Morris, Janet - Beyond the Veil



BEYOND THE VEIL

JANET MORRIS



Contents

Book One : Death in Tyse
Book Two: Masters Of Mystery
Book Three: Witch's Work
Book Four: In the Shadow of the Wall
Book Five: Beyond Wizardwall








Book One:
DEATH IN TYSE


Two Rankan couriers rode into Tyse three hours apart on the last day of summer. 
Neither was aware of the other; both carried the same information. The parties 
in the Imperial Rankan court who had dispatched them to seek out a man known as 
the Riddler needed to be sure' their message would be delivered.
The sun was setting when the first courier, who went by the name of Belize, 
urged his exhausted horse the last few miles up Broadway and into the souk, 
Tyse's open-air bazaar. Where the horse traders had their stalls he was supposed 
to meet the Rankan agent who would lead him to the Riddler.
But no one had warned Belize of the curfew. They had warned him not to go to 
Embassy Row and check in with his countrymen. They had warned him not to trust 
the Rankan intelligence chief, Grillo, and thus effectively barred him from 
making use of his upcountry peers and doing things the easy way. They had warned 
him not to depend on the mageguild network or on anything but the evidence of 
his senses. Imperial Ranke was beleaguered and embattled from within and 
without; every diplomat and cabinet functionary who favored peace over this 
protracted and expensive war with the Mygdonian Alliance was well aware that 
summary execution awaited anyone caught conspiring against the Empire—even to 
bring peace to it.
In the souk's maze, he dismounted and led his blowing, sweat-drenched mount 
through a stinking, narrow-eyed throng hurrying home with the days' profits, 
bargains, or spoils. Everywhere, stalls were being shut and locked. Pickpockets 
lurched and fumbled their way through the thinning crowds.
Belize looked up: an early-rising moon, full and pale, smiled down on him. An 
armored cavalryman wearing the yellow-lined mantle of the "special" occupation 
forces didn't: "You don't have one of these, traveler." The soldier, frowning 
down on him from his saddle, tapped an embroidered armband. "You'd better find a 
guest house. Curfew's in effect." This last was spoken around a chunk of lamb 
pulled from its wooden skewer and into the soldier's mouth by teeth bright in 
the light of torches being lit along the rows of wooden stalls, goat's-hair 
tents, and brightly colored yurts of the souk.
As the "special" kneed his horse on by, Belize took a chance and asked for the 
stalls of Palapot the trader—a chance because the special forces in Tyse were 
Grillo's men. A chance because the armband he'd seen had on it the unit device 
of the Stepsons—bulls and lightning bolts—which marked the wearer as one of the 
Riddler's own elite squad of Sacred Band pairs and seasoned mercenaries (just 
the men whose attention he did not want to attract). A chance because the 
rider's fine-featured face was Syrese, not local, and the sharp eyes in it had 
sized him up with cold and minute precision.
Belize knew his own kind when he saw one; the mounted officer was no less 
observant.
The rider turned in his saddle, his helmet swinging by his knee, his bare head, 
in profile, somehow vaguely familiar. "Sure you don't want the mercenaries' 
hostel? Or the east barracks?"
Belize had to fill the pause the soldier left empty. "Palapot the horse trader. 
I'll swap this horse and then find a bed."
"Swap it? You ought to put it out of its misery. The only place you'll get 
anything for that poor beast is in the free zone. And," the soldier looked up at 
the sky, "you don't have any time to speak of—curfew's upon us." He cast the 
half-eaten skewer of lamb into the dust, then with his free hand motioned to the 
rapidly clearing street. "Palapot will still be there tomorrow. As for that 
horse, you owe it at least one good night's rest. It'll end up in somebody's 
stew pot if you trade it looking like that. Come on, citizen, I'll ride with you 
as far as the first guest house."
Belize had to agree, had to show his papers when he got there—which was, he 
thought, what the special was waiting for, since the tall officer in 
cavalry-issue leather and mail had insisted on escorting him inside and stayed 
on, chatting with the innkeeper, after he'd been given a room key and a chit to 
stable his horse around the back. He looked back once at the short-haired Syrese 
leaning on the counter and caught the Stepson unabashedly staring after him. 
"Life to you, Belize," said the other, a professional's farewell.
He didn't answer with a mercenary's response— Belize wished no man life, or 
glory. The Stepson had guessed wrong, after all. Belize wasn't a member of the 
mercenaries' guild, nor a professional soldier. He was an assassin.
The guest house the Stepson had escorted him to was at the Tysian city limit, 
where Commerce Avenue and Peace Falls, the adjoining township which observed no 
curfew, cut into Tysian discipline and Tysian jurisdiction. He had only to 
stable his horse, secret his effects in his room, cross a street no wider than 
an alley, and he would be within a stone's throw of Commerce. The Stepson had 
done him a favor, showing him to the merchants' quarter which abutted the souk 
and spilled over into Peace Falls' anarchic bustle.
The inn was called the Dark Horse; he memorized its salient features—back doors, 
overhanging roofs, rear balconies, and adjoining buildings. As he bargained with 
the head groom for liniment, sweet feed, and a better stall for his mount, 
Belize kept an eye on the intersection of Commerce and Souk avenues visible from 
the stable yard, hoping to see the Stepson on the big bay horse ride away. He 
didn't. So he went inside the stable to examine its box stalls while the head 
groom, biting the Tysian half-crown between his teeth, began trying to make good 
his promise to "have him road-worthy in the morning, generous sir. Just pick any 
stall you like and I'll move out the other nag."
Belize had everything he needed: local currency, genuine travel papers issued by 
the Rankan chancellor's office that afforded him safe conduct empire-wide, a 
free hand in accomplishing his mission.
But his gut was telling him he'd missed something, some detail more troublesome 
than being a day late to meet a man who didn't know he was coming. Damn the 
mages, every necromancing, oversold soul among them. If the mageguild network 
had been trustworthy, things would be much easier. In fact, if the mages weren't 
suspect, Belize wouldn't be here at all. He was a little bit more than your 
average courier. But then, some messages require specialized delivery. Whether 
the Riddler agreed with the proposition he carried or not, the parties Belize 
served wanted their dictates expedited.
He put the third horse he'd run into the ground to get here into the stall he'd 
chosen for it when the groom had cleared and cleaned it, then headed for the 
rear stairs to the inn.
He heard no sound out of the ordinary in the summer night: laughter wafting on a 
southwest breeze from Peace Falls; horses behind in the stables and before on 
the street; the snap and hiss of oil-soaked torches. He took the back stairs two 
at a time despite the deep and dancing shadows: a few minutes in his room and 
he'd be ready to see what Commerce Avenue had to offer. Just a quick prayer to 
his god, some security precautions… it wouldn't take long.
Halfway up the creaking staircase, he thought he heard a sliding foot, leather 
scraping on wood. He stopped. He turned full around. He saw the stables, the 
head groom, horseboys. Nothing more. He wiped his hands on his thighs. Why was 
he so nervous?
Turning back to vault the last few steps and begin his quest, Belize felt a 
sharp sting at his throat. He slapped the spot. There was a marsh nearby, but 
mosquitoes didn't usually… His palm felt the little dart even as he slapped it 
more deeply into his throat so that its point pierced a nerve. He halted as he 
pulled the barb loose, thinking about the scuffling footstep he had heard. Then 
his eyes began to tear and a burning sensation spread out from his throat to 
reach up into his brain and down toward his heart. As he grabbed onto the 
railing for support, sensation left his extremities and his tongue felt as if it 
had swollen to thrice normal size and was suffocating him.
He didn't feel the impact as he fell to his knees on the board stairs. He was a 
western-trained fighter; the mind-over-body discipline he'd relied upon for 
years to prevail against his enemies and endure rigors most men could not 
survive allowed him what he craved most then: a look at his assassin.
What he saw, as his body fell forward like a sack of stones, was an urchin's 
face, grubby and beardless, with hair like straw and huge eyes that seemed 
colorless in the torch light. He felt himself being turned, soon enough, but by 
then the fire in his blood was consuming him entirely and there was a light far 
up in the night sky which he must follow. He felt the young mugger's fingers 
searching out his purse and his wallet, and even the belt at his waist in which 
was secreted… something… something he'd been at pains to protect. Anger pushed 
back death's croon for a moment. Then it could not.

* * *

The body still lay as it had been found, askew on the Dark Horse's back steps, 
when Randal the Hazard-class mage arrived on the scene, the iron grip of the 
Stepson, Straton—who'd come banging on the mageguild gates, disturbing half-cast 
spells with this unwelcome summons—clamped numbingly upon his arm.
Around the corpse was an efficient cordon of uniformed specials, keeping back 
the idly curious stablehands and a few patrons. On the staircase itself, 
crouched over the body in a pool of torch light, were two of the most 
shadowy—and deadly— personages in Tyse: the specials' commander, Grillo, chief 
of operations in Rankan-occupied Tyse and the entire northern theatre, a black 
marketeer of renown; and Critias, the Stepsons' task force leader and second in 
command of that private army of Sacred Band pairs and mercenaries which the 
Riddler, called Tempus, had brought north from Sanctuary to the front a few 
months back in search of "honor and glory," as well as riches and territory, in 
the ongoing war with the Mygdonian Alliance.
They'd gained some of each. Randal ought to know. Randal had fought in the war 
to drive the rival Nisibisi mages off Wizardwall and make all Nisibisis free. 
Thus he'd come to know these men, whom no safety-conscious, self-respecting mage 
of the Tysian guild should be seen consorting with, and become embroiled in 
their affairs of war and death. It hadn't been Randal's idea: it had been fate; 
the intervention of Aškelon, the lord of dreams; and the urging of his own 
venerable First Hazard, which had made Randal the favorite sorcerer of the 
armies. The Tysian First Hazard had jumped at the opportunity to make a pact 
with the Stepsons' commander, the virtually immortal and redundantly bloody 
Riddler, Tempus, who had been an enemy of the black artists for better than 
three centuries—ever since an archmage had laid upon him a far-reaching and 
horrendous curse. Randal's mentor, First Hazard of the Tysian mageguild and 
nameless, as were all top-echelon wizards, had "offered" Randal the "honor" in a 
way Randal couldn't refuse: Randal had been a junior Hazard for two years longer 
than was appropriate for further advancement; it had been his last chance to 
revitalize his ascent through the ranks of magic. Perhaps, the ancient archmage 
had prognosticated with glittering eyes, Randal would acquire attributes 
sufficient to outweigh the debit of his allergies —Randal was allergic to furry 
animals, especially when he became one. And the First Hazard had been proved 
right; Randal gained sorcerous spoils in the razing of the Nisibisi wizards' 
high keeps. He'd acquired a globe of power. He was now a fledgling adept, a 
Hazard of the seventh level, a person of power.
But Randal now had a curse of his own to contend with: the murderous crew of 
fighters called Stepsons considered him one of their number; the scrofulous 
Sacred Band pairs counted him as a brother. Whenever their superstitious fear of 
wizardry was overcome by the reality of need, it was Randal they called upon to 
banish impotence or make a lame horse sound or grant them luck in gaming. And 
this was happening more and more frequently, as it became clear to the followers 
of the Rankan war god that their deity was not answering their prayers. It was 
said that Vashanka, one of the primary gods of the armies, was plane-locked, 
bound away from his followers by magic—or dead. It was also said that this 
disappearance or neutralization of the Rankan state-cult's Storm God portended 
the fall of the Rankan Empire.
As the unyielding hand on his arm steered him through the nearly silent crowd of 
well-disciplined specials and nervous horseboys toward Critias and Grillo and 
some poor dead fool who was as likely a victim of mundane greed as of anything 
more interesting, Critias sighted them, touched Grille's arm, and left the 
corpse, heading their way. Grillo's handsome Rankan head came up and, as his 
gaze fixed on Randal and his escort, Randal tried to shake his arm free. 
"Enough, Strat! Unless you want to lose every hair on your head, let me go."
"Can't have you disappearing, can we?" Straton's grip didn't ease. Strat was 
Critias's partner, bound to the task force leader in some infernal degree of 
relationship the intimacy of which varied. Sacred Band pairs swore to fight 
together, shoulder to shoulder, to die together (if need be) while defending 
some elusive overdevelopment of honor only they understood. From a core of ten 
Sacred Band pairs, Tempus had created the shock troop squadron called Stepsons, 
augmenting the pairs with distinguished single mercenaries from a score of 
nations. Within the elite unit, differences existed— one could be a Stepson 
without being a paired Sacred Bander—but all Stepsons were committed to carrying 
on the nearly mythical tradition of peerless ferocity begun by the original 
Sacred Band under the leadership of Abarsis, the Slaughter Priest, of which many 
of the pairs had been members.
And of which, due to circumstances and politics, Randal was now considered a 
member, though he was celibate by choice and nonviolent by nature, though his 
"partner," one Nikodemos, had withdrawn from Tyse and the Outbridge 
barracks/estate and the much-vaunted camaraderie of the Sacred Band to a western 
sanctuary far, far away. Broken pairs, however, were common. Once a Sacred 
Bander, always one, went the saying.
"Listen here, Straton. For appearances' sake, let me go!" Randal wished he could 
do half the magic that the superstitious Stepson thought he could— disappear out 
of the iron grip which held him without taking Straton with him; make Straton's 
hand go numb… something, anything short of turning himself into an animal form. 
But since it was that or nothing, he forbore a shape change, wishing, not for 
the first time, that the globe of power he'd earned on Wizardwall was small 
enough to carry around with him or simple enough to employ that by now he'd have 
mastered its use. But it wasn't either, so his threats were empty. And if they 
hadn't been, Critias's taciturn right-side partner was no man to curse unless 
one was cursing to kill.
"Life to you, Randal," Critias said formally as he joined them. "How are you 
faring?"
"My arm hurts." Randal stared steadily into the eyes of Tempus's task force 
leader and saw them crinkle with amusement.
Critias had a very cynical smile. "Strat, I think our friend can stand on his 
own two feet."
Randal knew that Critias didn't like him or approve of his induction into the 
Stepsons. Suddenly, his resentment faded and he realized that Critias must have 
had a very good reason to send for him. But Straton was already detailing 
Randal's reluctance, his voice very low and very angry. "… had to wait in that 
godless hellhole and 'state my business; to one mincing mageling after another. 
Half of 'em need training bras. And when this… Stepson finally deigned to give 
me a humping audience, he's asking me why and what for, with the gods know how 
many witchy ears as big as his pressed to the damn walls. By the gods, Crit, 
he'd not have his pink-and-lacy suite in the left wing of that Fun House if not 
for us, and he's giving me an argument—or the balls to tell me he's too busy, 
there's spells need casting, and—"
"All right, Strat. All right."
"Not all right. What do we need him for, Crit? What do we put up with him for?"
Randal didn't like the way the conversation was going, or being spoken of as if 
he weren't present. And nobody argued with Critias. Even Tempus was very careful 
to explain matters to the task force leader… He thought he'd better try it: 
"Critias, I'm sorry. You caught me at a bad time."
Straton snorted.
Critias said, "Strat, take a look at this. It's the murder weapon." He held out 
a little dart in the palm of his hand.
Randal, shorter than the other two, craned his neck to get a better look.
Straton took it, held it up to the light, squinting, then put it to the tip of 
his tongue.
"Straton!" Randal objected. "It's obviously poisoned."
"Not as dumb as he looks," Strat marveled. "I'll take it around to some of the 
snake milkers. It's not arsenic or cyanide—tastes too sweet. Want me to go now?"
"If you would. I'll be here until high moon, anyway. Then I'm going over to the 
farm. If the Riddler's not at Brother Bomba's, he'll be there. I sent somebody 
over to see if he was with Madame Bomba, but maybe you'll drop by to double 
check." Though Critias answered Strat quietly, his gaze never left Randal's 
face.
"Pleasure. Just answer me: What do we need him for?"
Randal felt his neck grow hot, the flush crawl up his cheeks.
"Read the dead. You can do that, can't you, Randal? Tell us what his thoughts 
were? Maybe what he saw, who put him down?"
Strat grunted. Randal temporized; the big officer, about to leave, clapped a 
bearlike hand on his shoulder. "Do a good job, mageling. Prove you're worth the 
trouble I went through to get you here." And then Strat was gone, more quietly 
and quickly than Randal would have thought he could move.
"He's not at ease with this," Critias said softly. "Neither am I. But I didn't 
have to go into the mageguild, so I'm not angry. Don't pull this sort of thing 
again, Randal. You're a Stepson; you come when you're called. You don't ask 
questions unless they're strategic, and then not until you're given leave. Come 
on."
Randal found himself trotting along beside Critias. "That's what I want to talk 
to you about. I'm not at all happy with this arrangement—"
"Neither am I. Talk to the Riddler. Or Niko. Later. Now, you're going to read 
this dead man and tell us who we're looking for." "Whom." "What?"
"Looking for whom."
Though Randal, angry himself, had been correcting Critias, the task force leader 
misunderstood. "I saw his papers before he was robbed. The name on them was 
Belize. Very comprehensive safe-conducts, issued in the capital. Grillo says he 
hadn't heard anything about a new agent being sent up here, which is what this 
man must have been. I know one when I see one; the papers just confirmed it. I 
want to know if Grille's lying. Can you tell me that?"
"Perhaps." Randal squared his shoulders. They did need him. He didn't feel so 
short, so put-upon, or so resentful. "But reading the dead… it's not pleasant."
Grit's grin flashed. "I imagine not."
"So you'll have to bear with me. Ask me again what you want to know when I've 
got him—made contact with whatever's left, that is. It's just impressions… I 
might act… strangely." They were passing by a pair of specials who had a groom 
with them.
Once they were past, Randal continued. "So bear with me. It's… frightening."
"I understand. No one's going to draw any conclusions about you from this. Just 
don't let on to Grillo that we're wondering how it is that he didn't know about 
this fellow. I'll buy you a round of whatever strikes your fancy afterward. But 
my gut's telling me this isn't just a random incident. I came upon this Belize 
in the souk about curfew and escorted him here myself. Checked him out. He 
didn't know anything about the town, not even enough to get a room before dark."
So that was it: Critias was afraid he might be implicated. The task force leader 
didn't make friends easily, and he and Grillo were de facto rivals. Of all the 
private militias in Tyse, the Stepsons and the specials enjoyed the most open 
contention. When they weren't chasing Mygdonian-backed death squads or Nisibisi 
refugees in the free zone, they were rousting each other. The army, of which 
Tyse had a surfeit—four garrisons, one at each compass point—was Rankan, and 
thus Grillo, should he choose to, could call on garrison aid. None speculated on 
what arrangement existed between Tempus and Grillo, but everyone knew it was 
strained, now that they weren't fighting a common enemy. During periods of 
inactivity, with no declared or obvious foe, mercenaries and career soldiers 
engaged in urban war gaming to keep sharp their "edge." Part of Grille's "edge" 
was caravaning contraband surreptitiously; Critias had recently interdicted a 
shipment entering Tyse which Grillo couldn't have owned, but in which he surely 
had invested heavily. The proceeds from the auction of this "unclaimed" salvage 
were now in the Stepsons' pension fund.
It was, Randal knew, a war within a war, kept under wraps only by Tempus's and 
Grillo's need to keep up appearances—and to some extent by their shared interest 
in the continued survival of Free Nisibisis and its charismatic leader, Bashir. 
Technically, Tempus outranked Grillo, being a Rankan general. Long off the 
active-duty list, however, in order to employ questionable methods and lead the 
mercenary life with his Sacred Band without being subject to the constraints of 
Rankan oversight, he'd come to Tyse seeking vengeance upon the Nisibisi mages. 
Some said the interests in Ranke he served weren't those of the emperor. Randal 
didn't want to find out the truth of it. Even a seventh-level Hazard was mortal; 
the Riddler was not.
Critias was talking to him as they mounted the steps, where Grillo could hear 
every word. "… a woman's weapon, or a child's. Just lay your hands on him and 
give us your impressions, or whatever you do. Then we can close the matter."
"Maybe," Grillo amended. His features were aristocratic, Rankan perfect; he was 
dressed like a Tysian hillman, but then he never wore a uniform, and even his 
hair changed colors. Grillo's eyes, however, were a piercing Rankan blue, and 
his intellect was not to be underestimated.
Randal would have lied for Critias, but he hoped Critias realized he wouldn't be 
able to: one read what one read; one saw what one saw. In the deep trance he'd 
need to summon to see what Belize had seen, such matters as white lies and 
quotidian advantage would fade from him: he would be Belize. And he would be 
dying.
He shivered, told both agents to back off a bit. "I need quiet, room to relax."
They did, and he saw Critias's hand slip into his pouch where the Stepson 
carried his charms and amulets.
Then Randal touched his own amulet, whispered a ward so that his mind could not 
be snatched or tainted by hostile forces while he gave it up to a dead man, and 
folded into a squat beside the corpse who'd been called Belize.
His fingers brought incense out of his belt. He lit it with a flint and steel, 
feeling the tingling of trance begin in his toes, and put the joss stick in the 
dead man's mouth.
Even before his palms had gone to the temples of the dead man, as he felt the 
cool lips touch his fingertips, he got an impression: another pair of lips the 
dead man had seen, lips with a gold coin between them, teeth biting down on a 
Tysian half-crown to prove it was no gold-washed copper: he saw the face of the 
head groom.
Then it faded. Randal's heart was pounding, pushing the trance-calm away. He 
called it back, breathing deeply of the joss, causing his knees to feel as if 
water ran over them and wondering why the "he" he sought could not remember that 
Belize was its name. He called that name thrice, got no further impressions, and 
then realized he was trying too hard.
He didn't want to call back the dead, only visit a fading mind. He closed his 
own eyes and felt the cold flesh, telling the corpse he would avenge its death, 
if only the murderer could be determined. Then he was in a stable with the smell 
of marsh hay in his nostrils, then coming out.
Belize was not this man's real name, he realized as he recalled like his own 
memory the rooftops and escape routes this sharp-eyed operator had detailed 
before he climbed the steps. Then he lost all sense of "Randal." His palms were 
sweating and he was wondering if the bad luck he'd had in meeting a Stepson who 
fastened on him like a leech in the souk was an evil omen as he climbed the 
stairs…
He'd heard a footfall, he was sure. Snnk! His throat stung. He slapped a 
mosquito. Then there was a burning pain and a determination to beat back death 
and see his assailant. The dart in his palm. Falling. Being turned, paralyzed, 
helpless. Wanting to hold the mugger off; then hands at his belt, at his wallet. 
Belize saw the face of his attacker, but it was swimming in pain and death: pale 
eyes, pale hair, dirt obfuscating what the poison did not. A child; a girlish, 
beardless face; a youth… "Randal? Randal!"
He knew that voice: Critias. He opened his eyes, knowing he couldn't yet feel 
his extremities, and then realized he was sprawled on top of the corpse in the 
exact position as was the body under him.
Legs like wood, his heart pounding loud in his ears, he scrambled off it and 
sat, arms around his knees, to quell his shaking. "What did I say?"
"Nothing," Grillo replied. "Not a thing."
"He's… he was… up here to contact someone, deliver a message. He wasn't thinking 
about that until the girl, or boy, or whatever, robbed him. Then he was just 
thinking that he'd been at pains to protect the message."
"The face, Randal. Did you see a face?" Crit asked.
"Blond. Pale eyes. Teenager. Girl or boy, can't say. Very dirty face. And he was 
partially—almost fully—paralyzed by then. But it was a child, an urchin, a 
street waif—someone from the free zone. Or a Rankan." Randal looked at Grillo: 
There were many blond Rankans; even Grillo's dark ash-blond head might once have 
been pale.
"Or a Mygdonian?" Grillo countered.
"Yes, a Mygdonian. There aren't that many Mygdonians in town. Plenty of 
youngsters in the free zone who'd fit what I saw."
"So you don't think you could recognize him or her again? If you saw a group of 
children, could you pick out the right one?" Critias, with narrowed eyes, asked 
clipped questions, no relief evident, but tension spelled out clearly on his 
Syrese face.
"No. Not unless I were dying of the same poison. It was a chance event, a 
mugging. Nothing more. Can I go? Oh, one more thing."
"Yes?" Grillo leaned forward.
"The head groom. The man gave him a gold piece for extra service. Maybe he saw 
something."
Grillo pulled on his nose and unfolded from his squat. Looking down, he said, 
"I've got to admit I didn't think there was any point to calling in one of you 
people. I was wrong. Thank you, Randal. And my best to your First Hazard. Crit, 
I'll have my man interrogate the groom. We don't want Straton's overzealous sort 
of assistance on this. Or yours. It's a local item, now, something for the 
garrison police squads. Our regards to the Riddler." He stepped over the body 
and descended the stairs.
Critias blew out a long breath. "Bless you, Randal, or whatever equivalent 
thereof is acceptable to your kind. Ready for that round of krrf I owe you?" 
Critias helped the shaky young mage to his feet.
"That's not necessary. It wasn't even really magic… merely a mental trick." But 
Randal was proud of himself, and he'd developed a taste for krrf, the stimulant 
which was the fighters' recreational drug of choice. When he'd been working 
closely with the Stepsons he'd used it frequently; it kept his allergies in 
check when he was assuming animal forms.
They were walking away from the specials then and Crit gestured toward the alley 
which would lead them to Commerce Avenue and Brother Bomba's.
"What about Straton? Aren't you going to wait for him?"
"He'll find me." Crit bent down as if to pick up something from the dusty 
street, then straightened. Randal saw him peering behind to see that no one was 
in earshot. Then Crit said, "You'll need the krrf. I'm not through with you. And 
I have a feeling you've not told me everything."
"Wrong. You're wrong. See here, task force leader, I've paying customers to 
attend to: a spell to cast for no less than Madame Bomba herself, or one of her 
girls will get pregnant…"
"Randal, did the face you saw remind you of anyone? Anyone at all?"
"No. Yes. I don't know." He could see that face now, wide-eyed and towheaded. 
But he was telling the truth; it looked like any of a dozen urchins' faces. In 
the free zone, where refugees from the war lived in a squalor too bleak to be 
contemplated, he'd seen more faces like that than he'd like to count. He said 
so.
"Was there anything unusual, then—anything at all?" Crit was like a dog worrying 
a bone.
"No. But you know something, don't you?" Randal ventured.
"Indeed. A number of things."
They came out onto Commerce, where no curfew was observed and ladies of the 
evening escorted gentlemen into establishments which catered to the siege 
mentality that prevailed in Tyse: anything, these days, could be had on Commerce 
for a price.
"Something specific, something you want me to confirm."
"That poison isn't local; it's Mygdonian."
"Oh. Oh, my." The Stepsons had a hostage from the war, a highborn youth who was 
pale and blond and very valuable: the son of General Adrastus Ajami, the 
Mygdonian warlord's brother.
But before Randal could object that the boy, Shamshi, was surely well guarded 
and not running about the streets in rags, Critias posed a question. "That man 
was too good a skulker to have been surprised by a free-zone delinquent. Magic 
had to have been involved, or one of these mind tricks you spoke of. Did it seem 
like that to you?"
"No. Yes, Maybe. Please, Critias, I've got to go back. I don't think it's wise 
for us to be seen together in public."
"You're not going back for a while. You're going to Bandara."
"Pardon?"
"You heard me. You are to seek out your partner and inform him he's returned to 
active duty."
"You jest! Do you know how long that will take? You don't send an adept of the 
mageguild to Bandara. They won't let me in the gates. And, on top of that, what 
if he won't come?"
"If he'd been here, I wouldn't have needed you. Niko could have tracked down the 
assailant before sunrise."
"Well, he won't be able to do it by the time we get back here. He tracks by 
aura, so he says, and that will be long dissipated; heat trails disperse."
"Randal." Critias stopped still, fists on his sword belt. "Read my lips: You're 
a Stepson, dispatched to fetch your left-side leader. You've received a direct 
order. You don't ask questions, unless they're pertinent. Ask me how long you've 
got to get back here, or what I expect you to do with this money." Critias 
pulled a pouch from his belt. "Here."
Randal was speechless, hefting the pouch. He thought of all the reasons he 
couldn't do this. Then he realized he was wondering whether Nikodemos would come 
back at all.
"Now, let's go snort some krrf, Stepson." Randal found that he was pacing 
Critias and heard himself say, "As you wish, Critias. But I do have to know what 
the money's for and how long I've got to bring him back. He probably won't want 
to come by cloud-conveyance."
"You're getting better, Randal, much better. The money is for a boat. Buy one in 
Caronne and sail over to the Bandara Islands. Tell the secular adepts there that 
it's our gift to them if someone sails back to Caronne with the two of you. 
While you've got Niko there, have him stop by his uncle's. He's to finalize some 
business he's doing for Madame Bomba with his family. And you've got," Crit 
looked up at the sky, where the full moon was clearing the rooftops, "a maximum 
of ten days."
"Ten days? I was jesting, when I said cloud-conveyance," Randal sputtered.
"Ten days. You're a Hazard, aren't you? You've got Datan the archmage's mighty 
globe of power, don't you?"
"Well, yes, I do, but…"
"Ah, I forgot." Critias grinned. "You don't have the stand for it, do you? The 
golden stand with all that funny writing on it, the one it spins on. Well, I 
forgot to tell you: I took the stand as part of my share of the spoils. And I'll 
give it to you, Randal, as soon as you bring your partner back."
"You've got that? Oh, Crit… that is, sir: it's invaluable. I'll be able to 
utilize the globe much more effectively. Bring Niko back more easily, more 
quickly, if you'll just let me have it now…"
But Critias was shaking his head, chewing a piece of marsh hay he'd had behind 
his ear. He said around it, "Later, mageling, later. Go fetch Niko home."

