctuary girl. Perhaps you can tell me who Molin Torchholder suspects of using beynit venom when the Harka Bey denies all knowledge of it?'

'He suspects a man, a Beysib man. He suspects that the death of my sister is not so different from the Beysib deaths.'

'Has he given you a name?'

'Yes, Turghurt Burek.'

'The son of the prime minister?'

'Yes, but the Torch suspects him anyway. He comes here, doesn't he?'

'That man has spies everywhere!' Myrtis grimaced as she relaxed and raised her fist towards the smouldering hearth. Cythen heard a small click; then watched as the flames leapt high and crimson. 'Once primed, it must be shot,' Myrtis explained, while Cythen shuddered. 'We called him Voyce here; and he was always a gentleman - for all that he's fish-folk. Bekin was special to him; such childlike innocence is not at all common among their women. He grieved over her death and hasn't been back since she died.

'But he was also the second person to suggest the Harka Bey to us.' Myrtis paused, and just when Cythen despaired of being believed at all, the starkly beautiful woman continued: 'I like him very much; he reminds me of a love I once had. I was blinded. I have hiot been blinded for ... for a long time. The signs were there; my suspicions should have been roused. Does Molin Torchholder have some notion of how we're to bring the son of the Beysib prime minister to justice before there is war in the town and we turn to Ranke for help?'

'Molin believes that since Bekin was the only Sanctuary woman who has been slain, she must have learned something dangerous to him. Molin thinks that Turghurt will make the same mistake again, now that he's convinced his father to see everything his way. But I will be less easy to kill than she was, and snare him instead.'

'You play a dangerous game between the priest and this Beysib, Cythen. Molin is no less ruthless than the fish-folk. And, here Burek is Voyce; none of my women knows the true names of the men here, and if you value your life you'll remember that. The Aphrodisia is a place apart; a man need not be himself here - and they expect me to protect them. '

'Now Voyce is clever, strong and cruel, yet it would be a simple matter to be rid of him, if that would serve our purposes. The Harka Bey are not the only women who understand killing. But he must be exposed, not slain, and that will be all the more dangerous.'

'I've come for my vengeance,' Cythen warned.

'He will not expose himself to a garrison soldier, my dear, neither figuratively nor literally.' Myrtis gave Cythen a slightly condescending smile. 'His tastes do not run towards strong-willed women, such as he was raised with and his father serves. You do not have the yielding nature that madness gave your sister.'

'I'll become whatever I must be to trap him.'

As she spoke, Cythen yanked loose the cord that bound her hair, shaking her head until the brown strands rose like an untidy aura around her face.

'Good intentions will not deceive him, either.' Myrtis had become kind-voiced again. 'Your need for vengeance will not make you a courtesan. There are others here who can bell our cat.'

'No,' Cythen protested. 'He'll come here again and make his mistake again, and he might kill another of your courtesans. Isn't it to your advantage to let me risk my life rather than sacrificing one of those who belong to you?'

'Of course it would be to my advantage, child, if I owned anyone. But just because I keep account books on love a.nd pleasure, do not think I am completely without conscience. If Voyce is all he is suspected of being, I would be as guilty of your death, or anyone's death, as he would be.'

Cythen shook her head and took a step closer to Myrtis, resting her fists on the table. 'Don't lecture me about death or guilt. For five years since those bandits swept down and attacked us, I travelled with Bekin, protecting her, bringing her men, and killing them if I had to. It would have been better if she had died that first night. I'm not sorry she's dead, only sorry that she was murdered by a man she trusted, as she trusted all men. I don't blame you, or me, but I can't get her out of my memory until I've avenged her. Do you understand that? Do you understand that I must close the circle completely, myself, if I'm to have peace, if I'm to be free of her?'

Myrtis met Cythen's rabid stare and, whether she understood the dark emotions and memories that drove the younger woman or not, she finally nodded. 'Still, if you are to have a chance at all, you must abide by what I tell you to do, Cythen. If he does not find you attractive, he will search elsewhere. I will give you her chambers and her clothes; that will give you an advantage. I will send Ambutta to bathe you, to help you dress and to arrange your hair.

'When he returns again, if he returns again, he will be yours. You may stay as long as you please, but he is not to be harmed in this house! Now then, you must also seem to belong here, and it will rouse suspicion if you take no others while you wait. I will set aside your portion -'

'I'm a virgin,' Cythen interrupted in a far from steady voice. When her mind was focused on the fish-eyed murderer other sister, she could manage to ignore the implications of the plan she had agreed to; but faced with the pragmatic logic of the madam, she began to realize that vengeance and determination might not be enough.