* * *

As a haughty young philosopher, ages ago, before the curse which had made him a 
tireless wanderer, bereft of sleep and love and what men call peace, Tempus had 
said that "God is day/night, winter/summer, war/peace, satiety/hunger…" Further, 
he had proclaimed that out of all things can be made a unity, and out of a 
unity, all things.
The most daunting consequence of the curse which afflicted him was that he must 
live and learn the truth of those things he'd said when talk was idle and wisdom 
cheap. He called himself Tempus because time was his, unending: he was the river 
of it—always changing, always the same. Once he had been called The Obscure by 
those who knew him; now they called him the Riddler, the sleepless one, and 
worse behind his back.
For he was death's prophet, a living talisman of war. Those who loved him died 
of it; those he loved were bound to spurn him: this burden an archmage had laid 
upon him. He never slept; he could not die. His body regenerated itself 
tirelessly, even without the help of the Storm God whom he had served so long 
and who finally—like everything else he loved—had deserted him.
He was alone among men, no matter their quality or their number. Even surrounded 
by his Stepsons, his curse kept him solitary: he loved them dearly. They were 
mortal, to a soul. Every one of them would die and he would not. There would be 
many requiems to be said for them, many biers to light in the days and years 
ahead. So he tried not to care too much for them, the Sacred Banders and the 
rest.
And yet, he thought, sitting in Brother Bomba's with Bomba's wife in her office, 
looking down and over the patrons in the ground floor barroom through 
alchemically crafted one-way glass, he was not quite so alone or quite so 
unhappy as he customarily liked to think he was. The woman whose hospitality he 
enjoyed was unabashedly middle-aged, a former barber-surgeon of the armies, 
tough-minded and pragmatic in the face of fate and dissolution. A weathered and 
wrinkling smile (which would have sent a lesser woman running to the mageguild 
to sell a bit of soul for the illusion of youth and beauty) always greeted him. 
Eyes which had looked on fields of casualties sustained in defeat and victory 
always met his steadily. She was what few were to him: a respected, trusted 
friend. Once, long ago, they might have had congress; he couldn't remember. 
Women in general he found tiresome, even less likely than men to live up to 
their potential. But Madame Bomba had no illusions: she knew death intimately, 
she was free from fear and loved life too much to forget what lay at the end of 
it. Like her bones, her spirit was yet strong.
With her, he could speak freely. With him, she always did. If not for her 
husband, he continually teased her, their liberties could be extended. But that 
was not what they spoke about tonight.
"That woman there, the one in silk and leather like a Rankan fighting lord—you 
do see her, Riddler?—came in asking for you."
"How long ago?" He had come up the back stairs, as was his custom; but not gone 
down into the drug dens beneath as he usually did. He was avoiding someone—a 
female someone, a Froth Daughter from the twelfth plane come to earth to spend a 
year as a mortal. Six months of that year were up, and the rest of it loomed 
unending before him. Jihan, daughter of the nameless Stormbringer who'd spawned 
the world's pantheons, was spending her mortal year with him. She was his 
companion, perhaps his equal, but not his friend. He peered down through the 
smoke and the crowd. The woman who had laid her Machadi helmet on the bar and 
wore cavalry boots like a Syrese fighter and a cuirass some smith had had to 
mold from a plaster cast made live on her physique was not Jihan. This woman was 
not muscular enough, nor tall enough, nor was her hair burnished like copper. 
Jihan, though she had many superhuman attributes, could not change the shape she 
had chosen, the shape in which she had entered the world of men.
"How long ago?" Madame Bomba repeated, shrugging and holding up one hand to 
indicate with thumb and index finger the span between knots on a Tysian rope 
which a flame would have burned in that interval. "A Rankan hour, perhaps. She 
ate and drank; now she waits."
The woman drank between mercenaries at the bar; more, she drank like one. The 
man on her far side had his head bent to hers: a dark head, short-haired. 
"That's Crit with her?" Tempus ventured. The angled face was hard to make out 
from his vantage point.
Madame Bomba's hearty laugh rang out. "You're ruining my story. Yes, that's 
Critias. Thou art: popular with thy band. He's the third to come here asking for 
you this evening."
"Would you know why I'm in such demand tonight?"
"No more than I know where the gods hide their treasure. I'd sooner ask your 
Stepsons for their favors than their secrets, as you well know. But of course, 
one hears of doings on the street."
"One does, of course," he prodded.
"One hears that there was a murder at the Dark Horse tonight, and that the 
victim was a man Crit recommended into the innkeeper's care. One hears that both 
Crit and Grille were at the scene soon after, and our own Randal summoned from 
the mageguild's crypts."
Madame Bomba had appointed herself surrogate mother to the Stepsons; she loved 
good fighters, Sacred Banders most of all. They were her "boys," and it was to 
the benefit of everyone, even Tempus, that this was so. But she liked to draw 
out her tales and had a penchant for innuendo. Tempus didn't try to hurry her or 
to interrogate her; he wouldn't spoil her fun; her eyes danced with glee over 
something. He had all the time in the world. He leaned his chair back on two 
legs and poured some umber krrf carefully into the well of his fist from a 
silver box, snorted the powder, offered her the box.
She pinched two piles, lay them on the black marble table at which they sat, and 
inhaled them through a golden straw that hung between her satined breasts on a 
delicate chain.
She sniffed loudly. "Aah. Good. Very good. When this woman was done eating and 
beginning to drink—just after Crit came in and he and I were talking at the 
bar—one of my staff came up to us saying the woman wanted to go upstairs."
Madame Bomba kept girls for whoring, but no boys: it was a personal prejudice of 
hers. She was, in her way, straight-laced: even her girls must be over twelve. 
Tempus fingered a smile. "You ought to let her, if she wishes."
"Oh, pish. Don't interrupt me. I was about to, when Crit asked which woman we 
were talking about. When I pointed her out and mentioned she was looking for 
you, loyal Critias offered to pretend to be one of my whores long enough to turn 
the tables on her and find out what she'd thought to learn from one of my belly 
warmers. If she's tipped him, we'll share the gratuity."
"They're done, then?"
"So it seems. And very friendly, yet. So what's your pleasure, sleepless one? 
See the girl? Crit? Both? Neither? I've a nap room behind that curtain—" she 
pointed behind her with a naughty smirk "—you've not seen yet."
"You've got me curious. Go tell Crit I'm here and follow his lead as to whether 
or not she should know. And—"
Bomba was already getting up. She paused quizzically.
"—should Jihan come in," he warned, "your answer's still the same: you haven't 
seen me."
"Seen who?" she teased, tossing back gray-streaked hair once chestnut, now 
faded. "But a question, dear friend and guest, in case there's no time later or 
you suddenly are invisible to me as well as to your other ladies."
"Speak it."
"Stealth, called Nikodemos? Any word of him?"
"None." He didn't want to talk about Niko. She sensed it and, though her 
question had been prompted more by business considerations than idle curiosity, 
let it pass. Niko had been Tempus's favorite among the Stepsons; he'd left Tyse 
abruptly. Tempus would not conjecture about or try to alter Niko's decision. 
Those the Riddler loved were bound to spurn him. In Niko's case, it might be 
better this way. The young fighter's soul had been coveted by a Nisibisi witch, 
who for a time possessed him, and his patronage was still sought by no less a 
power than Aškelon, the entelechy of dreams. Nikodemos had retreated to the 
western island sanctuaries, where he'd been trained. If ill befell him there, it 
would not be Tempus's fault.
When he looked up again, the curtain in the doorway was rustling and Madame 
Bomba's tread could be heard descending the stairs. Niko's immediate family was 
long dead of war. He had an uncle in Caronne who purveyed the finest and rarest 
of drugs; it was this that Madame Bomba wanted with Niko. The boy had written a 
letter of introduction for her and she'd sent it on to the uncle, but so far 
there'd been no response.
He watched the woman and Crit at the bar, now, as Bomba sidled nimbly through 
the crowd, then whispered in Crit's ear. The foreign woman's gear was eclectic. 
Only in the Rankan capital, or perhaps Mygdon proper, could such an assemblage 
of international craftsmanship be procured—or in a mercenary hostel near a hotly 
contested front where there was much dying and hiring taking place and camp 
followers pitched their mercantile, mobile cities.
The two women and Tempus's first officer conferred briefly. An ancient, dusty 
jar of wine was produced from behind the bar, its seal broken, lid sniffed by 
the madame's educated nose, a bit poured into three goblets. Then a barmaid 
headed toward the stairs with the jar.
Only Madame Bomba followed, and that a long interval later. Crit and the foreign 
woman had by then disappeared through the bar's far portal, whether to the drug 
dens beneath or the playrooms above, Tempus couldn't tell.
"Crit says," Bomba announced, her smile dropping away into a frown as she poured 
the fine wine for herself and Tempus, "that he's not done with her. He'll bring 
her out to the farm in Hidden Valley when he's through—on the 'off chance," he 
told her, that you might be there. He wants you to know that she claims to be of 
the Rankan 3rd Commando. Is that possible?"
"Why not?" He sipped the elegant wine. "Because she's a woman? Because she's so 
far upcountry? Or because she's looking for me?" Tempus had formed the 3rd 
Commando a quarter-century before. It had been instrumental in Ranke's northerly 
expansion during the so-called long wars. It had been used badly, in his 
opinion, for purposes other than honorable; it had obliterated city-states and 
contributed to the downfall of a worthy empire. He'd left it to those who had 
perverted its purpose; he'd not served as a Rankan field commander on active 
duty since that time. There was not a death squad or even a remnant of the once 
ferocious Nisibisi mages (who had a well-earned reputation for viciousness) that 
rivaled the 3rd Commando in fielded cruelty or gratuitous violence. Ranke's fame 
as barbarians second to none stemmed directly from the "unending deaths" the 3rd 
Commando inflicted on its captives. Taking to heart the doctrine that an army 
has failed in its purpose if it must be fielded, a war already lost once one 
must be fought, he had conceived them, hand-picked them, trained them, and 
spread word of the scourge they had become—to use them as a deterrent. But the 
emperor had turned them loose on subjugated peoples and rebel city-states and 
the slaves they had taken and sold off had made of the original members rich 
landowners, lords, and statesmen.
But nothing could change their true nature: they were assassins, experts at 
torture, skulkers, and berserkers—true followers of the Rankan gods of war. If 
this woman was one, she was seeking him for good reason: there was nothing in 
Tyse worth the time of even one of that unit's members. Years ago they'd 
conquered the north and deported its peoples, and driven the feared Nisibisi 
wizard-caste up into the peaks known as Wizardwall.
He was curious, riding toward the Nisibisi border on one of his steel-gray Trôs 
horses, as to what the 3rd Commando wanted with him.
He was also interested in Grit's reasons for handling the matter as he had.
Preoccupied thus, he forgot all about his determination to avoid Jihan. And so 
as he crossed the border into Nisibis through a narrow canyon which led directly 
to Hidden Valley, where he and Niko had recently agreed that the stud farm 
(which belonged in part to all Stepsons but mostly to Tempus and Niko) would be 
established, Jihan spurred a second Trôs stallion out from behind a rockfall to 
intercept him.
"Ha! Riddler! You are found out!" On his horse, she was an arresting sight in 
her brown/green/ gray scale armor of metaphysical manufacture, her proud, 
classically beautiful head high and bronze hair streaming, her broad shoulders, 
impossibly tiny waist, and muscular thighs shown to her best advantage as she 
cantered up beside him astride a horse than which there were only two better in 
the known world.
As the horse was not hers, neither was she responsible for the beauty of her 
form or the perfection of her accouterments: she was a Froth Daughter, a 
supernal sprite, and her eyes glowed with red flecks of anger as she brought her 
mount alongside his and reached down to grab his horse's reins below its bit. 
"Where have you been, slaggard?
I have searched everywhere for you. You must not leave me alone so long." There 
was no womanish whining in her voice; rather, there was a warning tone.
She was as strong as he, perhaps stronger; her stamina was unparalleled. She 
played at womanhood as she played at life. As a bedmate, he found her suitable; 
as a companion, she wore upon his nerves. Six months on earth was not nearly 
long enough to have mellowed her.
He squeezed his knees against his mount and muttered, "Hai," to it. It reared up 
on its hind legs and walked three steps, forelegs flailing, breaking her hold on 
its reins and causing the second Trôs to back up rapidly.
She pouted and put her hands on her hips. His horse came down on all fours 
again, and by then, she'd thought better of her behavior. "Let us start anew, 
surrogate husband. I have missed you. Let us hurry to our quarters and 
reacquaint our bodies with one another."
He was not through punishing her for having been taken in by the Nisibisi 
archmage Datan during the summer war for Wizardwall and turning against him; she 
was not yet through punishing him for the loss of her betrothed husband, 
Aškelon, lord of dreams, to Tempus's own sister, Cime. That they both enjoyed 
the strife they engaged in, neither would admit—out of bed. But tonight there 
was something new about Jihan, something he didn't understand—a sense of 
urgency, a tension in her. "Race me to the barn,
Tempus," she called out, and the Trôs she rode lunged homeward.
She still had a half-length lead on him when they thundered into Hidden Valley 
between the sheer rock walls which curved in narrowly to make an easily 
defensible choke point. One could climb out of the valley other ways; one could 
not ride out. Bashir, warrior-priest of Free Nisibis, had given the land to Niko 
and Tempus in gratitude for their assistance in routing the Nisibisi wizards who 
had long oppressed his people. They had taken it gladly; Mygdonia and Ranke 
might war unto the death of both, but Bashir and his Free Nisibis would endure. 
Sometimes Tempus considered throwing in with the warrior-priest permanently: the 
Stepsons would settle in gleefully among the free men. As it was, they were half 
at home here.
Nisibisi free men, braided sidelocks confining their long hair, lounged around 
the paddocks and trained desultorily with his Stepsons, even now as the moon 
neared its zenith.
Two of each sort of commando ambled over to take their horses. It was a measure 
of the easy atmosphere and mutual respect at the farm that Tempus could leave 
his animals to others to tend.
He slipped to the ground and caught Jihan as she slid off the blowing Trôs, rump 
to horse in cavalry fashion, lowering her gently to the ground. "Come, now, 
Jihan," he said, kissing her brow though he hadn't meant to. "What's the matter 
with you? You're not trying. You could have beaten me by two lengths, perhaps 
three."
And she melted against him as the horses were led away, so that he was very much 
aware that they stood in public. She said, her words muffled against his 
leathers: "It occurred to me today, alone and friendless, that I've only six 
months left with you. Then what, sleepless one, will happen to me?" She raised 
her head and the red flecks were muted, saddened.
"Happen to you? Whatever you choose, I'd dare say. Your father is not one to 
withhold his blessings."
"What if I told you I want to stay? Be with you permanently?"
"Permanently, with me, is a very long time. You'd become bored, restless. 
Already you complain that I spend too little time with you. We would be at each 
other's throats, eventually. You don't want that."
"I want to stay."
He disengaged her and walked toward his quarters, an arm over her shoulders, 
thinking he knew what she needed. Jihan's appetites, like her abilities, were 
greater than a mortal woman's.
"Then you will stay," he said to defuse a possible argument. "But I doubt that 
even your father could allow it without some reduction of your… extraordinary 
gifts."
"But then, if I gave up some… things, you would accept me? Marry me?"
"No!" It came out of him unbidden, a pure reaction. He tried to mitigate it. "I 
don't believe marriage would improve our lot. But you may stay with the band as 
long as you wish. Of course, there's the dream lord to consider… You might yet 
take a year with him, when my sister is done." "Hhmph. Come serve my needs, 
Riddler. That's all I want you for."
She vented her anger on him, but he was used to it. He rather enjoyed her 
attempts to make what was consummately enjoyable for them both a pleasure for 
her only. Jihan was an infant in an adult's body; her tantrums were part of her 
charm for him, and would be until she realized it.
They had worked up a good sweat on his wide, feather pallot when someone came 
knocking. "Send him away," she muttered blackly, "or I'll freeze him where he 
stands." Jihan's flesh was cool to the touch; that she sweated now was an 
indicator of the degree of her passion. She got up on her knees and slapped his 
thighs. "Banish him, or I will! Irrevocably!" Cold was her weapon, as was to 
some extent all water: she was born of the tides of the primordial sea.
"I'm expecting someone. You've had more than your share tonight. Go look in on 
our hostage. You wanted to keep the boy, to 'discover your motherhood'; you 
cannot in good conscience neglect him."
Jihan's guilt was stirred by Tempus's inference and she slipped, naked, corselet 
in hand, out his back door while he was dressing to let Crit (whose knock he 
knew) in the front.
Crit had the foreign woman with him and she was gracious, comely in a 
businesslike fashion, lithe, and possessing a handshake as firm as most men's.
"I hear you've enjoyed a joke at my expense, you and Critias," she said without 
preamble.
"Critias? Me?" Tempus feigned ignorance. "Crit, you look weary. You know where 
everything is. Refresh yourself." And Crit did look exhausted; his lips were 
bluish and his eye-whites red.
Crit saluted Tempus and inclined his head. "She's got a message for you. She 
wouldn't give it to me, no matter the persuasion. I'm going to collapse back 
there until you decide if she's staying. If she's not, wake me and I'll ride 
back to town with her. Night, all."
"Pleasant journey, Stepson," she called huskily after him, then unlatched her 
mantle, putting her helmet, black-crested and visored, on a hook next to his.
Tempus noted the little unit device on her cuirass: a red enameled horse, the 
workmanship raised, the horse rearing with three lightning bolts clenched in his 
teeth—3rd Commando.
But there was no rank designation beneath it. "Have you a name, sister?"
"Kama. Of the 3rd, but you'd know that, my lord. Permission to sit?"
He waved his hand. "I'm not your lord, unless you're offering yourself in 
service. We've a fighting woman or two…"
"Something like that." She was reaching up under her armor and into her 
loinguard. From it she extracted a folded parchment, sealed with red wax. She 
held it out. "This may explain, my lord." She handed it to him, then sat at the 
simple board table which dominated his front room, pushing the oil lamp on it 
toward him.
He slit the seal. He knew the crest stamped in it; it was from a Rankan whose 
bidding he still occasionally did—for large amounts of money. Tempus had gone 
south to the empire's nadir, wretched Sanctuary, for this man's faction.
The note was in code, introducing the messenger, Kama, and offering a mission: 
take the boy Shamshi home to Mygdonia as a special emissary of the Rankan 
government; negotiate a settlement of Rankan/Mygdonian differences which would 
ensure that all borders reverted to their former status—that is, return Machad 
to Rankan control; de-escalate the conflict along the fronts; draw up an 
agreement of nonbelligerence which would put an end to Mygdonian-funded 
revolutions and the feud between the Rankan mageguild and the remnants of the 
Nisibisi mages who had fought for and fled to Mygdonia. Tempus was authorized to 
sign any such agreement in the name of the emperor.
"Sorry," he said, handing it back to her, "not for twice the amount they're 
offering."
The woman had thick eyebrows, a broad, high forehead, and a generous mouth 
tapering to a pointed chin. One eyebrow raised and she bit her lip. He could 
almost see her mind work behind wide brown eyes. Then she said, "May I ask why 
not?"
"It would mean returning Wizardwall to the Nisibisi mages. I like Bashir; I've 
fought beside him. I won't fight against him or stand aside while someone else 
tries to take from him what's his by right."
"I can't argue with you, my lord. Certainly not about rights. But I don't think 
that anyone considered that angle. If you could see your way clear to act in our 
interest and somehow allow Bashir to retain Wizardwall—after all, he's not a 
Rankan treaty signatory—we'll be more than content with that."
"How is it that you can speak for them? Is that a royal we ?
"Not exactly. The man whose message you hold is a distant relative of mine. They 
trust me. I had a chance of getting through. I can offer the 3rd's support, if 
need be. Or if need arises. Of course, should the Mygdonians refuse our offer, 
we would have no choice but to redouble our efforts to wipe them off the map." 
Kama grinned like a gargoyle and then sobered. "Either way, we think it's 
fitting if you make the initial overture. If we're accepted into Mygdonia and 
get to Lacan Ajami, anything can happen. We'll see their true strength, that's 
certain, and gather useful intelligence."
"We?"
"I'd be along as an observer. And to convene my unit, of course, if you decide 
you want us." "How much of this did you tell Crit?"
She chuckled, leaning back, one foot up on a chair rung, her legs spread enough 
that he saw a stain on one leather-covered thigh. "More than I'd thought to 
tell, I admit. But only that we had a lucrative proposition which might lead to 
him and me spending more time together."
"Convene your unit? In Mygdon?"
She shrugged. "I'm going to need an answer before we discuss details. Let me 
assure you that the 3rd can do what we say it can do, and would be honored to 
work with you again. After all, it's a sort of poetic necessity, having you 
along: no one wins without you, do they?"
"That's a myth."
"Or coincidence. But having coincidence on our side couldn't be bad. Oh, yes, 
one thing that we didn't want to write down, although it might already have been 
solved…"
"Go on."
"A man named Grillo, here, is no longer trustworthy. We feel it's time to retire 
him without honors."
"You'll have to do that yourself. Stepsons don't do Rankan dirty work. As you 
say, it's not in the message." He held it out, letting its feathered edge catch 
fire from the flame of the oil lamp.
"Is that an acceptance of the commission? And me?"
"Twice what we've been offered, and whatever spoils we happen upon during any 
battles we walk into—but no territory. We're mercenaries, not a country or part 
of any Rankan expansion cadre. You may stay until we hear from them that my 
terms have been accepted, on one condition."
"What's that?" Kama's eyes were sharp and clear, and for some reason, he didn't 
doubt that she could convene the 3rd, be it in hell itself.
"That you don't wear out Crit. He's got a right-side partner and he's my first 
officer. Find someone else."
She waved her hand, "Condition accepted," then extended it. "Let me say I'm 
reasonably certain that your terms will be met, and thus I'm personally 
gratified that we'll be working together. I've been looking forward to this for 
a long time."
"Why is that?" he asked politely, expecting her to respond that it had to do 
with cadre integrity and the history of the 3rd Commando.
"Because," Kama responded with just the hint of a smile pulling at the corners 
of her mouth, "unless my mother was in error, you're my father."

* * *

Before the Stepsons had joined forces with Bashir's guerrillas and taken 
Wizardwall, there had been nothing between Tyse and her northern enemies but the 
four Rankan garrisons at the town's compass points. Tyse had been—and still was, 
in Crit's estimation—one of the most fragile buffer states of empire.
As dawn broke and he and Straton rode past the gate guards into the free zone, 
Crit's eyes strayed to the peaks of Wizardwall, brooding like angry gods over 
the town.
They were riding toward the altar pits where a score of gods from nearly as many 
lands were worshiped. They could have avoided the Rankan sentries who officiated 
at the break in the free-zone wall, reciting their rote disclaimers that law in 
Tyse stopped at those ruined gates, by slipping inside through the tunnels; 
Grillo's specials and Bashir's commandos often did. But Crit had established a 
drop point in the free zone, one of half a dozen he'd put together for his 
street men and his plainclothes agents. As task force leader, he'd established a 
network of infiltrators and turncoats and cheaply bought spies: this was a 
routine part of his job.
It was information he was after this morning, dressed in Tysian homespuns on a 
nondescript horse, looking for a horse trader named Palapot whom Grillo had been 
at pains to make sure he and Strat didn't have a chance to interrogate.
"Seh, Crit, I don't like it." Straton had mastered enough Nisi to be fluent in 
its invective, curses, and taboo nouns; this one meant offal. They spoke in the 
polyglot mercenary argot, gleaned from worldwide campaigning, which if overheard 
was unlikely to be understood by the refugees who traded rags and family jewels 
and favors for winter wheat and goat's-hair tents. The refugees thieved from one 
another, every factional bloodfeud and hatred—brought with them from obliterated 
homelands now part of Mygdonia—alive and well here so that beyond the altar pits 
mass graves grew like an infestation of moles, and crematoria had sprung up to 
handle the overflow.
"What would Palapot be doing in here?" Strat shifted in his saddle; their 
horses, reins flapping loose, picked their way slowly through the human 
detritus. "There's no business for him here, not a customer for the kind of 
horseflesh he sells."
Crit didn't think his street man, who'd sighted Palapot coming out of Grillo's 
office in the Lanes behind Embassy Row just before sunrise, could have been 
mistaken. He said so. And he admitted to Straton that he didn't like it either. 
"Let's quit and go south and hire on as retinue guards in the emperor's palace. 
Or go back to Sanctuary and chase third-rate criminals. The whores there shake 
down quicker, and that vampire lady you've got a crush on would just love to see 
you again."
"Bastard." No Stepson, especially Straton, missed Sanctuary, southernmost 
outpost of empire; they had a stake in matters here: they had the Hidden Valley 
horse farm and respected allies in Free Nisibis. They had the Riddler, under 
whose command each was honored to serve; they had one another and the integrity 
of the Sacred Band to think of. "This isn't to be taken lightly," Strat 
complained. "While you were off twiddling that twat in man's clothing, I was 
working. That dart's steeped in Mygdonian poison and that fellow who took it in 
the neck was somebody's very special envoy—hard as nails and with weapons in his 
kit the likes of which I've not seen since I was in the capital. And you know 
it."
"Want any of it?" Crit reined his horse left through a break in low black tents 
where those who vended rice and onions were just building their morning fires. 
Up the way a knot of children huddled in the packed-dirt street, fighting over 
scraps or throwing bones to double the take from a night of pilfering. Keeping 
the waifs inside was the hardest, and saddest, part of free-zone duty: they died 
in the family feuds or starved if their parents did; they were worked to death 
by the orphans' gang bosses or sold off, if they were just a bit luckier or 
sturdier, by slavers who came up out of the tunnels on moonless nights and 
hustled them away, drugged and senseless, to fill coffles headed west to Azehur 
or east to Syr.
When Strat responded that assassin's garrots and incendiary kits weren't exactly 
his style, Crit had forgotten his teasing offer. There was something about this 
knot of children that seemed wrong: it didn't disperse as they rode up; it drew 
tighter, as if protecting something.
"Let's take a look." He kneed his horse. The filthy, big-eyed urchins should 
have scattered to all sides by now. Though he and Strat weren't uniformed, they 
had weapons and horses and were adult strangers, therefore enemies.
"Doesn't feel right," said Straton, urging his sorrel into a slow, 
crowd-dispersing canter. Still the children held their ground.
"It's not right," Crit confirmed, as they bore down, and to either side, veiled 
women gathered daughters kneading flatbread or sons hauling panniers of water 
and scuttled with them into tents behind the flimsy stalls.
For some reason, all the night's anomalies ran through Grit's head: the murder 
at the Dark Horse, Grillo's interest, the woman who'd come seeking the Riddler. 
Then he had to stop his horse or trample the ring of little belligerents before 
them. Strat swore softly; Crit saw him slide his crossbow from his saddle and 
lever a bolt to ready. "Easy," Crit said under his breath, and leaned forward, 
arms on his pommel, hands obviously empty.
The foremost child was well into his teens, with a. bristly young chin defiantly 
outthrust, and arms folded. His garb was free-zone nondescript, his physiognomy 
essentially northern—broad face, almond eyes, flat nose: no wizard blood in this 
one. He might have been Machadi, or of Nisibisi peasant stock, or from a 
subjugated buffer state of Mygdon; his hair was mousy, full of straw or dirt or 
dung. Beside him was a girl who might have been his sister or his wife: she was 
pregnant, perhaps thirteen. On his other side was a snaggletoothed youth with a 
dying eye; beyond, Crit saw one with a short leg, another disfigured by fire. 
Not slaver's meat, any of these: the hale one was too old, the others too 
unlucky. All were doomed to the free zone.
Crit felt like the villain they obviously thought him, but said, "What's the 
attraction? Clear out of here, pud, and take your classmates with you," in Nisi 
as he told his horse with his knees to move slowly forward. The children to the 
rear began to drift away but those in the forefront held their ground. Behind 
him, Crit heard Strat's unnecessary warning: these desperate youngsters weren't 
harmless.
He knew that. All their eyes were on their leader, who hadn't answered Grit's 
question or said a word, just stood with legs widespread and eyes unblinking as 
if Crit, his big bay, and Straton with crossbow behind were invisible.
Then Grit's mount crowded the youth and the boy either had to move or be moved 
by the horse. A scabbed hand reached out toward the horse's bridle; the beast 
flattened its ears, tossed its head, and snapped at the boy in warning.
"Rankan scumsucker!" the youth said then in a loud voice. His gang froze in 
mid-retreat as their leader glared around at them; he took the hand of the 
pregnant girl beside him. "This your handiwork, bully-boy?" the youth said. 
"Maybe he didn't drop his pants fast enough? Or maybe he wouldn't play along 
with—"
Crit used his horse to break the handhold between boy and girl and knock the boy 
aside. The youth sprawled on the ground; unfortunately, the pregnant girl fell, 
too.
He heard Strat's pornographic warning to all concerned to stay very still, then 
he saw what the group had been protecting: one of their number, this one 
pale-haired, askew in his own vomit, gray upper-class eyes staring blankly at 
the rising sun. Dismounting with little thought of the vicious children all 
around him, Crit knelt beside the corpse. The boy had died on his face; they'd 
turned him over. The smell of vomit, blood, and defecation was strong, this 
close, overwhelming the background stench of the free zone. The slain youth had 
once had a pretty face, arch features, and he wore a better grade of clothing, 
which his winsome looks had doubtless helped provide. He had bled to death; he 
was nearly disemboweled. It was a particularly agonizing way to die, and a slow 
one.
Crit could see a brownish trail where the boy had pulled himself along the 
packed clay of the free-zone street for some little distance. Patting him down 
for evidence, Crit found nothing—not a wallet, a pouch or a coin—then turned to 
the circle of children around him. "Your friend, let's have what you took from 
him."
Half of them were gone, he realized. But the boy who'd stood up to him had 
helped the girl to her feet despite Strat's bow trained on him, and now looked 
Crit straight in the eye. "If I was you, sirrah, I'd get on my horse and get my 
professional killer's ass out of here. We don't want more truck with your sort. 
We ain't nobody's—" He blinked and Crit realized that, hard as he was, the 
sparkle in those brown eyes was not simply from anger; tears welled there.
"More? I don't know what you're talking about, but you're making me want to find 
out. We don't know you; we don't know him. Maybe you'll come along, sonny, and 
tell us just whose business you've been doing, to get one of you killed like 
this—" Crit made a sign with his right hand; Strat moved his horse up.
The youth looked nervously between them, realized he'd said more than he should 
have, then gave his own handsign. The others scattered, and as they did, he 
broke for it. Straton collared him with one lunge of horse and held the urchin 
suspended by his tunic, feet dangling while his arms flailed.
His girl, clutching her belly, sank down next to the dead boy and began to weep, 
then to beg for mercy for her friend, her hand extended toward Crit. "Here, here 
! Take it; it's all we's got. He's a good boy, let 'im go, let 'im go… We don't 
know nothin' 'bout what Tip, here, died for, can't read none of this…"
In her hand, Crit realized, she had a crumpled parchment. He took it. "What 
else? Whose boy was this?"
"Don't say nothin'!" the boy Strat held called out.
Crit didn't look over his shoulder. He toed the dead boy. "Whose?"
"Worked… sometimes, now and again, for the specials, is all. Carrying messages… 
and like that." She ran her hand under her nose. "Please, sir, that there's my 
baby's father. We don't hurt nobody."
"Right. What else was on him?" Her eyes shifted. There had been money, then. 
"Just give me the papers, keep the coins." From under her dress she pulled a 
leather security belt, a wallet. From behind, Crit heard the boy's muffled 
objections, Straton's curse.
"Strat, let him go." And: "That's fine, missy. You be on your way. And take 
this—" He gave her a copper piece. "Buy your Tip a prayer or two."
With a sour smile at her, the best he could manage, Crit turned away. The 
operator in him told him he could get more from these children than the wallet 
belt and papers: he could use them. But he didn't want free zone runners enough 
to risk them paying the price the slain boy had. Nor was he touched enough by 
the girl to offer her work out at Hidden Valley: when children like these passed 
ten, they were more dangerous than useful. He heard the boy's stream of 
invective resume as Strat put him down, but by the time he was mounted, both 
children had disappeared.
"Somebody's running us in circles," Strat complained. "Grille's specials, maybe. 
Convenient, finding Belize's killer so soon, with every bit of incriminating 
evidence in place."
"At least we know it's not as simple as it seems." Crit fingered the little reed 
blowgun he'd found and palmed when he patted down the dead boy. Straton grunted. 
"Still want to see Palapot?" "Twice as badly," Crit affirmed, holding his horse 
steady while the two of them sorted through Belize's papers—those he'd seen at 
the Dark Horse which identified him and gave him permission to travel freely 
where he would in empire, and those he hadn't seen: a coded message with a 
highborn Rankan family's seal on it, opened by greasy fingers; a collection of 
receipts and vouchers; a map of Tyse with Palapot's trading stand in the souk 
and Grillo's Outbridge estate circled in red—a map so sketchy and imprecise it 
hadn't been made by anyone who'd ever been here.
Straton, as they threaded their way among the morning crowd of the hopeless and 
homeless, was persistent. "Somebody lost an agent. Grillo didn't want us talking 
to Palapot until he had. The agent's murderer turns up dead, and he's known to 
have worked with the specials. If Grillo were behind this, he'd point the finger 
in some other direction."
"If he could. Maybe Belize wasn't his man. Maybe Grillo was Belize's target. I 
don't know. We'll hear what Palapot has to say."
"What about the coded letter?"
"Can't read it. Maybe the Riddler can." Passing the Spring of the Prophet, they 
stopped to let their horses drink, sitting on the ochre mudbrick well's edge 
while their mounts quenched their thirsts in the adjacent trough. He'd been 
thinking that the oddest thing of all was that two couriers had arrived in town 
the same night, when Straton, who had an annoying habit of reading his mind, 
said, "Didn't that lady you took out to Hidden Valley, the one Madame Bomba put 
you onto, have a message in code?"
"Kama? She's no lady. Let's get going."
They looked for Palapot for the better part of the day, first in the free zone, 
then in the souk. His horse-line was there, tended by a nephew, but he wasn't.
At dusk they headed homeward—not to the Stepson's Outbridge barracks or the 
Hidden Valley farm, but to a safe haven in the Lanes. Crit sent word by 
messenger to the Riddler that he'd appreciate a meeting and gave his evening's 
itinerary. He had no intention of leaving town until he'd found Palapot and 
given him over to Straton, whose forte was interrogation. And he wanted to see 
Tempus alone. If this coded message had anything to do with Kama of the Rankan 
3rd Commando, he and his commander ought to consider the implications privately.