Myrtis nodded, 'I had suspected as much. You would not want your sister's slayer, then, to be the first -'

'It won't matter. Just tell everyone that I'm being saved for just the right man. That's often the way of it anyway, isn't it? A special prize for a special customer?'

Myrtis hardened. 'In those places where courtesan and slave are the same that may be so. But my women are here because they wish to be here; I do not own them. Many leave for other lives after they've grown tired of a life of love and earned a healthy portion of gold. But pleasure is not your talent, Cythen; you wouldn't understand. Men have nothing you desire and you have nothing to give them in return.'

'I have a talent for deceit, Myrtis, or neither Bekin nor I would have survived at all. Honour your promise. Give him to me for one night.'

With a gesture of worried resignation, Myrtis consented to the arrangement. She summoned Ambutta, who some said was her daughter, and had Cythen led into the private sections of the house where, for a night and a day she was fussed over and transformed. Before sundown of the next day she was ensconced in the plush seraglio where Bekin had lived, and died. Her garrison clothes and knife had been hidden in the dark panelled walls and she herself was now draped in lengths of diaphanous rose-coloured silk - a gift to Bekin from the man who had slain her.

Staring into the mirror as the sun set, Cythen saw a woman she had never known before: the self she might have become if tragedy had not intervened. She was beautiful, as Bekin had been, and she preferred the feel of silk to the chafing of the linen and wools she normally wore. Ambutta had skilfully wound beads through Cythen's hair, binding it into a fanciful shape that left Cythen afraid to turn quickly, lest the whole affair come tumbling down into her face.

'There was a message for you earlier,' Ambutta, a disturbingly wise woman no older than thirteen, said as she daubed a line of kohl under Cythen's eyes.

'What?' Cythen jerked away in anger, her stance becoming that of a fighter, despite the silk.

'You were bathing,' the child-woman explained, twirling the brush in the inky powder, 'and men do not come upstairs by day.'

'All right, then, give it to me now.' She held out her hand.

'It was spoken only, from your friend Walegrin. He says two more fish-folk have been found murdered: Actually it's three -another was found at low tide - but the message came before that. One of them was a cousin to the Beysa herself. The garrison is ordered to produce the culprit, or any culprit, by dawn or the executions will begin. They will kill as many each noon as fish-folk who have already died. Tomorrow they'll kill thirteen - by venom.'

Though the room was warm and draughtless, Cythen felt a chill. 'Was that all?'

'No, Walegrin said Turghurt is horny.'

The chill became a finger of ice along her spine. She did not resist as Ambutta moved closer to finish applying the kohl. She saw her face in the mirror and recognized herself as the frightened girl beside the wise Ambutta.

The hours wore on after Ambutta left her. Two knobs had burnt off the hour candle and none had come to her door. The music and laughter that were the normal sounds of an evening at the Aphrodisia House grated on her ears as she listened for the telltale accent that would betray the presence of the fish folk, whatever common Ilsigi or Rankan name Myrtis gave them.

Couples walked noisily past her closed door; women already settled for the night. The smells of love-incense grew strong enough to make her head ache. She stood on a pile of pillows to open the room's only window and to look out on the jumble of the Bazaar stalls and the dark roofs of the Maze beyond them. Absorbed by the panorama of the town, she did not hear the latch lift nor the door open, but she felt someone staring at her.

'They told me that they had given you her room.'

She knew, before she turned, that he had finally come. He spoke the local dialect well, but without any attempt to conceal his heavy accent. Her heart was fluttering against her ribs as she turned to face him.

He had left his cloak downstairs and stood before her in fish-folk finery, filling the doorway with his bulk. It was no wonder Bekin had adored him - she'd had a child's delight in colour and shine. His pantaloons were a deep turquoise, embroidered with silver. His tunic was a lighter shade, slashed open to the navel with sleeves that shone and rippled like the rose silk she wore. His fez was encrusted with glittery stones; he removed it with a smile; his shaved scalp glistened in the candlelight. Despite herself, Cythen flattened against the wall and regarded him with a mixture of fear and awe. His eyes shone as he watched her without blinking, and after a moment she looked away.

'There is no need to be frightened. Little Flower.'

His arms circled the rose silk and drew her tightly against him. Strong blunt fingers pressed around her neck, digging in behind her ears so she could not resist as he forced her lips apart. She willed herself to numbness when he found the knots that bound the silk around her and undid them. Screams of outrage echoed in her mind, but she clung silently, unprotestingly, to his powerful arms.