* * *

"Shamshi! Shamshi!" It was Jihan's voice; there was no mistaking her deep, 
resonant tone.
Shamshi had been hiding in a thicket, shaking, shivering, letting his tears flow 
and his terror ebb. He was covered with blood from his scuffle in the free zone 
with the Maggot wretch. Finding a Maggot—a refugee—who looked enough like him 
had been harder than the disembodied voice of Roxane, the Nisibisi witch, had 
led him to believe it would be. Since the murders, he had not heard from her.
Now Shamshi was alone, her voice gone, the deed done, weak from the implications 
of it all. Fear had spurred him on during his mad, predawn dash through the 
tunnels. He'd found his pony right where he'd left it, in the burned-out barn 
the Nisibisi free men used to hide their comings and goings; he'd flung himself 
upon his pony and raced toward the Nisibisi border and safety.
Crossing it, he'd been elated. It was done. He'd turned eleven with the rising 
sun and become a man during the night; destiny was his.
"Shamshi! Shamshi!" he heard again, an urgent call, not quite a yell. The Froth 
Daughter would soon find him.
Wiping his tear-swollen eyes, he crawled forward on his belly. He hadn't seen 
the blood, soaked into his linen tunic, until the sun had risen; he'd almost 
reached the Hidden Valley choke point by then. He'd panicked; he found he 
couldn't think at all. He'd done away with the Rankan assassin, sent to ruin 
everything, with ease; then he'd let the scapegoat Maggot he'd found in the free 
zone bleed on him. Guilt had splattered him; he was covered with blood he 
couldn't explain. He'd reined his gold-maned pony hard about, and then it had 
happened: fate, or the Nisibisi mageblood which elevated him above the mortal 
cattle among whom he hid, had come to his aid. His pony had stumbled; he'd heard 
a sickening snap as they went down. 
He'd sat in the dirt, unhurt, listening to its screams, then moans, of agony, 
watching it try to understand why it couldn't get its fractured leg under it no 
matter how it lunged, consumed with tremors of his own.
Then he'd realized what he must do: he took his dirk and approached the 
exhausted pony, whose eyes rolled in its head but who calmed as he came close, 
expecting him somehow to make it well, and he slit its throat.
It took longer to die than the boy he'd murdered in the free zone, and this time 
Shamshi retched: he'd loved his pony.
It had saved his life. He knew the Stepsons wouldn't be able to tell pony blood 
from Maggot blood; he'd begun the long hike home in a daze of relief. But then 
the enormity of it all became too much for him to bear: he'd climbed up the 
valley wall and circled around behind the barns, filled with grief and guilt and 
confusion.
What had he done? Was it enough? Was it right? The voice in his head which told 
him what to do and how to do it—Roxane's voice—had gone away. He'd lain shaking 
on the ground a long time. Now the sun was warm on his back and Jihan was 
calling: they'd found his pony long since. He wriggled toward the thicket's 
edge.
They'd never send him back to Mygdonia; he wouldn't go. He'd lived among the 
Mygdonians long enough. His mother was a blind fool and his father of record was 
not his father at all. He'd always known it; they were too stupid to be his 
parents, it had had to be some awful mistake. For years, Shamshi had waited 
among the idiotic sheep who walked like men in Mygdon for his real father to 
appear. Eventually, they had found each other, Shamshi of Mygdon was called son 
of Adrastus, the Unescapable, second warlord of the Alliance He was in reality 
the son of the most powerful Nisibisi archmage ever to have ruled from 
Wizardwall.
He'd had scant weeks with his real father, then Tempus's Stepsons and his 
accursed sister, Cime the mage-killer, had murdered Datan and taken Shamshi 
hostage.
Tempus would pay for his foul depredations. Shamshi lived among the Riddler's 
Stepsons and pretended to hark to his teachings. In actuality, Shamshi bided his 
time. The Froth Daughter loved the boy, and he knew it. She'd help him stave off 
the Riddler, make Tempus relent and save him from being deported to Mygdon. He 
wouldn't be traded like a horse, haggled over like a gilded chalice. Jihan was 
close now, her long legs in his field of view. He stumbled to his feet and, with 
a distress he didn't have to feign, crashed pall mall through the thicket and 
threw himself upon her, sobbing out his grief over the pony he'd had to slay.
Her cool, muscular arms enfolded him. Her sweet-smelling breath was upon his 
cheek as she kissed his tears away, scolding him tenderly, telling him they'd 
get him another mount—not a pony, this time, but a mighty charger, a warhorse as 
fine as any man among the Stepsons had.
"These things happen, little love," she crooned. "You must be brave, my prince. 
For Tempus is right when he asks 'when is death not in our own selves?"
He struggled back in her arms, searching her face for a sinister inference, 
found none. He lay his head against her scale-armored breast once more. Roxane, 
the finest and most powerful witch of Wizardwall, had introduced him to the joys 
of congress with women; he had fantasies of expressing his love for Jihan more 
substantially. In time, he would; in time, he'd marry her and make her his 
consort. Now, he was too small in stature, too lacking in power: she thought him 
a child. But he could speak freely of love to her, and that he did then, 
reminding her that today was his birthday; from now on, she must think of him as 
a man.
"Well, my young man, then you must stop crying."
He knuckled his eyes and she slapped his bottom. "Up, now. We'll have to hurry 
back and tell them I've found you. The Riddler was very angry with me; he 
thought you ran away. You'd never do that, Shamshi, would you?"
"From you?" He reached out to take her hand and they strolled toward the fenced 
north meadow together. "Never. Unless…"
"Unless what, beastly boy? I've been out for hours looking for you. It's nearly 
dusk—"
"Unless you cannot save me from the Riddler's plans. I can't go back to 
Mygdonia. I hate it there. My mother can't protect me any longer, now that she's 
gone blind. My father is a craven fool. Lacan Ajami longs to see me dead; he 
won't have his own sons—my cousins—outshone in valor or intelligence. The time I 
spent on Wizardwall, I spent there because they say in Mygdon that I'm possessed 
by demons. What worse, now, might they be saying? If rumors have reached my 
father's brother that I'm not his son at all, but a child of magic, they'll 
execute me!" He pulled his hand from hers, peered up at her. "Promise me, Jihan, 
that you'll not let him send me back."
"I… can only promise that I will let no evil befall you," she said in a deep, 
troubled voice. "You are as a son to me, Shamshi. I will protect you as if you 
issued from my own belly."
He hugged her; she kissed his hair.
"Now," she said, "let's get you bathed and fed. Then, if you're up to it, we 
shall pick out a horse for you, finer than your wildest dreams."
When the soft night fell, Tempus had ridden into town with Kama and Gayle, a 
former special of Grille's whom Tempus had made a Stepson for services rendered. 
Gayle was half Nisibisi, half Tysian, sensitive to magic or treachery afoot, and 
knew nothing which would be damaging if Kama worked her wiles and debriefed him 
all night long.
He left them on Commerce Avenue, the woman who claimed to be a daughter of his 
and the game commando he'd thrown to her like a haunch of meat. Gayle's seawater 
eyes twinkled merrily in his hawk's face. He liked this duty, wasn't 
underestimating it, and threw himself into the part of tour guide with a 
confidence Tempus wished he could share.
Still, other matters were pressing, and the man into whose arms Tempus himself 
had collapsed in the aftermath of a battle with sorcery only the two of them had 
survived should be able to handle a single woman, even if she was 3rd Commando 
and spawn of his loins.
She might not be, he told himself. One couldn't recall every ceremonial rape or 
wench taken in battle. A full quarter of the Rankan nobility claimed him as an 
ancestor when deep enough in their cups. Kama was looking for a saga, she'd told 
Crit, a bit of history to make. She wanted to restore the 3rd to its former 
glory and have its finest hour ready for the telling at next winter's Festival 
of Man. The festival was held once every four years, and at it the best Rankan 
charioteers, riders, wrestlers, spear chuckers, runners, bowmen, swordsmen, and 
poets met to compete. Medals were awarded by the emperor himself, and treaty 
signatories sent teams of contestants. It was a likely story, but he wasn't sure 
he believed it. Her eyes told him she was after honor and glory of a more 
immediate sort, as her bearing and her boldness told him she was deadly serious. 
Moreover, he remarked to Crit in the Lanes safe haven, while from under a closed 
door came muffled sounds that meant Straton was making progress interrogating 
Palapot the horse trader, "she might just be a child of mine. If so, she bears 
watching. I didn't marry her mother, or even ask the woman her name. In fact, I 
can't recall the incident at all." "You don't like her, do you, commander?" "Not 
particularly, no. But it's more accurate to say I'm wary of her. She told you 
and me two different tales; that in itself confirms much of what she's said. 
She's from the 3rd, I own, and full of deceit. I don't want you fraternizing 
with her. I've told her, and I've put Gayle on her. Keep clear of her, Crit, 
until I decide whether we've any use for her."
"Meaning we can afford to lose Gayle?" "Meaning we can't afford to lose you. 
We'll see how she comports herself. She'll be here until we hear back from Ranke 
whether they've accepted the exorbitant terms I've set for the Stepsons' hire. 
If she causes no trouble by then, perhaps it will prove me wrong."
Crit was rolling a smoke; he lit it from a candle on the single bluestone table 
in the spartan Lanes haven. The windows' iron shutters were drawn and they'd 
pulled up benches. Leaning on his elbows in only a linen undershirt and 
loinguard, Crit dragged deeply on the broadleaf he'd licked into a cylinder and 
squinted at Tempus over the blue smoke. "Mind telling me what kind of trouble 
you're looking for from her? What the mission under consideration is? What the 
tale she told you was?"
From the other room came a muffled shriek of agony; Crit didn't look away toward 
the sound. Tempus's voice was gravelly and clipped. "Ranke still thinks that we 
can trade Shamshi to Lacan Ajami for strategic advantage. We'll be emissaries, 
there to negotiate. The 3rd will be our backup in case of treachery."
"Sounds reasonable," Crit said cautiously. "I've always wanted to see Mygdonia."
Crit had given Tempus the coded message and watched his commander read it 
without comment. Tempus had volunteered only that the two messages—the one Kama 
had brought him and this second which Belize had lost in transit—were the same 
in every particular. Crit had remarked that someone wanted very badly to make 
certain Tempus received the information.
But intelligence was Grit's specialty; more had to be said. Because this man was 
task force leader and his second in command, he needed to know not only what was 
certain, but also what was probable. Tempus said quietly, "After a day of verbal 
fencing, I'm still not certain what she's holding back. However, she's very 
interested in our estimate of how many and which Nisibisi mages still fight for 
Mygdon. Given that the Rankan mageguild insists that victory for the empire is 
impossible while their Storm God remains plane-locked by hostile magic, my guess 
is that once we get to Mygdon, we'll find ourselves part of an attempt to 
exterminate the remaining Nisibisi adepts who fight for Lacan Ajami. Mygdonia 
has no magic of its own. With the war god freed, Ranke would rally."
Crit was leaning back, nodding slightly, a nasty little smile on his 
stubble-fringed lips. "Suits me. I have dreams about vengeful witches—especially 
that Roxane—dancing on my chest. And it makes sense—why else involve the 3rd? 
We're strong enough without them to protect ourselves on any regular sortie, 
invited or uninvited. Are we going to do it?"
"Perhaps. I'm not sure I'd welcome the return of my tutelary god at this point 
in time. I'm doing well enough without him. And we must consider what a Rankan 
victory will mean to Free Nisibis."
Crit whistled softly, tapped ashes into the pool of hot wax collecting in the 
candlestick's base, then stared at him.
For a long while, all that could be heard were the soft whines and thuds coming 
from the next room. Then Crit inclined his head in that direction. "Stepsons 
have no love for Ranke; every man of us thinks highly of Bashir. What about 
Grillo's involvement? He won't take kindly to what Strat's doing to that double 
agent of his."
Tempus and Critias had attended just enough of Palapot's interrogation to 
determine that the horse trader was a Rankan agent who, unbeknownst to his 
masters in the capital, had fallen into Grillo's web of power and now served two 
masters.
"I'll talk to Grillo. But only about the chances of continued autonomy for Free 
Nisibis." He got up, took his leopardskin mantle from a hook, strode to the 
door.
Crit said, "That's it, commander? No new orders? Want me to watch Kama from a 
distance? Dispose of this piece of Rankan rubbish we've got in there?"
"Nothing yet. Just let me know if Strat learns anything more of interest." He 
didn't want Critias thinking too much about Grillo, or Kama, or a second 
campaign against Nisibisi magic. "And put a bodyguard on young Shamshi; we don't 
want him disappearing again. I'll be with Grillo for the balance of the evening, 
if anything urgent comes up that you can't handle."
"Nothing will," Crit promised. Tempus hoped he was right. This interview with 
Grillo was going to be very sensitive.