'You are still frightened?' he asked after a while, running a finger over the curve other hip as she lay limp on the pillows beside him. He was strong, as Walegrin had said he would be, but she did not quite have the nerve to find out if he was a coward as well.

She shook her head when he asked if she was afraid, but could not stop her hands from coming to rest on top of his, stopping his incessant motion. He bent over her, caressing her breast with his lips, tongue and teeth. With a strangled whimper, she stiffened away from him.

'You will see. There's nothing to be frightened of. Just relax.'

He was staring at her: cold fish-eyes peering into her body and soul. All the warnings that Myrtis, Walegrin, and even Ambutta had given her chorused out of her memory and she wished she was Bekin: either dead or willing to love any man. Her confidence went out like a guttered candle. She felt him loosening the heavy belt that bound his pantaloons and knew she could not stifle the next screams that would rise from her throat.

There would be no second chance. She would fall, and probably die here in this room with her sister's ghost hovering in her thoughts. But she was a master of deceit, as she had claimed, which was much more than simple lying or pretending.

'Yes, I'm frightened,' she whispered in a coy, little girl's voice she had just discovered, using the truth to buy a few more moments. She shivered and clutched the discarded silk against her as he let her slide away from him. 'Do you know what happened to the girl who lived in this room? While she slept, someone let a serpent into here and it bit her. She died horribly. Sometimes I think I hear it on the pillows, but they won't let me have another room.'

There are no snakes in this room. Little Flower.'

In the shadows, she could not be certain of his expression, and his accent made it difficult to read the sound of his voice. Recklessly, she continued.

'That's what they tell me. The only snakes in Sanctuary which are poisonous are the Beysa's holy snakes - and those never go far from her in the palace. But she was killed by snake venom. Someone had to have put it in here. But she was only a mad girl from the Street of Red Lanterns, so no one will search for her killer.'

'I'm sure your Prince will do all that he can. It would be a crime among us, as well, if someone had stolen the Beysa's serpent.'

'I'm afraid. Suppose they didn't need to steal the serpent, suppose they only needed the venom. Suppose the Harka Bey are angry because men like you come here to women like me.'

He took her in his arms again, brushing the sweat-dampened hair back from her face. 'The Harka Bey is a tale for children.'

She caught his hand in hers and felt the design of the ring on his hand: a serpent, with fangs that rasped on the ridges of her fingertips. He pulled his hand quickly away.

'I'm afraid, Turghurt, of what will become of me -'

He struck like a snake, grabbing at her throat and wrenching her head around into the candlelight. Her right arm was hopelessly twisted in the silk and her left bent backwards into agony.

'So Myrtis thinks it's me, does she?'

'No,' Cythen gasped, aware now that she had used his real name, as she had been warned not to do. 'She knows it could not have been you who killed Bekin. Only women handle the serpents...' but they were both staring at the serpent ring shining in the candle-light.

'What are you?' he demanded, shaking her jaw until something ripped loose in her neck and she could not have answered him if she had wanted to. 'Who sent you? What do you know?' He bent her wrist back until it was in the candle flame. 'Who told you about our plans?'

Tears flowed through the kohl, washing the black powder into her eyes - but that was the least of her pain. She screamed, finally, though wrenching her jaw free of him was almost enough to make her faint. He caught her again, but it was too late. Even as he beat her head against the wall, someone was banging on the door. She fell back on the candle, extinguishing it with her body, and they struggled against each other in the darkness.

She broke free more than once, digging her filed nails into whatever vulnerable skin she could grab. But she did not have the strength to break his bones with her hands and could not find, in the darkness, the panel that concealed her knife. Someone was using an axe on the door now, and she thought perhaps it would not all have been in vain if they caught him for her death.

He caught her by the shoulder and brought his fist crashing into her weakened jaw. The force and the pain stunned her. She hung limp in his grip, defenceless against his second punch. He heaved her body into a corner, where it hit with a dead-weight thud; then he began moving frantically through the darkness as the axe continued to bite against the door.

Cythen had not lost consciousness, though she wished she had. Her mouth and jaw were on fire, although, ironically, one or another of his punches had undone the dislocation, along with loosening a few of her teeth. She could have screamed freely now, as she heard his glittery clothing dropping to the floor, but the anguish of her failure was too great.

A piece of wood had splintered away from the door. Light from the lanterns in the hallway glinted off the serpent ring which he held before his eyes. She realized that he must think her dead or unconscious, and she thought she might survive if she continued to be silent, but he came at her as a second, larger piece of wood came loose. The glistening serpent's head rose above his fist.

She lunged away from him and felt something strike her shoulder. In the swirl of pain and panic she did not know if the fangs had pierced her; she knew only that she was still alive, still wrapped around his legs and trying to bite him with her already battered and bloody teeth. He kicked free other with little difficulty and made a leap for the window as a hand reached around into the darkness and worked the latch.

Though the door was open almost at once, Turghurt had heaved himself clear of the window before they reached him. And though Cythen protested her health and survival, they made more of a fuss over her and the ruined silk than they did over the escaping Beysib.

'He won't get far. Not without any clothes,' Myrtis assured her, holding up the discarded turquoise pantaloons.

'He'll be bleedin' naked!' one of the other women tittered.

Cythen had already learned that the pain was bearable so long as she didn't try to talk, so she ignored the chaos of conversation and searched for the panel that concealed her proper clothes and knife. The Beysib wasn't naked, she was sure of that. Somehow he'd managed to exchange his bright silks for dark clothes such as the Harka Bey had worn. He hadn't been able to change his boots, though, and the light leather should be easy to spot - if he wasn't already safe at the palace by now. She shoved Ambutta aside and pulled on her own boots.

'You aren't going after him, are you? The garrison has men at both ends of the Street. They'll have him by now. I've already sent for a physician to see you.' Myrtis reached gently towards Cythen's battered face, and Cythen warned her away with an animal growl.

With her hair still loose and glittering, she shoved her way to the door. Maybe Walegrin really was out there; it would be the first good thing that had happened. Maybe they had already caught Turghurt. She'd rather have Thrusher tend her v/ounds than some cathouse doctor. She kicked at the doorman when he tried to stop her and burst out into the Street.

Although the walls of the Palace were closer, they were more dangerous. She guessed Turghurt would have gone south past the Bazaar and into the Maze before heading back to the palace. It had not occurred to her that he might still be on the Street until a hand loomed out of the shadows and closed over her mouth. Her throat tore with an almost soundless shriek and she lashed back with her heels and fists before hearing a familiar voice.

'Damn you, bitch! We've got him cornered in a loft not a hundred steps from here.'

She pried Walegrin's fingers from her face and stood before him, tears streaming down her cheeks and her whole body trembling.

'What happened to you?'

'I... got... hit,' she said slowly, moving her mouth as little as possible.

'Did you get the proof?'

She shrugged. Was the ring and his attempt to kill her proof he had killed Bekin or the Beysib men and women?

'C'mon, Cythen. He broke out of there like a bull. He didn't punch you out 'cause you're ugly -'

She shook her head and tried to explain what had happened, but her mouth was too sore for so many words and he could make no sense of her gestures.

'Well, all right, anyway. Maybe we can pry something out of him now. We think he's found a regular hideout behind some of the older Houses.' Walegrin led the way off the street to a dark jumble of buildings where two of his men waited.

'It's as quiet as a tomb up there,' the soldier informed his captain; then, noticing Cythen, added: 'What happened to you?'

'She got hit. Don't ask questions. Now, you're sure he's still up there?'

'There's only two ways out and he ain't used either of them.'

'Okay.' Walegrin turned back to Cythen. 'You get him at ally She shook her head to say no and he looked away. 'Okay. Thrush, you come with me. Jore, you bellow if you see something. And Cythen,' he tossed her a scabbard. 'Here's your sword; redeem yourself.'

They dashed across an open space and flattened themselves against the rough stucco walls of the building. It had been abandoned for some time. Chunks of stonework broke loose as they made their way to the gaping doorway. The central column of stairs to the upper room was only wide enough for one person and missing a good third of its boards as well. Walegrin drew his Enlibrite sword and started up them, motioning for the others to remain behind.

He moved smoothly and silently until, while he was raising his leg over two missing steps, the lower board gave way. The blond man lurched forward, using his sword for balance, not defence, and another sword swished through the air above him and bit deep into his arm. Metal began to sing loudly against metal; green sparks danced in the air. By their faint light it was clear that Walegrin, with a cut in his shoulder and his legs entangled in the ruins of the stairs, was taking a beating.

Thrusher shouted outside for help, though with Walegrin wedged in the stairway, there was no easy way to reach Burek, nor to protect their captain - but there was one way. While Thrusher watched in surprise, Cythen drew her own sword and prepared to get up to the second floor by running up and over Walegrin. With a handful of his hair and one foot planted hard on his thigh, she propelled herself over him, hoping that the sheer audacity of her move would keep Burek guessing for the moment it would take for her to regain her balance. She raised her sword just as his blade arced towards her - and Walegrin reached out to parry it aside.