* * *

Gayle was sticking as close to Kama as a loin-guard, squiring her along Commerce 
Avenue with the insouciant swagger of an old Tyse hand breaking in a new 
recruit. Worse, he had ideas in his head, communicated to her by the occasional 
accidental brushing of their girded hips while entering this fortunetelling 
establishment or that drug den. Worst, whenever he met a garrison soldier or one 
of his fellow Stepsons or Grillo's lurking specials, he introduced her. She had 
to shake him.
Kama knew by the time they'd come out of the third of a seemingly endless array 
of ale houses that she'd never outdrink him; her head was spinning, her steps 
chancy. "Gayle, I've had enough to drink. You promised to show me Tyse, not 
Peace Falls." She'd been issued an armband which made her immune to curfew; all 
she had to do was rid herself of this accommodating soldier and she could be 
about her own business.
"Tyse. Well, there's not much to see at night. The Maggots are in their tents 
and the Tysians locked up tight behind their walls. What about a little krrf? Or 
pulcis?" He didn't quite leer, but his hawk face inclined to her 
conspiratorially. She fought the urge to put this sanguine-skinned local in his 
place. Pulcis was a mildly hallucinogenic, aphrodisiac stimulant—rare, 
expensive, and illegal everywhere but Caronne; krrf was a berserker's drug—the 
Rankan army ran on it. Perhaps she could outsmoke him or outsnort him. 
Otherwise, she was going to have to outsmart him and make an enemy. Gayle wasn't 
her type, but she wanted them to become separated "by mistake," not cause him to 
fail in his duty or make it clear she'd purposely disobeyed the Riddler's 
orders. Kama wanted to leave him snoring somewhere, do what she had to do, and 
get back to him in short order, so that he wouldn't know she'd been gone.
She let him take her elbow as they descended ill-lit stairs into a smoke-filled 
cellar subdivided by paper partitions (most of which were already pulled shut), 
wishing that he were Critias, then growled aloud so that Gayle said, "Excuse 
me?" and she had to cover the lapse. She'd been solitary too long; she had a 
habit of growling wordlessly when frustrated and of striking out at innocent 
walls or furniture with a balled fist to quash errant, troublesome thoughts. 
She'd have to watch herself. Though Tyse seemed primitive and simple by Rankan 
standards, these men the Riddler had collected were not.
She let Gayle secure them a private booth and wondered who was paying for this 
debauch, then answered her own question: her father. Kama preferred not to think 
of Tempus that way, but it was her kinship which had secured her this 
assignment. Meeting him had been something she'd dreaded. Having him immediately 
start dictating to her whom she could see and with whom she could keep company 
had been unexpected. First she'd felt disbelief, then cold fury. And the 
legendary Tempus sitting across from her had watched her curiously, his high 
brow smooth, and a defensive little smile dancing at the corners of his mouth. 
Tempus was all that he'd been reputed to be, that was certain. It was hard to 
remember that he was older than the city-state of Tyse itself, harder to 
discount his mystique, his animal magnetism, his sheer power.
Kama liked power in men, the sort which seethed under wraps and was sure enough 
not to need demonstrating. She liked Critias better than she should; she'd 
always taken to his type—quiet, intelligent, manipulative. Her father had 
probably done them both a favor by registering his disapproval, but it only 
fanned her interest. Crit was just what she needed: someone who shared the 
Riddler's confidence, who knew what was worth knowing. Any man who could play 
whore for a possible information advantage, and do it so convincingly, was 
special. Forbidden fruit. She swore aloud, pushed the hour they'd spent together 
upstairs at Brother Bomba's out of her mind. Crit be damned.
Gayle was here, now. He must know something, be useful in some manner. She began 
to open him up with canny questions and careful flattery. When she learned he'd 
been one of Grille's specials, she redoubled her efforts. "That's what I want to 
see: the specials' barracks, the east garrison, Embassy Row… I need orientation, 
not recreation," she said hoarsely over the smoke she'd just exhaled.
He cocked his head. "Rankan 3rd Commando to the bone." He tsk'd. "You'll be 
sorry. Leave's scarce enough around here. They'll work your butt off, starting 
tomorrow. Can't you just relax and have a good time on the Stepsons' credit?" He 
toked deeply on the bubbly pipe between them, then rasped, when she didn't 
answer or take the pipestem, "Women. All business. Fine. You don't have to worry 
about me. What's first? Mercenaries' hostel? Mageguild? The Lanes—that's offices 
and safe havens, drops and such? Want to check in with the Rankan ambassador?"
Then, finally, Kama realized Gayle was a bit smarter than he'd seemed, a bit 
more than he looked. These grunts of the gods bore watching, especially since 
they were so concerned with watching her.
So she did take the pipe, and toked again, and while he drew, at her request, a 
little map of the town with resiny pipewater on the low bronze table between 
them, she flipped open her ring and emptied the sleeping powder from it into the 
pipe's bowl. Then she handed him the pipestem.
But he'd had enough. "Not if we're going to do some serious reconnoitering. Is 
that your job with the 3rd? I like long recon patrol myself… out there, you can 
win, not like standing in a porking line wondering if your field people really 
have their strategy down…" He was on his feet. She followed, thinking, AH right, 
Gayle, let's see what you've got.
What he had was a knowledge of Tyse she began to envy, and a way of letting his 
questions hang in the air until she had to answer them or appear as what she 
was—someone who was hiding something.
They'd crossed over into Tyse proper via the mercenaries' hostel ("Pretty quiet, 
lately. Everybody worth having's already spoken for and deployed out of here"), 
the mageguild of rose quartz which sat back among giant cedars in a vacant park 
("We've got to just ride by quickly. Sometime when my friend Randal's about, 
we'll get you in for a look if you've got the stomach for it"), and had turned 
up Embassy Row toward the palace square ("Never did find the poor royal family 
when the wizard war brought all that granite down on their heads, but Rankan 
aid's been sent to rebuild the palace. The stone lions are still standing, 
though. Lions used to be sacred to the kings hereabouts. Nobody else could hunt 
them…"), when she noticed Gayle wasn't treating her like a lady any longer.
They stopped at an intersection. "The Lanes," he said, pointing northeast. 
"Outbridge begins there on your left." His hand gestured west. "There's a 
Nisibisi eatery a couple of blocks down the Lanes. They've local delicacies and 
an outhouse that's porking-well bearable."
In the Lanes the streets were narrow and torches far apart. The buildings were 
ancient, many attached to one another—windowless, mudbrick facades which had 
been there when the free zone was an independent contoured city and the Lanes 
its posh suburb. In the Nisibisi tavern he ordered in Nisi and toasted her.
The wine was foul and made her stomach lurch. She grimaced. "What is this?"
"Goat's blood, garlic to keep it thin, and hill wine. Better drink the whole 
thing; Nisibisi free men are touchy about their cuisine."
She looked around. Sidelocked Nisibisi were watching her; she was the only woman 
in the place. And Gayle was telling her that she'd better be as tough as she'd 
given him to think she was. Without a word, she drained her goblet, meeting his 
challenge. He gestured to the leather-clad bar-keep to refill it. "Hungry?" 
Gayle asked, deadpan, as a customer eased up to the bar on her right and her 
escort gave an offhand greeting to someone she couldn't see. She turned.
It was Critias and another Stepson, both in Nisibisi tunics and breeches.
Gayle said, "Critias, this is—"
"We ve met."
"That's the commander's—?" asked Grit's companion, heavyset and taut, with 
swordsman's shoulders and bleak eyes that stripped her without apology.
These two were old friends; Crit didn't need to hear the rest of his companion's 
question. He slipped familiarly into the other's pause. "Straton, meet Kama, 
attached to the Rankan 3rd Commando. Kama, this is my right-side partner and 
better half, Strat."
Sacred Banders, then. Who would have thought it? Her heart sank, unreasonably. 
She offered her hand to Straton and his grip was cool, firm, and noncommittal.
Then Strat said, "Gayle, I have to talk to you.
Alone."
Gayle and Straton excused themselves and threaded their way among scattered 
tables to take seats against the far wall.
"I see Gayle didn't spare you the obligatory hazing," Crit said, his finger 
tapping the goat's-blood cocktail before her. "I'm sorry; Nisibisi comestibles 
take a little getting used to."
"You were looking for me. Let's stop toying with one another." In the bronze 
mirror behind the bar she could see Straton and Gayle, their heads together, 
watching them.
"That's right. I have a problem I'm wagering you'll help me with—and not tell 
Tempus I asked you."
"Which is?"
"A man named Belize was murdered here just before you arrived. Ever hear of 
him?"
Belize? "An assassin," she said carefully. "A good soldier, though. Special 
work." She couldn't afford to guess which lie would do, how much or little 
Critias might already know about the man in question. "But why ask me? The 
Rankan army's widespread."
Crit shrugged but watched her steadily; his eyes were level, his mouth a 
straight line. "Two strangers, both from Ranke. Both with safe-conducts issued 
from the same office. Both with coded messages for the Riddler which he says 
read exactly alike… Redundant."
"Are you implying something?"
"Not really. Just tying up loose ends. You weren't in competition with Belize to 
get here first, by any chance?"
"I didn't even know they'd sent him," she said honestly and with real anger. "If 
he was a decoy to make sure I'd get through, they needn't have bothered. Is that 
what you think?"
"I'm just doing my job. Asking questions. Trying to make sense of the answers. 
An assassin, you say. Does that mean you are, too?"
"I've told you what I am." Flustered, she reached out for the pottery goblet of 
blood wine. His hand closed over hers. "You don't have to drink that, or prove 
anything to me." This voice was deeper, more intimate; she looked at her hand in 
his, up at him, then away.
"Your commander told me not to fraternize with you," she said.
"He told me the same thing. Maybe because you two are related…"
"You've got a right-side partner. Sacred Band, isn't it?"
"To the death with honor." He grinned. "What's that got to do with anything?"
"Anything …" she repeated, telling herself she had to consider her assignment.
"Anything I do on my own time is not Tempus's business; Strat and I are an old 
working team—no problem."
"Is this a proposition?" She slid her hand out from under his.
"A declaration of intent." He told her where his Lanes drop was. "I've got an 
office there, sleeping quarters; I run lots of agents. I'd like to consider you 
one of them. Think it over. Sometimes the Riddler sees things in terms of black 
and white— good and evil; sorcery and religion; men and women. He'll keep you 
around and give you busy-work. I'll use you. We'll both like it. I'm sure you 
can keep secrets; I can smell it. If you want me, you know where to find me."
Then he collected his partner, waved from the doorway, and headed into the 
night.
Gayle motioned to her to join him. Before she did, she reached into her 
beltpouch and pulled out a pair of dice. She threw them three times: eight, 
nine, nine: power and increase; money. She'd thrown for the outcome of Grit's 
offer. Nodding, she put the dice away and caught sight of herself in the bronze 
mirror as she turned to join Gayle across the room.
The spells she'd bought from Rankan magicians in the capital had been worth 
their price: so far, she'd outmaneuvered her competition, though she hadn't 
known she had any; she'd met the man she had to meet, the one who'd help her; 
she'd found her father, for what that was worth.
Grille could live a while longer. Belize's death changed things; she'd have to 
be more careful. Perhaps she'd hire a take-out artist from the mercenaries' 
guild to put an end to Grille. Perhaps she'd merely discredit him, make him 
suspect and thus useless here, ruin his career and force an early retirement. It 
was her choice. And Gayle, who knew his former master well, was going to help 
her make it.
Kama had been sent to deal with Grille, infiltrate the Riddler's confidence, 
make sure that the Mygdonian child they held here was sent back to Mygdonia 
where he'd die along with his father and his uncle, Lacan Ajami.
She'd made sacrifices to the gods openly and contracted success spells on the 
sly because everyone knew that the gods weren't what they used to be: sorcery 
and hard work were the only ways to get anything done.
She hadn't yet caught sight of the fabled Froth Daughter, or Shamshi of Mygdon. 
But Crit was going to be a very fruitful contact; her dispatcher had been wrong 
in assuming that enlisting the Stepsons could be accomplished only through the 
Riddler himself. Tempus was, as her hired mage had predicted, too bound up in 
the affairs of Free Nisibis. That, too, she hoped to rectify. Wizardwall had 
been taken by dint of Rankan effort: Grillo, Tempus, the Stepsons—all were 
fielded on Rankan gold and sworn to Rankan service. Free Nisibis should not 
exist; Nisibis should be a Rankan client state. And so it would be.
Kama had an open mandate here, and beyond Wizardwall—one which extended into 
Mygdonia itself. Sliding into a seat beside Gayle, she began expertly to guide 
the conversation toward Grillo's extracurricular activities: bribe-taking, 
smuggling, lending his forces to the Nisibisi guerrillas. Gayle was proud of all 
that; her credentials, vouched for by Straton, she assumed, while Crit was 
propositioning her, were no longer in doubt so far as Gayle was concerned.
He began to explain the complex political structure of Tyse, the personal 
militias, the provisional military government, the insurgent substructure funded 
by Mygdonia, the difference between "good" and "bad" Nisibisi and how Tempus 
managed to keep the Stepsons nonaligned.
She listened very closely; Kama's work here for the 3rd Commando had begun. At 
the end of it might lie a palace coup in Ranke, an end to the mismanagement 
which had the empire teetering on the very brink of collapse. But first the 3rd 
must be reunited with its founder and reconsecrated in the fiery sack of 
Mygdonia. On this, every Rankan mage and seer of the armies agreed. If they were 
going to get their god back, His avatar must toil in their cause.

* * *

"You'd better watch Critias," Grille warned, his handsome head upon his fists, 
tapers burning low about them in his office. His bleary eyes narrowed. "By 
Vashanka's bunioned balls, Riddler, I'm tired. Not everyone can go without sleep 
as long as you. Where is that woman?" He picked up a mallet from his desk and 
desultorily struck the gong hanging on its red-lacquered stand.
"Any particular reason?" Tempus asked evenly. Grillo detested Crit, and vice 
versa: they both were expert at the same sort of work and rivalry was too gentle 
a term for what existed between them, especially now that Crit had interdicted a 
shipment meant to fatten Grillo's wallet.
"My sources in the mageguild network tell me Randal's gone to Bandara. I'll lay 
this whole lot of krrf—" he patted the gilt quartz box from which they'd been 
reviving their wits all evening "—against an equal amount of muck from your 
stables that you didn't know about it."
"Should I have?" Tempus responded mildly as the widow Maldives, a brown-haired 
wench he'd have taken home himself if she weren't Grillo's mistress, brought 
steaming cha—an aromatic, bracing tea—in delicate Rankan cups with saucers, 
smiled at him, switched her hips and left.
Tempus took a cup, sipped. "This would wake the dead." The brown liquid was 
opaque, so long had it been steeping.
"Good," Grillo grunted. "Then maybe I'll be able to keep up with you. You asked 
me why you should have known. I'll tell you. Because he went at Critias's 
behest. There's only one reason for that…"
"I'm mystified," Tempus admitted. "What's your point?"
"See! You don't know what your own people are doing."
"Critias has the authority to send for any Stepson. I'm not babysitting Tyse, he 
is. If he wants Niko back, that's his business."
"Maybe. Maybe it's all of ours. You come to me with some half-assed story about 
dead Rankan assassins and a daughter of yours you don't like and questions about 
Bashir's security. Niko and, for all I know, other Stepsons on leave, are being 
recalled by your first officer without your knowledge—"
"I didn't say that. I only said I didn't know Randal had gone to Bandara. We 
think it's time to consolidate our forces."
"Even the adepts? You used to stay clear of wizards. Now you're all but a 
mageguild sponsor."
"Grillo, this isn't getting us anywhere. Will you increase your personal 
security for a while? Go up to Wizardwall and talk to Bashir about stationing 
more men up there—yours, mine, the garrisons', I don't care whose, but we need 
to be able to secure Nisibis's northern border." "Why?"
"Standard procedure."
"Yours, not mine. I wish you'd tell me what's bothering you."
Tempus drank deeply of the cha, stared into it ruminatively. He couldn't tell 
Grillo any more than he had—not that Kama had orders to make an end to Grillo; 
not that the 3rd would descend on Tyse like the wrath of gods; not that an 
incursion into Mygdonia itself was in the offing; and not—especially not—that 
given the foregoing, an attempt at coup d'etat in Ranke was almost a certainty. 
All Tempus had was suspicion, instinct, an itch he could not scratch but which, 
over centuries, he'd learned never to ignore. He sighed rattlingly, his normally 
smooth brow deeply furrowed. "I don't know what more I can say. I've warned 
you."
"Of what?" demanded the exasperated operations officer. "Tell me that the god is 
whispering in your ear! Tell me something substantive!"
Tempus sighed once more. "Of the Logos, which is as I describe it, men always 
prove to be uncomprehending—both before they have heard it and once they have 
heard it. They fail to notice what they do after they wake up just as they 
forget what they do when asleep." "What's that supposed to mean?" "You see? 
Consult your gods; I am not one." So it was that he left Grillo in an ill 
temper, not certain that he had succeeded in his purpose of protecting his 
friend from his daughter while still looking after those Stepsons whom he loved. 
They, as he, craved only sanctified battle with those who threatened not only 
their way of life, but their gods themselves.
As for these others, the Grilles and Kamas and Bashirs of a world his soul 
disdained, their Logos— what cosmic reason expressed itself as the source of 
world order and intelligibility—must sustain them: he could not.
He was girding for a second battle with Unreason in the guise of Mygdonian-sworn 
sorcery, and he was going to have to win it with only his Stepsons to 
wield—without even the help of friendly gods.
One particular god, whom the Rankans called Vashanka and the south called its 
Storm God, had been humbled or routed or vanquished—or perhaps even destroyed—by 
the Nisibisi mages who served godless Mygdonia and labored against even gods for 
pay.
Too long had his tutelary god's voice been absent from Tempus's ear. And though 
once the man called the Riddler had considered deific possession to be an 
affliction, he missed the battle of wits and wills in which the man and his god 
once were prone to indulge.
Though he did not love the berserker god, Tempus respected Him. Rumor had it 
that the once-mighty Pillager was plane-locked, a laughingstock among deities. 
He didn't quite believe it. But if his Storm God needed rescuing, he was bound 
to see to it.
In search of the once-mighty lord of rape and pillage, Tempus would venture even 
into godless Mygdonia. A bloodletting was coming; Kama was the sign of it, she 
who was conceived upon the battlefield while Vashanka was yet in him. Her 
message was the line and page of the mandate the Logos had sent him. Not only 
would his Stepsons be able to settle their score with the Nisibisi wizards who'd 
murdered wantonly among their number, but his own 3rd Commando was being 
returned to him.
And if none of this were so, he would still have gone forth, eventually, into 
Mygdon: he was bored, and he was lonely.
And with all the portents teasing him and events goading him, with Jihan 
plaguing him and the Mygdonian hostage Shamshi worrying him, he chafed to be 
upon his quest.
He could hardly wait.




Book Two:
MASTERS OF MYSTERY

Leeward of the Bandara chain's main island, nestled like a sleeping child 
between the crescent of its harbor and the northerly mainland coast, lies 
Ennina, The Lord's Eye, an islet reserved for returning masters of Bandara's 
mysteries and initiates in retreat.
Here mornings are misty and seasons tender; even on dog days, the gentle haze 
reaching up to heaven seldom burns off before late morning. The sea warms 
Bandara in winter and cools her six islands in summer. The prevailing steering 
currents from the west coax her pine and willow into wondrous shapes and 
conspire with easterly trade winds to keep her veiled in clouds impenetrable to 
curious, unsanctified eyes.
It was to Ennina that Nikodemos had repaired to heal his soul and put his life 
in order. No one in Bandara called him by his war name. Here he was simply Niko; 
"Stealth," the Sacred Bander, decorated leftman of the Stepsons, shock trooper 
without peer, did not exist. It didn't matter to the masters of Bandara that 
Niko was a blood brother to Bashir of Free Nisibis or that he'd become landed 
and wealthy employing the skills he'd learned here as a boy: silent movement; 
peripheral sensing; Death Touch; meditation's hunches, self-help and stamina; 
weapons at hand.
It did matter to them that one of their number had come home wan and troubled. 
Niko had claimed the attribute of maat—balance, equilibrium, and the strategic 
mental arsenal a quiet heart can bring to bear—during his boyhood years here. 
Few had attained as much. The mysteries of maat were the most elusive and 
difficult to master; induction into its study in no way ensured success. Many 
sought maat; the majority failed.
To have an initiate so gifted return hollow-eyed and sick at heart was 
distressing. To show overmuch concern might make matters worse. Niko had 
exercised his right to solitude and gone straight to Ennina, where by tradition 
he must be left alone. He'd said only that he needed more healing than his 
mental rest-place could provide and sought its equal in the phenomenal world. 
This was a formal request couched in the requisite language—not a revelation, 
just a ritual invocation any initiate might use to assert his prerogative.
No one who had tutored him from the time he'd come to the oracles' islands at 
the age of nine—or who'd trained with him during those four years he'd spent 
there locked away from "the world," as the Bandarans called the mainland—had 
dreamed, at first, that this time the words spoken were literally the truth.
They respected his privacy; they could not sympathize with his plight. Every man 
heals himself, said the sect. Every oracle makes his own truth. A wise one 
determines his own fate. It is upon each soul to recognize its limit. They let 
him be.
He'd brought a girl with him, a mute with a baby boy on her hip. This, too, was 
his right. They took in the homeless girl and prepared to cleanse her and adopt 
mother and child as their own. It was then that the oracles began boding ill, 
and nightmarish interludes afflicted the dream masters.
Eventually, a former instructor named Levitas was sent to speak to Niko. A 
Bandaran adept must not bring the world home with him; Niko should have left his 
worldly troubles behind.
"Our dreams are full of blood and death; witchfire fouls the sybils' caves; 
wizardsign has been seen: a red tide came in." The instructor Levitas, well over 
one hundred, lowered himself to the immaculate boards of Niko's cabin and 
crossed his bony legs.
The hazel-eyed fighter watched his former teacher, unblinking, unspeaking. An 
exotic mage-strain whispered in Niko's flaring cheekbones and pointed jaw, in 
his thick ashen hair and his long clean limbs. This was as Levitas remembered. 
But the thin-lipped mouth drawn tight had been split in battle; the nose was not 
so straight as once it had been, but bent from a blow. Nikodemos yet gave the 
impression of being an athlete or a sporting noble rather than a warrior from 
Bandara's arcane schools, but that was a bequest from his parents. The venerable 
instructor could feel the unrest in Niko by its effect on his own heartbeat and 
the pounding of his pulse.
Though in a pose meant for meditation, Niko-demos was far from calm.
The teacher, having elicited no response beyond an initial nod of greeting when 
he'd slid back the partition and entered unbidden, tried again. "You bring the 
world with you, Niko. You must let go." Still no response. Levitas sighed. At 
least Niko's eyes did not avoid his. He made his voice as intimate, as gentle, 
as possible. He was about to cut deep with it, begin an excising ritual he'd 
never once in all his life had to employ. "Have you killed men?"
A response to that question was not a matter of choice; it was a duty.
"Yes, sir. I have." In the boy's gaze was nothing. Niko looked out at his 
onetime mentor from an unthinkable distance, emotionlessly as if his eyes 
themselves were still in the world, where the flat emptiness in them served a 
mercenary better than impregnable armor.
"How many have you killed?" A spark of anger flashed, then subsided. The old 
man's heart thumped in his chest.
The boy said, "Men? Close up? Face to face?" His eyes slid away, as if counting 
memories, then back. "Nine or ten." "All told?"
"Hard to say. Covertly, from shadows, indirectly in battle… I don't know, 
perhaps thrice that number. But you're wrong, it's not that." "Then what is it?"
"Demons. Fiends. Witches. Magic." Niko unfolded from his squat abruptly, his 
hand outstretched to the startled instructor. Taking it, the old man let the 
youngster help him up. "I've got to show you something," Niko said quietly. 
"Come this way."
Out behind the little cabin was a gravel "pond," neatly raked but without any 
artful design. Niko walked barefoot out into its midst. "Please," he said over 
his shoulder. "See this."
The gravel was a meditation aid; it was nearly sacrilegious for anyone but the 
cabin's occupant to walk on it. Yet, so bidden, Levitas couldn't refuse. The 
blankness of the gravel gave him pause and made him worry more.
When the old tutor reached his student, the boy had brushed away enough gravel 
to reveal what he had buried there: an enameled cuirass of priceless antiquity 
with snakes and glyphs twining its breastplate; a sword in scabbard and matching 
dirk with the demons of the elder gods raised on it in a way metal had not been 
worked for centuries.
"Where did you get these?" Levitas spoke before he thought, and the trembling in 
his voice reached the boy's ears clearly. Half horrified, half astounded, he 
knelt down beside Niko on the stones.
"They were inflicted upon me by Aškelon, regent of the seventh sphere, after my 
left-side leader's death. I tried to offer this," Niko tapped the cuirass, "in 
sacrifice upon my partner's bier, but it came back to me again. Since I've had 
it, I've lost a second partner, been possessed by a witch, and shunned by my 
brothers. The possession, supposedly, is over, but the witch still lives and 
none of my Sacred Band can believe I'm cleansed of her taint, no matter how they 
try." Niko sat back on his haunches. "Neither can I. I want to be rid of this 
accursed gear—" He pulled the sword from its scabbard, held it out by the blade. 
"Feel it. It's warm. It's from Meridian, the dream lord's realm. He's after me, 
wants my… wants me."
Touching the hilt, it seemed to the old man that it burned him. Instinct made 
him drop it.
Niko looked at it, nodded, took it with a mixture of tenderness and revulsion, 
and put it back in its sheath. "Does that explain your bad dreams and evil 
omens?"
The teacher nodded, speechless, at a loss as to what he might suggest.
The uncanny youth chuckled then and helped him up. "It's not your fault, 
Levitas. It's not anybody's fault. Don't look so stricken. I feel better now 
that I've told someone. I'd thought to give it to the sea or to the coffers, but 
I can't defile either one. So I'll deal with it. I just need time and peace to 
think things out."
"You have that. Here. Always." Tears in his eyes, Levitas embraced his former 
pupil. "I'll go down into the vaults and look through the scrolls, and I'll have 
my students scour the literature. These weapons may have come to you by way of 
an archmage, but they were forged in the smithies of the gods. It's Enlil and 
Kubaba's demons who romp on them, not some godless sorcerer's minions. Take 
heart, Niko. We'll solve it."
"I don't think so. But I've heart enough, as it is. I told you, I need time."
"Time you shall have," the instructor promised, though his temples throbbed as 
if a demon squeezed them slowly in a vise and he knew that what Niko had, and 
didn't have, would be a matter in which the secular adepts of Bandara had little 
say.
Soon after, they sent the mute girl to spy on him, since she could read and 
write, and her reports declared that Niko was improving daily. Under the 
circumstances, they could do little else but respect his wishes and retranslate 
ancient texts, hoping to establish the provenance of the armaments or fit what 
was happening to one of the prophecies of old.