The Beysib circled away from the stairwell, and Cythen edged along the walls. This room was not the dusty wreckage the lower parts of the building had been. Someone had been using it recently. Knives littered an otherwise clean table and a crude map of the town hung on the wall. There was another curved Beysib sword on the wall as well, but Turghurt hadn't taken it. The room was too small for the swirling double-sword style the Harka Bey had used. His stance was not that much different from her own, though his reach was substantially longer.

Walegrin, still struggling to free himself from the stairs, broke through another board and fell from sight, shaking the entire structure as he landed. From the commotion, Cythen knew they were trying to improvise a human ladder, but at that moment Turghurt was easily parrying her best cuts and she doubted they'd reach her in time.

She wouldn't have the strength to ward off many of his thunderous attacks. She could stall and hope they'd get something together in time, or she could charge him and hope for the same sort of clear shot as she'd gotten at the Harka Bey though that would kill him and might make everything worse.

He guessed her intention to attack and back-pedalled across the room, laughing to himself. He was silhouetted by a hole in the walls where a window might once have been and he seemed very large, but perhaps his laughing had made him drop his guard just a fraction. She sprang at him.

His eyes went wide with disbelief. He was falling towards her before she touched him, the disbelief becoming a fixed, deathlike stare. His momentum pushed her backwards and off balance, knocking her sword aside. But he was no longer attacking, only falling. They both went crashing to the floor and through it, as the old wood gave way beneath them. Cythen heard a scream - her own - then nothing.

3

The sun was bright in the courtyard of the palace. Cythen, the swelling still apparent in her face, and Walegrin, his arm in a sling, stood with the Hell Hounds in the places of honour. There were, as yet, no Beysibs in sight. Enas Yorl let the curtain fall from his hand and sat back in the shadowed privacy of his study. It seemed the whole population of the town had crammed around the high platform whereupon the Beysa would pronounce judgement.

'Would you have stopped him for the courtesan's sake alone?' he asked the darkness beside him.

'The girl-soldier has conquered her fears and her past. We have made her a part of our sisterhood. We, too, must adapt. Her vengeance is ours,' the voice of a Beysib woman replied.

'Ah, but that wasn't the question. If all you knew was that the Blood of Bey, as you call it, had been used to slay an innocent courtesan, and that it had been done to make the suspicion fall on you; if there had been no other crimes, would you have stopped him?'

'No. We have always been blamed for crimes we do not commit. It is part of the balance we have with the Empire. One insignificant life would have made no difference.'

Trumpets blared out a fanfare. Yorl lifted the curtain again. Sunlight fell on a four-fingered, ebony hand. The Beysa had arrived at the platform, her breasts so heavily painted they scarcely seemed naked. Her long golden hair swirled plumelike in the light breeze. The moment had arrived and the crowd grew quiet. Terrai Burek, the prime minister, ascended the platform and behind him, in chains, came his son, Turghurt.

The young man stumbled and the guards rushed forward to get him back on his feet. Even at this distance, it was plain that something had happened to the young man and that he had no clear idea why his aunt, the Beysa Shupansea, was standing in the sun, telling everyone that he was going to die for the deaths of his own people and for the death of a Sanctuary courtesan. Yorl let the curtain drop again.

'Then why did you use just enough venom on your dart to destroy his mind but not enough to kill him?'

The Beysib woman laughed melodically. 'He overstepped himself. He thought to arouse Shupansea's rage by slaying Sharilar, her cousin, while they walked along the wharf. But he killed not only Sharilar, but Prism - and that we could not forgive.'

'But you could have killed him outright. Wouldn't that have been the true vengeance of Bey?'

'Bey is a goddess of many moods; she is life as well as death. This is a lesson for everyone: for town and Beysib. They will respect each other a little more now. Shupansea, herself, needed to pronounce this judgement. She must rise to rule here or Turghurt will be only the first.'

There was a collective gasp from the crowd and Yorl drew back the curtain for the third time. The Beysa was holding a small, bloody knife, while her serpent wound around her arm. Turghurt was already dead. The crowd broke into cheering, just as Yorl felt the sharp prick of fangs on his own neck.

Poison burned and gripped him in hands of red-hot iron. The sunlit courtyard grew dim, then black. The homed gateway to the seventh level of paradise shone before him. The ancient magician's spirit stumbled forward and fell, with the gate just beyond his reach.

Failure - and with the land of death almost within his grasp. He wept and brushed the tears away with a shaggy paw. The room was dark and filled with the odour from the pyre on which they'd immolated the criminal, depriving his spirit of eternal life within the goddess Bey. And Yorl was left with only the memory of death to sustain him.