* * *

The square-sailed trireme Randal had purchased once the cloud-conveyance 
deposited him in Caronne was decked fore and aft; amidships, the slanted benches 
which accommodated twenty-five rowers per side were empty: Randal had no need of 
muscle.
The galley's lofty prow, gleaming with the polished wood and bronze of its ram, 
cut westward through the sea, its gold-painted eyes wide and fearless, its 
rainbow sail full of a conjured wind so fair and constant that the slim little 
vessel made thrice the four knots her optimistic seller had claimed she might.
Randal was glad to be away from the cozening shipwright who'd lied and chiseled 
his way to a fine profit on the little warship during protracted haggling. It 
had been five soldats extra for this sail, three per pair of oars, twenty for 
the teak decking… If he'd needed to crew her, the ship would have taken all his 
funds.
As it was, she was barely seaworthy—triremes seldom were. They were too light, 
too much the instruments of war they'd been designed to be. And no craft built 
without the benefit of incantations, with a mage at hand from the day her keel 
was laid to the moment of launch, was meant to course the seas at the speed the 
Tysian hazard demanded of this one.
When Bandara's mists came in sight, the shivering, sea-wracked sorcerer spoke an 
anchoring spell through blue lips and went below the foredeck, where he shut and 
warded the stout teak door behind him, sank onto a bunk upon which he had not 
dared to lie once during his three-day journey hither, and fell immediately into 
a long and dream-studded sleep. He'd never been happier than when he'd left 
Caronne behind for the open waves; he dreamed he was back there yet, arguing 
with the seafarers on its busy quayside until his throat was raw. Caronne the 
seaport was one of four known Caronnes that cartographers had charted. The name 
itself was unlikely to have originated in any of the six languages of the 
civilized world. Legend had it that in ancient times a king named Caronne had 
gone conquering, naming the cities he founded after himself. Another, more 
arcane tale said that the original Caronne, city of legend, lay beyond a 
dimensional gate not unlike the one through which gods and demigods and the 
likes of Tempus and his sorcerer-slaying sister, Cime, gained entry into a world 
already plagued by a surfeit of gods and their get, a world whose phenomenal 
base was magic and where gods and wizards unceasingly warred.
Whatever the truth of its origins, this western port of Caronne was the trading 
center from which drugs and slaves and other contraband issued south and east. 
No mageguild or civilized government oversaw her mercantile anarchy. Randal had 
been glad to be quit of Garonne's pernicious carnival; the place had an air of 
jolly menace about it which made him very conscious that its wicked folk 
supported neither gods nor archmages. Caronne laughed at heaven and disbelieved 
in hell; it recognized only the Lord Commerce and the taste of gold between the 
teeth. Its highest officials kept the Seals of Weights and Measures; before 
them, priest and mage alike bowed low.
In Randal's dream, a Bursar of the Customs House had discovered the young mage's 
globe of power and was trying to pry its gemstones loose.
Reality reminded him that he didn't have the globe with him just as he burst out 
of sleep, bolt upright, in his gently rocking bed. Fumbling with the door jammed 
by his own forgotten wards of the night before, he stumbled out and up on deck.
Bandara lay ahead, misted and lavender in the pastel morning light. He splashed 
fresh water on his face from a bucket and set about calming himself. There was 
no similarity between Caronne and Bandara; the Tysian junior Hazard faced a 
totally different set of problems here. Mages of the guild, who dealt with 
demons and took power from the seething magma of the underworld, were anathema 
to the Bandarans, who aligned themselves with neither gods in their heavens nor 
sorcerers in their hells, but held man himself to be an expression of universal 
power. Nascent powers were developed here, true, but only "natural" powers. 
Randal's sort of alignment with elemental forces was considered by Bandarans a 
perversion. As he had told Critias, the young mage might be denied admittance if 
he walked up the steps hewn into the quayside, knocked on the great red door, 
and announced himself.
Therefore, he wasn't going to knock. He knew they'd know he'd come: the 
bright-sailed ship— his calling card, his trump—was obvious. Even without it, 
they'd have sensed him; probably they'd been aware of an "evil" force 
approaching long before his sail became visible on their horizon. He would let 
Niko explain to his fellow Bandarans whatever the Stepson thought necessary. 
They weren't going to like it, but by the time they heard about it, Randal would 
already have had his say.
And he was curious. This was a potent sect; under less extenuating 
circumstances, he'd never have had the opportunity—the audacity —to study it 
close at hand. He'd find out what was fact and what was fiction among the tales 
told of the veiled isles. He had more than an excuse—he had a duty to deliver to 
his left-side leader their task force commander's recall order.
Still, it was an insolent and outrageous thing he had in mind to do. An 
uninvited guest is never welcome. And his heart was not quiet; the mercantile 
marauders of Caronne had left him angry enough to put a pox on that town or turn 
all the precious gold in its underground treasuries to salt.
Wishing he'd brought his globe along—with which he could have accomplished the 
shape change he had in mind regardless of the intensity of his concentration—he 
took from his girdle a vial of special salts, and on the deck before him, poured 
it out into the shape of the closed spiral, each arm of seven spinning outward 
to join the wheel at its edge from a central sphere. This was his most potent 
glyph. Staring at it, he muttered his favorite spell as he stripped off his 
clothing, warding the ship against intruders or capricious Nature, demanding 
success in his encounters, then changing his shape.
Moments later a seahawk beat with mighty wings from the deck. Spiraling upward, 
it alighted on the stout pine mast, gave its high-pitched piercing cry, and 
struck out west, deviating only once from its shoreward course to pluck a young 
sunfish from the bounteous sea.

* * *

Niko was raking the gravel of his pond into a pleasing design when a hawk's 
shadow fell over his labors.
Wiping his sweating brow with a bare arm, he paused in his work to watch it 
soar, master of the air, its wings hardly beating. The day was hot, autumn's 
last heat wave. The haze had burned off early and the sky was a deep, 
exhilarating blue against which the hawk was a graceful curve.
Niko thought to take an omen from it: right to left was the best of signs, left 
to right the worst, and he knew every variation's meaning. But this hawk just 
circled, as if following the waves and tides Niko's rake made in the gravel 
under his feet. He'd discarded his chiton and worked now in only a linen 
loinguard; the sun felt good upon his back and legs and his thoughts were 
immersed in the pattern he was making in his gravel.
He'd started at the center, working backward, never stepping on the furrows his 
rake was making once he'd used its toothed side. The flat side he'd long since 
finished with; the gravel was nearly smooth, even where he'd had to walk. All 
his training was his to command once more; he could step on nails or crushed 
glass or wet parchment and leave neither blood nor footprint. When the design he 
saw in his mind was realized, ordered in the myriad stones, no dissonant 
irregularity would mar it. He could climb the hill and meditate upon what he'd 
wrought to his heart's content.
Niko wasn't impatient; he was enjoying the process as much as he would 
appreciate the result. It was the doing, here, which was important. An ordered 
mind was already his; its expressions were added joys, benefits he knew were 
consequences of an accomplished result. With his maat encompassing all that had 
troubled him and his soul at peace, he merely wished to return some of the 
pleasure he felt to the natural world from which it emanated. He hoped the hawk 
liked his pattern. He felt increased by its presence, as if it had purposely 
come here to float above him while he worked—a harmonic expression that made the 
pattern of Niko making a pattern, which expressed the pattern he felt within, 
all the more singular. There was a piece of art in the world now which only the 
hawk and whatever looked down upon the hawk from even more supernal distances 
could see: Niko in his gravel pond, behind his cabin on the narrow shelf halfway 
up Ennina's wildly fertile bluff, making something for the joy of it, something 
for the gods with which they could do what they willed.
This moment, however, was complete, everlasting, and reasonably perfect. Niko 
conceived of gods as the spiraling arms connecting the central unity of his 
mental pattern with the outward, resonant unity of his as-yet-unfinished gravel 
circle. Gods in the world were angry, jealous, destructive, and mean while being 
instructive. Niko in the world was no better than the world he was in. Yet when 
he rejoined it, he would carry back his maat, his unity, and not ask the world 
to remake itself or meet any elevated expectations. What he brought to life, 
often enough, was the transformation of death. But he brought also the unity of 
his perception, the essential calm which allowed him a duality of his own with 
which to meet Nature's duality. He could endure any amount of hardship, once 
again, without complaint. He could strive toward perfection without ever being 
disappointed that he could not attain it. He could excuse the frailty and 
treachery of his fellows without question or fear. His spirit was once again 
intact.
Niko knew he was ready, like the hawk wheeling above his head, to venture forth 
wherever the wind led him, to engage in strife and do battle, as his mystery 
prepared him to, with the imbalances abroad. He was in no hurry to do so. He was 
imbued with maat at its purest; he gloried in the restfulness of Ennina and the 
equilibrium he'd regained here. This was as it should be.
But also he was aware once more of the paradox of the Bandaran schools: what was 
pure here was sullied beyond, where it was most needed. The test of his mental 
disciplines lay in how long they were effective against chaotic, hostile forces.
A Bandara-trained fighter must leave the sanctuaries when all elements became 
equal within him. Here he would waste what he had gained. Should the abstract 
ever outweigh the world's allure for him, he could enter another mystery, one 
whose mastery could be claimed in solitude and whose dictates did not send its 
initiates out to ascend its degrees in the field.
So when the hawk spiraled down and down and came to rest on a cherry tree just 
beyond the gravel pond's edge, Niko was not surprised.
He'd been drawn to it; he'd even fancied he'd looked down on himself through its 
eyes.
When it alighted on the ground and disappeared behind the tree's trunk, Niko 
began to feel a certain suspicion. A bit of his placidity ebbed.
Not even an archmage, he thought to himself, would dare to send someone after 
him, not here. But his inner sight detected a bluish tinge, in retrospect, to 
the hawk—more than its sea-roving plumage would warrant. Blue was for magic, the 
kind made in witches' scrying bowls and mageguild crypts.
He didn't stop raking immediately, but he was suddenly cold though the sun was 
at midheaven. He finished the spiral he was working on and stepped carefully 
back out of the gravel pond to retrieve his chiton.
When he'd slipped it over his head and secured his belt with its utility knife 
on his hips, Niko was certain he had a visitor. Whether it was friendly remained 
to be determined. He recalled old Levi-tas's reports of disturbed oracles and 
portentous dreams, then his mouth twitched. He let the rake fall and strode 
toward the thick, ancient tree determinedly. "Whoever you are, show your—Randal! 
I own you gave me a turn." Hands on his hips, Niko regarded Randal critically. 
The mageling Tern-pus had forced on Niko as a right-side partner was still slim, 
long-necked, big-eared, and fey. But Randal's auburn hair had grown over his 
ears now and the clothing he'd doubtless materialized while out of sight behind 
the tree consisted of the mottled gauze tunic and tight-ankled trousers Nisibisi 
guerrillas wore in summer.
"Life to you, left-side leader," Randal said, his freckled nose wrinkling as he 
grinned and stepped forward, arms outstretched in greeting.
"And everlasting glory, rightman." Niko completed the ritual salutation, endured 
Randal's comradely hug and, stepping back a pace, squatted down. "Do you approve 
of my pattern?" He didn't care. He was wondering how long it was going to take 
for the school to be alerted and send initiates or masters to deal with this 
travesty; whether he would be blamed if Ennina was judged befouled and in need 
of purification; whether he could chance secreting Randal in his cabin; or even 
if he would protect the mageling, should push come to shove, from harm. Niko had 
taken an oath to do so, but his ties to Bandara were more profound.
"Pattern? You mean the power glyph?" Randal knelt down also, excitement obvious 
on his peeling, wind-burned face. "I knew we had things in common, Stealth, but 
I never dreamed you Ban-darans and we mages were so closely—"
"Randal, it's a sacrilege, you being here. Don't say things like that. You'd 
better have a good reason for putting me in this position…"
"Position? It's your position I'm here about. You are recalled to active duty. 
Critias sent me to fetch you back. Immediately." Crestfallen at being 
reproached, Randal was now peevish. "If I get you back to Critias within ten 
days from when he dispatched me, he'll give me the stand for the globe— the 
stand I need to wrest from it the finest of its secrets. So come along now. I'm 
under orders, you see, from Critias, as to just how this is to be handled. I had 
to stop in Caronne and buy a ship to give the Bandarans—it's anchored 
offshore—as a gift from the Stepsons. All they have to do is send someone with 
us as far as Caronne… but it took three days to sail it here, and longer than I 
anticipated to buy it—"
"Just three days? What did you do, hitch it to oceangoing demons?" Disgust and 
wariness wound around Niko's words. "No master will set foot on it. An initiate 
who's ready, perhaps, might join us, but not if you tell them your rate of sail. 
And what's the hurry? Surely we've a few days left. Can't you get us there with 
your magic—by cloud-conveyance, whatever? Snap your fingers and—"
"Our task force leader has given specific orders, Stepson. You still are one, 
aren't you?"
That was insupportable insolence. Niko got to his feet. "Randal, don't try me. 
What are you hiding?" Though Niko's right-side partner had saved his life on 
Wizardwall, Randal was still a mage: untrustworthy, a trickster.
"We're to take one Bandaran as far as Caronne, where you are to complete 
negotiations with your uncle for the drugs Madame Bomba wants. Now can we gather 
up one of your brethren and leave?" Randal, rising, brushed off his seat, then 
his knees, fastidiously, complaining. "You should be glad to see me. I admit my 
feelings are hurt, but they'll mend if you'll show me around…"
"No chance. If I take you inside my cabin we'll probably have to burn it 
afterward." Niko, who had been heading toward the rake he'd dropped, stopped 
still.
"What's wrong?" Randal caught up with him.
"All I have is your word that Crit sent you. Did he give you a token to prove 
it? A letter?" Again he moved toward his rake, then stooped to pick it up.
"Nothing like that. Niko—" Randal, frustrated, wiped his brow in a habitual 
swipe. "You really are angry, aren't you?"
Niko was fondling the smooth, worn wood of the rake's long handle. He dug its 
teeth into Ennina's rich earth, watching the furrows it made, considering 
matters. "Not angry. I left Tyse… abruptly. Do you know if the Riddler is aware 
of this?"
"Of what? You, me, Crit? I'm not supposed to ask questions, remember? If you're 
not coming back, just say so. And why wouldn't Tempus know?"
"I'll come. I wonder if he does, though. I wanted to bring Shamshi, the 
Mygdonian boy, here. The commander and I disagreed about it. That's all." It had 
been worse than that; he'd desensitized his memories, but he still didn't like 
to think about the circumstances that forced him back to Bandara. He'd left his 
fine sable stallion and his pregnant mare with Tempus, a renunciation of all 
they'd done and all they'd shared. Most of it he couldn't bring himself to 
explain to Randal, who was a newcomer to matters of honor such as concerned a 
member of a Sacred Band.
But the six pairs who'd been his closest allies— before Tempus, when they'd 
fought for Abarsis the Slaughter Priest—had known that Niko was possessed by a 
witch and not told him. Tempus had known. Critias had known. They'd conspired 
"for security reasons" to keep from him their doubts and the nature of a problem 
Niko had had to surmount without any understanding of his own. He'd only pieced 
it together after the fact, when men who'd been his most trusted friends were 
obviously uneasy with him once it became clear to all that the witch Roxane, 
who'd possessed him, had lived to escape to Mygdonia.
Niko could forgive many things, overlook failings and lapses in courage and even 
changing allegiances. But he could not forgive the look in those Stepsons' eyes 
or Tempus for having lied to him. So he said, sighing, when Randal only stared 
at him, "Never mind. Let's go. We've a long boat ride over to the main island, a 
longer negotiation ahead if we're to secure a traveling companion. Don't explain 
anything. Don't say anything unless you have to… I've got to make this as 
painless as possible for everyone involved." Letting his rake fall, he had a 
feeling it would be a long time before he'd see it, and Ennina, again.
Walking into his pond carefully, Niko brushed the gravel from the cuirass, dirk, 
and sword that the dream lord had given him and, still on his knees, put them 
on. Then he tried to reinstate his pattern. But it remained unfinished, 
disturbed, randomized by human events when he left it.
It didn't matter—the next occupant of his cabin would make a different sign, 
need a different sort of healing.
By the time they'd docked their little tender at Levitas's private pier, Niko 
had made Randal realize that they could be incarcerated for this—at least Niko 
could be—and that the mage himself might be in some considerable danger. Niko 
was not the only fighter in the isles. Many, he assured the mageling, were twice 
as skilled as he.
Levitas's lacquered door opened promptly and the mute girl Niko had brought over 
from the mainland smiled with her eyes and touched first her lips, then his own, 
with a finger, ushering them into the cool, slate-flagged home with its 
tree-trunk pillars and expansive shadows. Niko gave his apologies for disturbing 
the household but asserted that he must see Levitas as soon as possible.
During what seemed to Niko an interminable interval of waiting, Randal began to 
sneeze uncontrollably, exclaiming in a choked, congested wail, "Cads! By da 
Wrid, "e's god cads! Aah! Achoo!" his't's becoming d's as his allergies flared.
"Cads?" Niko had been paying little attention; he was worried that Levitas might 
decline to see him. His integrity was on the line because of Randal; he was 
likely to be expelled forever from the single refuge the world could offer him… 
"Oh, you mean cats. Yes, he breeds them. If the dander bothers you, why not 
ensorcel it away?"
"Nod funny." Sneeze. " 'Ave you any krrf?" Sniffle. "Or an 'andkerchief? Or I 
will conjure one."
Niko had extracted from Randal on the boat ride hither a promise to refrain from 
magic while in Levitas's presence. Now, he ripped off a piece of his chiton's 
hem, wadded it up, and threw it to the mage whose Hazard status had been delayed 
by these allergic reactions no spell could quell.
Randal, catching the wad, bowed his head and blew his reddening nose, his 
shoulders hunched in misery and shame.
When Niko looked up, Levitas was standing before a translucent silk screen 
beyond which the softly rolling harbor could be seen, the master almost as 
insubstantial as the diaphanous cloth which kept out insects but let in the 
salt-fragrant breeze. Levitas's bald head nodded on his fragile neck; his 
parchment skin glowed like a candled egg. He frowned at Randal, then seemed to 
float across the flags toward Niko, one frail hand outstretched.
Niko met him and took it, brushing it to his lips. "Teacher," he said tautly in 
a very low voice, "I have brought the world to Bandara. It's time for me to 
leave."
"So it seems," Levitas said gently, no trace of emotion on his palimpsest face. 
"How could you allow this… creature to gain such a hold on you?
Then Niko had to say it, for on his right and left, silk-stretched partitions 
slid back and into the room filed six initiates, robed and girded for war, 
ceremonial masks upon their heads making them so fearsome in their approach that 
Randal scrambled over to Niko and tugged at his arm. "Levitas, this is Randal, 
Tysian mage of the Hazard class— Randal, what's your current level?"
"S-s-s-seventh," said Randal, at Niko's right, his gaze fixed on the six 
night-robed initiates who closed in with slow and measured steps.
"Seventh level," Niko continued conversationally. "Randal is my right-side 
partner, master; my Sacred Band teammate, here with orders from my task force 
leader. Randal, this is the master Levitas, my teacher."
The two exponents of opposing philosophies gazed at one another frostily. 
Neither spoke. The six initiates converged in perfect synchronization on 
soundless feet; soon they would be so close that Niko would have to step back or 
be physically accosted. He continued calmly. "The omens the sybils spoke—the red 
tide, the oracles' dreams— all were forewarnings that my partner had been 
dispatched to find me, nothing more."
Levitas spoke now. "Nothing more? Niko," he shook his head sadly, "not even for 
you can I excuse this… obscenity."
"I'm not asking that. I'm merely saying farewell. In a civilized fashion." Niko 
looked pointedly about at the students gathering to protect their instructor. 
Then he said even more quietly, "Stop them where they are, or I will. You owe me 
a hearing, with so much at stake."
Levitas reached out a hand and tapped the cuirass Niko wore. A single blue spark 
snapped. "You mean you owe me a better explanation for bringing this demon's 
pawn into my house."
"Now waid a minude!" Randal demanded plaintively. "I'm here wid—excuse me…" He 
turned his head aside and blew his nose again. "That's better. I'm here with a 
gift from the Stepsons, regards from Tempus the Sleepless One. You do know who 
he is? And none of this is Stealth's fault… The least you can do is be polite. 
You see that armor there? Niko's? It's from the benighted entelechy of dreams, 
by the Writ. Where do you get off-?"
"Randal!"
"Well, Stealth, he's not very understanding for a high-minded spiritual type, is 
he? As I was saying, Lord Levitas, we've brought a trireme for you from the 
Stepsons. We need a man to sail in it with us as far as Caronne—"
Levitas's hand came up and the six initiates stopped, legs spread, folding their 
arms. "A gift?" From Tempus the Obscure? For the school?"
"Not exact—" Niko began to explain.
"Stealth, you keep shut. This is my muddle, and I'll make it right," Randal 
interrupted. Then, to Levitas: "If you're going to hold this fighter of yours 
responsible for events beyond his control, go ahead. We can't stop you. But be 
assured that he's in great demand elsewhere—on this plane and beyond—" Randal 
sneezed again. "Damn cads. Sorry. So anyway, either give us a man to sail with 
us to Bandara, or reject the gift. We don't care."
Niko saw the skin quiver around Levitas's eyes. Piously, the old teacher bent 
his head. Then he raised it. "I regret to say that none of that justifies what I 
see here. But we will send a man to return with the sleepless one's gift. You!" 
Levitas's pointing finger shot out with a speed which belied his age. "Come 
here." One of the masked initiates stepped forward. "The rest of you, back to 
your labors. I appreciate your concern, but it is misplaced. And no word of this 
beyond these walls! Go!"
The five melted back into the shadows. Niko blew out a long breath as the 
partitions whispered shut. Under his cuirass, perspiration trickled down his 
backbone. He'd forgotten he'd had it on until Levitas touched it. Now he wished 
he'd thrown it into the sea as once he'd intended.
Levitas's eyes were on him, unyielding as stone. His bony finger, pointing 
Niko's way, drew a sign in the air. It burned Niko's soul as if its passage 
through the air between them had turned his cuirass molten.
Thus, without a word, was it done: Niko was banned from Bandara henceforth; not 
Randal's lies or even Tempus's name could mitigate the ritual's finality.
Having lost everything already, Niko felt lightheaded. A rebellious part of him, 
angry with the Stepsons for sending Randal where no sorcerer should ever have 
trod, had been toying with the idea of resigning when he reached Tyse, turning 
about and coming straight back here on the excuse of seeing to Ennina's 
purification personally. Now he had nothing to come back to…
"… send my own son," Levitas was saying. "No other could I expose to such peril 
in good conscience. Sturm, my child, you are ready for the world, you say. You 
will go with these… people… into it and return with the Riddler's gift." 
Levitas's eyes carefully avoided Niko. From now on, for the instructor, the 
failed student must cease to exist.

* * *

By the dawning of their second day at sea, Randal was utterly exhausted from the 
demands of sailing the ship by spell while casting illusions to make his magic 
more palatable to the two Bandar-ans on board.
If he'd had only Nikodemos to deal with, the sorcery required would have been 
considerably less strenuous, but Sturm, son of Levitas, was a stranger and one 
of unknown proclivities. Sturm was beefy and sullen and younger than Niko. From 
the moment it was clear that Levitas was sending his son along, Niko had been at 
pains to make sure Randal took every precaution.
Waiting in the little tender for Sturm to gather his effects and join them, 
Randal had ventured: "I'm sorry about… all this." He'd waved his hand, 
encompassing the shoreline of wind-sculpted pines and wave-smoothed rocks and 
the pastel sea which rocked them. "It's my fault that you lost it."
But Niko's quick, canny smile came and went. "I haven't lost anything I need. I 
love Bandara, but I love to leave it. I shouldn't have come here. There was no 
need. I was sulking." He shrugged. Then: "Here comes Sturm. We've got to 
minimize apparent magic. He's a big boy. We don't want to frighten him. I don't 
know what he can do, and a boat's no place to find out."
"Boat?" Randal hadn't thought about how he was going to transport his two 
companions to the trireme. Now he did. "You mean we're going to row out there? 
Yes, I see you do. All right, you row—don't let him—and I'll give us a bit of 
help by way of friendly currents. Agreed?"
Niko had time only to clap him on the shoulder in assent before he went over the 
side into knee-deep water to help the burly, horse-faced Bandaran with 
bound-back hair and a scraggly moustache distribute his three heavy sacks and 
considerable bulk so that the little dinghy didn't list hopelessly. Low in the 
water and heavy with the uncomfortable silence of the ill-met, they headed out 
to sea where, in the low-rolling mist, the trireme's mast was visible on the 
horizon.
In the prow, facing back the way they'd come, Randal was struck by the contrast 
between the two initiates—Niko's easy, flowing motion as he rowed; Sturm's 
quick, wary movements which caused the keel to dip and sway. Having received 
from Niko assurances that Stealth didn't blame him, it was natural for Randal to 
compare the two Bandaran adepts and find Sturm wanting in experience, wisdom, 
physical culture, and style. Three is never a happy number, and Niko was 
Randal's left-side leader. As always when in Stealth's company, Randal felt 
taller, more formidable—fierce and brave and worthy. Although at times being 
both an upwardly mobile wizard and a Stepson was a dangerous combination, and 
the mystique of his pairbond a daunting responsibility to live up to, it was 
indubitably worth it.
Randal had come by fortune and study to an estate which as a youth he'd 
despaired of ever being able to attain. He just wasn't cut from hero's 
cloth—this had been clear early on. Only as a black artist or a court-bound 
intellectual, his father had explained gently one gray day, would Randal ever 
make a name for himself. If only the kind old warrior—who had gone to great 
lengths not to show his disappointment in a frail and overly bookish child, who 
had bought Randal into an apprenticeship at great personal cost and died still 
worried that not even magic would avail his son— could see him now! Not only was 
he comporting himself with integrity and risking life and limb at the behest of 
his guild, he was doing it in the company of a lion among Stepsons! Niko was, 
with the exception of the Riddler and his old-guard officers, the best of the 
Stepsons. Even Critias called Niko "one hell of a boy-soldier" and judged no 
expense too great to recall him to duty.
Randal was trying to explain some of this to Sturm, whose task it was to prepare 
the morning meal from ship's stores before Randal went below to sleep. Niko had 
the tiller and the watch. Had the strange Bandaran not been aboard, they could 
be eating whatever Randal chose to fetch from any nearby shore; as it was, they 
were eating raw fish, cold rice, and dried figs.
The oars were shipped and the galley made good time. Part of Randal's intention 
was to keep Sturm from dwelling on how good; he'd asked about the mainland shore 
due north of Bandara and drawn the islander into a discussion of the fertility 
cults and priestesses that dwelled there. A man climbed the steps hewn into 
those sheer basalt cliffs at his own peril; some boys of the western nomadic 
tribes had to make that journey to claim their manhood. All of this, Randal 
knew, but when Sturm had sneered that, as Sacred Banders, neither Niko nor 
Randal could be very interested in the flowers of womanhood growing high on 
those precipitous bluffs, Randal's patience with the sharp-tongued son of 
Levitas found its end.
"If they taught you everything but respect for others in Bandara, they've taught 
you only how to die in the world, Sturm," Randal said, his voice quaking with 
rage, and stormed out of the cabin, first throwing a strip of red tuna in the 
Bandaran's face.
Sturm followed, eager to continue the confrontation which had been brewing under 
beetled brows and polite snubs since they'd set sail. Ignoring him, Randal 
headed aft, between the slanted rowing benches and up again. "Niko, watch this! 
I've been practicing." Though using powers for display was frowned upon by 
wizards of scruple, and he'd promised Niko not to flaunt his magic here, 
something had to be done to take Sturm down a peg. From Randal's belt, seemingly 
of their own accord, three throwing stars floated upward. When they were at eye 
level, Randal sent them speeding, one after another, through the air. They 
thunked into the mast so close to one another that the grate of metal upon metal 
could be heard, on their journey whizzing past Sturm's startled face.
"Maggoty queen," Sturm cursed, big hands on hips.
Niko looped rope around the tiller to keep the trireme steady and came toward 
them without a word. When he reached Randal, he said only that he was hungry. 
When he'd passed him and come abreast of Sturm, words Randal couldn't hear were 
exchanged. The Bandaran glowered at the mage a moment longer, then followed 
Niko's retreating back.
So it was that Randal alone saw the emergence of a thick mist, the size of a 
large island or small land mass, from the sea, its expanse crowned with arching 
double rainbows, its position dead ahead. Staring at the spot, which only 
moments ago had been clear water, he blinked and rubbed his eyes. The mirage 
persisted. The mist was thick as marble, impenetrable as a burial shroud. They 
would sail right into it on their present course. Randal's first instinct was to 
alert Niko. But to what? He sat on the afterdeck, chin propped on his fists, 
trying to determine what kind of manifestation awaited them. Things didn't 
normally pop up out of the sea. There was no fog anywhere else, no rain clouds 
even on the far horizon. The sky, elsewhere, was clear. When he thought he knew 
what he was looking at, his fingers and toes were numb and his throat dry with 
excitement; his little display of temper and the lesson he'd thought to teach 
Sturm were forgotten.
In the afterdeck cabin, they were talking as he entered:
"—take that scrawny little partner of yours and break his back across my knee. 
Then we'll see what kind of powers he's got."
"I won't protect you from his wrath, Sturm. You've a lot to learn. It's too bad 
you're going right back to the islands. You've been too long under Levitas's 
skirts. Things don't work the same way in the world…"
"Ram's balls! I'm not going right back. Mad as your necromancing paramour I'd 
be, should I do so. I'll sell this ship—it's too tainted, they'll just sink it 
when they realize how much sorcery has seeped into its every plank—and buy 
another, when I'm ready. No one's given me a time limit. As for my father, he's 
addled with age. Frightened of his own shadow—so frightened of your fabled 
Riddler he'll do anything to accommodate him. Gods' mung, I'd have thought you'd 
realized it, after what he did to you. I don't like magic, and I don't doubt 
you're not half what you're touted to be, but the old ones have forgotten what 
it's like to have blood in your veins—" Sturm paused for breath.
"Excuse me," Randal murmured, coming the rest of the way in, where Sturm, as 
well as Niko, could see him. "But there's something… in our way, you might say. 
We could try to change course, but—" Randal spread his hands "—you know these 
archmagical abodes… I don't think it will help. If you'd like to step on deck, 
Niko?"
"Archmagical abodes?" Sturm repeated, frowning.
"In our way?" Niko rose up, steadying himself on the table. "What is it?"
"Meridian," Randal said offhandedly, aping Niko's habit of delivering the most 
startling news in the calmest of demeanors. "The shadow lord's home. Surely 
you've heard of it, Sturm, even in Bandara? Aškelon's archipelago? The land of 
dreams?"
Entering Meridian's harbor through clouds rain-bowed like its furled sail, the 
little trireme shipped its oars and glided by dint of magic smoothly into port.
The waters she plied were calm as glass; the crystal quays she sought, inviting. 
Few mortals' craft had made this harbor in all the days of time. Meridian was 
not kind to uninvited guests. The island chain which was part and parcel of 
Aškelon's mystique partook of more than the dream lord's legend: it shared his 
power, knew his thoughts, and when it manifested as a phenomenal place with 
latitude and longitude it had awareness all its own. Treasure-seeking plunderers 
who thought to fill their holds with the gold pavings of these streets found 
themselves in sinking ships whose iron nails deserted oak and pine and flew off 
through the air and whose bronze rams and boarding hooks melted like flaming wax 
long before their prows parted this harbor's waters.
For Meridian belonged as much as Aškelon to the seventh sphere and that shadow 
life that men forget while waking. Her populace, her golden streets and homes 
and barques and palanquins— all became wholly real and fully living, here and 
now, only when the trireme's hull passed through the rainbow gate, so that the 
joy of its denizens at this visitation was nearly boundless.
And Aškelon, lord of Meridian, of dream and shadow, entelechy of the seventh 
sphere, deep below the quayside in his foundry where fires roared high and metal 
poured like water, readied gifts for these two most welcome guests: Nikodemos, 
whom Aškelon's heart desired beyond any other earthly adherent, and the 
promising junior wizard Randal, whom the dream lord had used as a proxy to help 
young Niko more than once before. The third party with them, Sturm, late of 
Bandara, was an unexpected guest.
Through every eye and ear and wave and dolphin dancing playfully alongside the 
trireme, Aškelon kept tabs on the galley's progress. He had too much to 
accomplish and no time to spare to greet them with mere ceremony: Meridian had 
arisen from this foreign sea half a world away from where it was accustomed to 
manifest; even the lord of dreams could hold the archipelago here only so long.
Thus he had sent Cime, his consort for a year, a half-reformed sorcerer slayer 
and free agent, to greet his guests. This woman, who squatted now like a soldier 
on the outermost quay, was Tempus's sister and the one who had come to Aškelon 
with this scheme to engineer a meeting with the mortal Nikodemos. She had almost 
killed Aškelon once, nearly destroyed Meridian when it manifested in its 
accustomed place as it did only when the gods and elementals made their 
millennial peace and Aškelon took a wife to ease his loneliness. Then Cime had 
come in the guise of that wife and used her arcane evil and her diamond rods to 
wound him so that Meridian shriveled into clay and settled back into the sea. 
Later, he had forgiven her, made a bargain with her, traded with the gods upon 
her account and left his betrothed, Jihan the Froth Daughter, with Tempus in his 
hellhole world to seal the pact. But still, he could not trust her.
So he watched, very carefully, as she boarded a barge and, with three nymphs 
attending her and six dolphins gaily towing her, put out to meet their guests 
halfway. Cime, who called him "Ash" as her brother dared to do and pronounced 
him "boring," "dull-witted," and "vain," was still both assassin and whore: the 
curse which made her thus would not be lifted until her year with him was done. 
And mages such as Randal were her favorite prey.
In the pot of white-hot metal, nearly ready to be worked, he could see her 
clearly: her hair black and silver like his, her statuesque beauty like a 
figurehead tall against the wind in the pleasure-barge's prow, her fine and 
haughty features the double of his own save for what animated them from within. 
For Aškelon's face was scored with compassion, with the weight of a race's 
broken dreams and all its dreams to come. Cime, on the other hand, did battle 
with all the nightmares of excess; she knew the opposites of virtue thoroughly: 
she was queen of harpies, mistress of the cutting tongue, priestess of murder 
and lust.
As such, he thought—smiling to himself as he thrust bare hands into a cauldron 
of boiling hot metal to draw out ensorceled iron for a special blade he'd create 
with the hammer of his fist—she was an admonition to those he'd brought here: 
what Aškelon offered could not be had without cost. He knew what they dreamed of 
having, both the mageling and the young warrior; he knew their dreams more 
intimately than even they, as he knew Cime's nightmares and her brother's 
dreamless soul. He could offer much, but he could not coerce.
He'd sent young Niko a gift horse as fine as any Tempus had received, and the 
boy had abandoned it. He had sent Randal intimations and guidance fitted for so 
noble and mystical a spirit. He had sent Cime to greet them because temptation 
and danger must accompany them hither. Aškelon, who had traded away much for 
regency of the seventh sphere and become a contractee to what abided on the far 
side of heaven, knew better than his visitors how important was tribulation and 
the element of choice in life. Greatness accretes; one pays as one goes.
He knew this because he was not selfless; he had goals and troubles of his own, 
gargantuan efforts under way. Success with Niko, his choice among a multitude of 
possible mortals, would secure Meridian so that never again could a well-meaning 
but accursed soul like Cime threaten destruction upon it.
For this, he had labored. For this, he would take Randal as his apprentice and 
even move an archipelago from one side of the world to the other. Already, he 
could feel the strain of his labors, the possibility of failure like a sad 
mantle weighing down his shoulders. These were not wise, seasoned souls, but 
just the children of men. And Aškelon had learned, on the brink of dissolution 
Cime had brought him to, that inherent value in a cause is no guarantee of 
success.
And so he had embarked upon this program of honorable risk, with a world to lose 
and a viper in his bed—this creature Cime who did not understand the value of 
salvation through dreams or even the meaning of love.
Lovingly, he drew out the white-hot iron in his bare hands, cupping it, speaking 
over it, enjoining it to serve rightly in his cause. Then, ladling it slowly 
onto the anvil of his knee, he began creating the recurved kris, a short serpent 
of a sword which would serve his purpose in this world long after he and his 
archipelago had faded from it.

* * *

As the nymphs beside her twittered girlishly, and the dolphins drawing her barge 
slowed to come alongside the trireme, and Niko, boarding plank in hand, scowled 
when he recognized her, Cime mused that killing was as much a social function as 
was mating. Cime had been doing both for hundreds of years. She killed mages, 
mostly. In her mating partners she could not be so choosy: an archmage had 
cursed her to wander eternally, giving herself for pay to all comers, yet 
incapable of love.
If she had been capable of love, she would have bestowed it on one like the 
Stepson, Nikodemos. Twice before, upon encountering him, she had found herself 
deeply in lust. And, after dull aching months on Meridian, where its surfeit of 
peace and beauty made her feel as if she'd gorged on sweets, she'd concocted a 
plan to coax him here, playing on the dream lord's weaknesses. It was she who'd 
come to Critias in a dream and moved him to send Randal for Niko. Now she 
intended to convince Aškelon to let her leave with them to win her brother's 
war. She knew she could: Aškelon had everything he wanted but the allegiance of 
the young fighter Nikodemos. Ash hadn't been able to resist a meeting face to 
face with Niko, who wore Ash's smithery, but so far—by dint of luck and mental 
discipline and Tempus's protective intervention—had not acknowledged Aškelon as 
his patron.
Cime rose, fixing her diamond wands in her hair and smoothing an aspect of 
youthful, raven-haired beauty over herself like fine raiment. Though she'd met 
Niko before, she'd never succeeded in seducing him; though he knew who and what 
she was and thus could not be fooled, he might yet be vulnerable to the sort of 
spell she had in mind. She held out her hand, a signal she was ready to come 
aboard.
Niko took her wrist, steadied her as she trod the boarding plank, his mouth 
tightly drawn with wariness. Randal the young adept was behind him, oblivious to 
the nymphs who should have been distracting the mageling by now. The nymphs, 
foolish and full of laughter, hung upon the virile, hulking stranger who stood 
by the trireme's tiller.
He was no problem, but Randal, the wizard in training, might be: she could feel 
the mage's ties to infernal realms. Her fingers itched to slay him—it was her 
curse and her vocation, together, taking hold. But Randal didn't feed on souls; 
if wizards ever were benign, as Aškelon claimed to be, then this Randal was such 
a one. She controlled herself, smiled at him, greeting him civilly in Nisi. She 
might need him to bend his left-side leader, Niko, to her will.
Niko had not spoken to her, only nodded. As soon as she stood safely aboard, he 
had let go her hand and retreated toward the bow where he now stood, watching, 
as if physical distance could protect him from his own desire.
It was Randal who questioned her as to why they had been brought here, and 
Randal to whom she responded that he must ask Aškelon, who had contrived this 
meeting. And when Randal, pulling on one ear, insisted that she must know some 
salient details, she smiled. "I can't say. But I will give you a hint, which you 
may pass along to your silent, shy friend up there." She indicated Niko with an 
inclination of her head. "Adherents in the phenomenal world are necessary to 
'benign' powers, who get lonely in their semimaterial realms. And who is this?" 
Ignoring any response Randal might have made, she moved sternward.
The young mage scrambled out of her path as if her touch would scald him, saying 
hastily, "Sturm. Sturm's a Bandaran… student. Sturm… Cime, her ladyship, 
mistress of Merid—"
"Mistress of the land of boredom, Sturm," she interrupted, the while thinking 
that, though she needed Randal, this insolent adept of the Bandaran school 
qualified for the kind of death she yearned to bestow. "All this beauty, the 
sparkling piers, the azure harbor, the crowd on the dock… look closer, don't be 
dazzled like the parade of fools before you. Those nymphs you fondle—" The three 
were hanging on Sturm like nubile courtesans. He had one hand on a pair of 
breasts, one between two buttocks, a third nymph cuddled between his legs. 
"Meridian's out of step with human needs and human blood. Three days among these 
smiling, dazed denizens and the place will wear upon your nerves," she warned 
truthfully.
"As it does on yours?" Close behind her, Niko's voice sounded.
She turned and looked up at him, reached out to touch the dirk slung on a belt 
at his hip. This close, her body could woo his, calm his fears, ease his doubts. 
She stroked the hilt of his dirk while he tried to ignore the innuendo but held 
his ground, protective of his fellows. She answered softly that Meridian had 
become a prison, an irritant, that she was a damsel in distress, in need of 
rescue, a boon for which her brother would repay him handsomely.
"Are you sure? If I were Tempus, I'd want you right where—"
"Give me a token, Niko, and we'll see where you want me," she said sotto voce, 
hoping to twine their fates by the mechanism of her curse. "This dirk will do, 
or even a Tysian copper." She caught his gaze in hers, then, and held him fast 
by it. Her nymphs, as they had been instructed, did what they could to distract 
Randal. Dreams told her this young fighter who could not back away from her 
advances had been celibate for months; her fame and her illusion did the rest.
She'd wanted the dirk, but even half-entranced, Niko was too cautious for that. 
He dug in his pouch slowly, like one moving in a dream, and came up with a coin. 
It was gold. She took it, dropping it between her breasts. He watched it 
disappear beneath her white tunic and when it was gone he still stared there, 
his brows knitted.
"I didn't mean—" he began.
"It's the gods who move us, Nikodemos, you and I. We'll fight my brother's war 
together, and win. You know how he is. Without my help, he'll make a fiasco of 
it."
"That's why Aškelon did this?" Niko's hand gestured to the quayside, coming 
close now. As he did, Sturm roused himself to prepare to make the galley 
fast.Cime smiled at Niko. Beyond, the singing throng thickened; behind, she 
heard Randal's tread, his admonition to the nymphs to "Stop hanging on me! I've 
got to dock this ship!" She said, "That is why I did this." She took her hand 
from the dirk's hilt and Niko, as if released, stepped back, muttering that he'd 
better help Randal,
Cime didn't realize, then, that taking the coin she'd craved from Niko had set 
in motion forces she could not control.

* * *

The sorcerer-slayer Cime, who had killed more mages than Randal had teeth, 
leaned close to him as the ivory-screened wagon in which they were riding 
stopped and Niko vaulted out. "So, you're twirling Datan's globe these days?" 
she whispered sweetly, her thigh brushing Randal's knee as she moved to follow 
Niko. Sturm growled in wordless frustration when she patted his head in passing, 
saying, "Come, come, my little Bandaran monk, there's nothing to fear here but a 
chance meeting with your own inadequacies."
The mention of Datan, the vanquished Nisibisi mage, had sent a chill down 
Randal's spine which did not pass, but curled now around his tailbone as it 
often had when as wolf or dog he'd done covert business for Tempus or the 
archmage he'd served but never met—Aškelon, entelechy of dreams. Randal had 
never expected to meet the dream lord. Meridian was a state of mind, a mythos, 
not a place to wrestle with one's fate in daylight.
But in daylight they had ridden through halcyon streets where curious folk 
without the pinched faces of want or the rags of despair had smiled at them from 
doorways or shaken gaily streamered tambourines in their honor. Randal was sure 
beyond doubt that this was no dream or illusion. He and Niko and Sturm were 
really here, abroad in Meridian. He should have been elated. But here, where the 
benign Aškelon ruled, he felt the tremors of his own foreboding, even distress.
Following Sturm out of the wagon, and coming abreast of the Bandaran as Cime's 
swaying hips led them like a beacon up a shimmering walk into a cyclopean hall 
moist with ancient shadows, Randal admitted to himself that it was Cime the free 
agent who troubled him: her presence; her slightly crooked, ageless, and 
somewhat sullen smile which boded well for no mage or man; and especially the 
coin she had taken from Niko, who was innocent of the ways of magic and 
vulnerable, fresh from Bandara with all his ideals polished bright.
So as they descended in Cime's wake down ill-lit stairs up which a tangy 
metallic smoke wafted hot and stinging, Randal worked a protective ward over 
Stealth's ashen head bobbing before him. Of Sturm he took little notice—the 
Bandaran had not been at pains to make a friend of Randal. If Cime's attention 
could be turned to the son of Levitas, Niko might have time to come to his 
senses. So Randal took his warding spell for Niko and turned it into a 
reflective one; thus, whatever Cime aimed at Stealth would gravitate to Sturm.
More than that, Randal could not do. He had ethics, a moral code to which he 
must adhere. And in Meridian, more even than on the average day, his behavior 
must be above reproach.
Down they came onto a torchlit landing opening into a subterranean hall 
illuminated by fires that threw grotesque shadows against rough-hewn walls and 
aged pillars.
In the midst of this roseate light stood Aškelon, tall and full of grace, his 
brooding beauty underlit as if he stood over the infernal pit of hell.
Niko, up ahead, stopped still and said something to Cime, who slipped a hand 
through his arm so that Randal once again was sure that peril emanated from her 
fetching, ageless form. She hung on Niko, guiding him toward the fire and the 
cauldron and the entelechy of dreams who, in the captious light, seemed to 
hover, insubstantial, far above.
It was Sturm who saw the forge and who pointed it out to Randal. It was Sturm 
who invoked a timeless ward and warned the Tysian Hazard, "Be careful," as 
Aškelon raised a hand in greeting.
Then Cime stepped back from Niko's side. Randal shivered when she turned his 
way, not liking the way the firelight glittered in her eyes. She approached him, 
taking his arm, saying, "You, too, mageling. The dream lord waits… don't fear." 
And: "Sturm, not you. Stay here; I'll rejoin you presently. We are merely 
witnesses, onlookers, you and I."
The distance Randal had to cross with Cime's arm in his was not great or far, 
but somehow, it took forever. And while he put one foot before the other, the 
combination of the seductress next to him and the white-hot forge ahead of him 
made Randal start to sweat. His mind raced with wards and spells and wizardly 
protections and, suddenly, like a bolt from heaven, a revelation came to him. He 
said, just before he and Cime came abreast of Stealth, who stood quite still, as 
if entranced, "Cime, my lady, I hope you know that this coin you've got isn't 
his, but mine." And as he spoke, he raised one hand breast-high and made the 
gold piece Niko had given her arise from its resting place between her breasts 
and hover in midair above them.
It was true: Niko had come out of Bandara penniless; Randal had given him all 
the extra gear, goods, traveling cash, and papers a right-side partner should 
thoughtfully provide.
Cime's perfect features quivered, folded into an aged crone's, reformed again 
into the beauteous mask she wore. "What's this? It's so—I see it now. Tricked 
me, have you, Randal?" In one swift movement she snatched the coin from midair. 
"Though I can't move against you while I'm in your debt, hear me well: you'll 
pay for this once our contract is fulfilled. And don't think you can hold me off 
forever—" Her hand flickered out, stroked up his thigh, patted him insolently, 
and then withdrew. "You'll succumb; it's good as done. And yet, I promise, 
you'll enjoy it—in spite of all you know."
Smiling sweetly once again, she drifted toward Sturm as Aškelon called Randal's 
name and drew him close by the sheer power of those eyes like melting ice.
Shoulder to shoulder with Niko, then, Randal stood, while the dream lord 
welcomed them to Meridian, saying, "Both of you have earned a special place in 
my heart and thus have special tasks awaiting you in the world of men."
"Such as?" Niko asked him brazenly.
Randal would have touched his partner, hushed him, but the dream lord raised an 
eyebrow, chuckled like spring's first breeze, and nodded. "Fair enough. I'll 
answer all your questions later. But as yet you don't know what to ask me, 
Nikodemos. I wish with all my heart you did." Aškelon raised a hand and the 
obsidian talisman known as the Heart of Aškelon glowed dark red with reflected 
firelight—or the blood of its wearer, if legend was truth and the dream lord's 
heart was really in this amulet upon his wrist.
"Randal, you must help your partner. More than stealth, more than strength, is 
needed." As Aškelon spoke, he picked up a short sword, not a forearm's length, 
whose blade wriggled like a snake frozen in mid-slither. "This kris, magician, 
is for you. You have pacted with a dead man to avenge his murder; a dreaming 
soul you call 'Belize' has taken you at your word."
"I—" Randal began to demur, to object, to explain.
"What?" Niko demanded, staring at Randal with a mixture of respect and 
confusion.
"This blade," Aškelon continued, as if neither had spoken, "has certain powers, 
as all your panoply, Nikodemos, has charms and strength you know not of. Listen 
closely, Randal, for only once will I—"
"I don't want any magical weapons; neither does my partner. I tried to give 
these back before. Now I'll leave them here with you—" Niko, as he spoke in 
anger, began to strip the cuirass from his shoulders.
Aškelon stopped him with an imperative glance and a pointing finger. "Listen. 
Learn. Profit. Or not even I can save you from the witches and the murderers 
intent on that boyish soul of yours. Any other would have let his weapons speak 
to him, so that I'd not have to bring you here in person."
The shadow lord turned to Randal, the kris held out. "Take it. Hold it with the 
hilt toward you. Place your right thumb across the flat of the blade where it 
meets the hilt, your left next to it, so that it just touches the right. Walk 
down the blade, thumb over thumb, until the tip is reached."
Randal did so, working his way over the nine undulations until his thumb, at 
last, met the tip of the blade exactly.
"It fits him perfectly," Niko whispered.
"I made it for him with these hands." Aškelon held them up. "Among mortal 
smiths, the thumb test proves a kris lucky, proper for an owner. Among those of 
us who can do more than men, its power is assured. Listen closely, Randal: by 
its power you may dispatch a man merely by stabbing his shadow or his 
footprints. Hold its point near fire and move the blade, and the flames will 
follow the point. From its tip, should you wish it, hornets will issue. You may 
draw water from it by squeezing the blade and making this sign." Aškelon's 
fingers flickered.
Randal, accustomed to this sort of instruction, let his own fingers follow suit. 
He nodded.
"If you are righteous," Aškelon continued, "merely pointing its tip at an enemy 
will end his days. If you are loving, it may on occasion jump from its sheath to 
fight your battles. If you are careless and thus endangered, it will rattle in 
its sheath to wake or warn you."
Randal stroked the recurved blade. "Thank you," he whispered, frightened and yet 
proud.
"I warn you: never use these powers unnecessarily, never for display. And do not 
trust your kris to ferret out an enemy or to know good from evil. It knows no 
more than you, is neither benign nor malicious. It is your character and your 
nature which animate it, nothing more."
Feeling fragile and yet lightheaded with joy, Randal noticed Niko staring at 
him. Catching his eye,
Niko shook his head.
"And now," Aškelon said softly, "I must show Nikodemos the stables, where the 
sire of his horse holds court—and another place which, I wager, will be 
familiar. Niko, if you will… Perhaps you'll learn something about your own 
weaponry on the way."
Niko didn't move.
"Go on, idiot," Randal whispered, giving Niko a shove. "We can't offend him."
"Cime will see to your wants, Randal, and to your friend's, while we are gone," 
the dream lord decreed, coming so close that Randal could see opalescent 
whirlpools in those deep-set eyes.
Then all things became confused. Cime was beside him, saying that so fine a kris 
had not been given a mage in all the time she'd lived, and Sturm was there too, 
congratulating him with downcast, covetous eyes and unmistakable envy in his 
voice. When he looked up from the blade whose nine undulations were so 
fascinating and so perfect, Nikodemos and the dream lord were nowhere to be 
found and Cime was offering to show them such wonders of Meridian as few mortals 
had ever seen.

* * *

Sturm had gotten lucky; right-living was its own reward. He'd escaped Bandara 
with its uncountable rules and antiquated dicta. He was free at last of 
Levitas's handwringing and out in the world with a fine ship and having 
adventures, straightaway, the sort all young heroes dream of.
This Meridian, he thought, was not a dream realm; his Bandaran perceptions knew 
it to be real. His youthful impatience and boundless hubris deduced that 
Nikodemos was a burned-out coward and Randal, the junior Hazard, the true source 
of Nikodemos's overblown reputation. Just the fact that Niko had found need to 
take a partner proved this, as far as Sturm was concerned. Sturm needed no man's 
help.
Women, however, were another matter. Let Niko and Randal fondle and "support" 
one another, each womanish soul finding its mate timorously close at hand.
This Cime was most beautiful. If the truth be known, she was the first woman 
Sturm had craved to have. He wasn't worried about her rejecting him: he had a 
plan.
There were two things he wanted from Meridian: one was the magic dirk Aškelon 
had given Randal—a little magic never hurt anybody; the purists of the school 
did magic all the time, simply called it by another name and thus created 
exclusivity where nothing special existed—and the second was to give up his 
virginity in some silken bed with this obviously experienced, indescribably 
enticing creature, Cime, sweating under him the while.
He had a ship, he had his mental skills, and he had a good idea that she'd 
welcome his proposal, if he could just get her alone long enough to make it: 
he'd take her with him, rescue her from Meridian—it was this she'd said she 
wanted.
The rest would be between them, alone on the rolling sea in the fine little ship 
Randal and fate had so thoughtfully provided.
Walking through a high-hedged maze gardened with statuary and tinkling pools, he 
finally had a chance to whisper in her ear. The perfume of her skin was heady.
She looked up at him coquettishly, appraisingly, then tapped her lips with her 
fingers. "Leave? Together? We two? What a twist of fate!" Her fingers moved from 
her lips to his, traced them, trailed down his neck. Everywhere she touched him 
his flesh seemed to flame. "Perhaps we will, my dear… Sturm, isn't it?… a bit 
later on. You must be sure you can do it; make a good plan." Having whispered 
this conspiratorially, she added, "As for the kris, all I can do is… distract… 
Randal. You must secure it on your own." Then she turned on her heel, flouncing 
off to join the mageling where he sat on a stone bench before a reflecting pool, 
and began to do such things as nuzzle the junior wizard's big ears so that they 
flared bright red.
Soon after, with Sturm scuttling along behind them, Cime guided the entranced 
young sorcerer toward a likely bower.

* * *

On the pretext of showing Niko Meridian's stables, Aškelon was attempting to 
explain his great plan, his hope of restoring to men control of their dreams.
But Nikodemos, accompanying him down the aisle between box stalls from which 
horses of unparalleled quality whickered greetings, was far from receptive. "So 
you approve of this magewar in which so many have died? Or are you part of it?" 
The fighter who was known as Stealth walked at arm's length, regarding the 
archmage warily.
"I want," Aškelon rejoined, "my name to be known and invoked among men—it is 
this I ask of you."
"Why?" Niko stopped, crossing his arms and leaning back against a stall whose 
occupant poked out a blazed, wedge-shaped head to nuzzle him.
"To secure the stability of the seventh sphere through its human connection; to 
prevent the possibility of someone like Cime again threatening the right of man 
to salving dreams. You, Niko, will be my avatar, my chosen instrument, and 
Randal also, whom I have plucked from among warlocks."
"The way Tempus serves as the war god's avatar? No thank you. I've got to make 
you understand… I don't want this. I have my maat; it entitles me to fight for 
my freedom—spiritually as well as physically. I want no master, in any realm." 
The youth's expressionless eyes met the dream lord's and held them. "Between a 
balanced soul and its destiny, no power has a mandate to interpose itself. Not 
you, father of magic, not an angry god or facile demon. No bribe will lure me 
from my center: I belong to no one but myself—especially to no magician, of any 
sphere."
"I'm sorry you feel that way. Let me try to explain."
"There's nothing to explain."
"You fear what you do not understand. Magic is not an end but a tool; its use 
assures your partner Randal an opportunity to attain true power. You two are 
wedded. Will you deny him your love and respect—worse, deny him his 
heritage—because of the ignorance of your prejudice?"
Niko pushed away from the mare nuzzling him. "Are you threatening me? With 
Randal? If his soul's at risk, it got that way long before we met. Taking him as 
a partner wasn't my idea; we paired in spite of, not because of his wizardly 
bent."
"Again, your prejudice blinds you." Aškelon sighed. "Nothing is sadder than 
willful ignorance. I had thought you more open-minded; it is unlikely that in 
such a matter I was wrong. Your spirit is braver than your waking mind, 
Nikodemos, and less troubled by the baggage of experience. But I will try one 
more avenue via which to convince you…" The dream lord waved his hand so that a 
blinding light came to be among the stalls full of fragrant straw and sleepy 
horses.
When it was gone, Niko and the entelechy stood in another place, a broad meadow 
of waving grass, ringed by distant mountains, where a sighing wind played gently 
with Aškelon's silver-starred hair.
Niko's reserve and determination fell away with the revelation that he stood, 
corporeal and awake, in his treasured rest-place—not a mental refuge, now, but a 
physical location exact in every detail, the reality for which his soul had 
searched so long and which he had never described to anyone. His eyes, so 
noncommittal previously, filled with tears. He sank down upon the grass and let 
his hands rove in it, seeking by touch alone to determine how real was this 
overwhelming revelation. Niko (as all who studied the mystery known as maat 
hoped, but never expected to do) had found his rest-place in the phenomenal 
world.
"Still, do you fear me? Doubt me? Reject me?" Aškelon asked quietly, taking to 
the grass beside the dumbstruck fighter, who only shook his head. Aškelon smiled 
upon his "avatar" and spoke at length, gently, reminding Niko that Randal had 
received his kris at Aškelon's behest and that similarly would he, Niko, attain 
his fondest dreams— even come back here, eventually, to end his days where his 
spirit longed to be. "No gravel pond or guarded island can ever offer you more 
than a facsimile of this; you have lost nothing, losing Bandara, only shed a 
too-small skin. This is your place that your mind has claimed, and your body 
will return here, to our common ground, when your tasks are done. Right now, you 
know that what I say is true. Remember it. Your destiny lies with Randal's; 
together you will hasten one another's spiritual ascent and free your people 
from the misuse of magic and the fear which creates evil. Evil comes only from 
the minds of men. It has no objective reality, no power beyond what unscrupulous 
mages and immoral priests and ignorant fools have given it. As father of magic, 
lord of all creatures of nightmare as well as dream, I say to you that only men 
can put to rights what men have perverted. Thus I cannot act directly upon this 
travesty men have made. But you, my avatar, can and will act boldly. Drive a 
stake through superstition's heart, young fighter, and she will shrivel. 
Decapitate ignorance and demons will fade away. Vanquish the evil of men's 
creation and no greater principle of evil will survive it. You need not even 
believe in me, but only in yourself." Aškelon, having finished the generation of 
a hero, lay back upon the grass.
Pristine clouds wafted across a sapphire sky and under them a man swiped away 
tears a youth had shed. Niko, overcome in this moment by the truth of these 
words spoken in his rest-place, could not argue further. He sat where all 
initiates dreamed to sit: in his private place of power. As much as he hesitated 
to believe that he could do, or should do, all that Aškelon had decreed, he was 
determined to win his way back here, his right to be here, to live out his aged 
days here—to win, in his own terms, all a soul could claim.
So he said, sighing shakily and lying back in unconscious imitation of the dream 
lord, "All right. Teach me about the panoply. Teach me what you will."
Just before Aškelon began, Niko had time to wonder if it had been this way for 
Tempus, once long ago, and then gone bad. Had Tempus, a youthful pawn of fate 
and ferocious forces, given up, given in, willingly signed his soul away to 
labor in a "higher" cause? He didn't know; he couldn't say. The last thing Niko 
ever wanted was to be any power's avatar, let alone the willing servant of the 
entelechy of dreams.
He hoped the dream lord wasn't going to plague him, appear to him, dog him like 
a shadow as the Rankan Storm God breathed down the Riddler's neck. But then, no 
true parallel could be drawn: Tempus was immortal, undying, and resoundingly 
accursed.
Then came a torrent of instructions, some in words he heard and some in words 
which issued forth in red and flaming characters from Aškelon's mouth to burn 
among the clouds of Niko's private place forever, so that even though his 
conscious mind might not remember all that was said and done here, his 
spirit-self could never forget.

* * *

When Randal came running, disheveled and short of breath, into the stables 
shouting Niko's name, it seemed to him that the dream lord and his leftside 
leader appeared from nowhere.
"Niko! Thank the… ah—achool" Horses! Horses' hair stopped up his nose and made 
his eyes water and his throat close up, despite the fact that now was no time 
for it. Miserable, enraged at himself, Randal skidded to a stop before them. 
Then, with an effort of will greater than any he'd ever mounted against this 
internal problem with which he'd lived so long, he blurted out what had happened 
while tugging on Niko's arm in an attempt to drag his partner bodily from the 
stables.
Niko's eyes were red and he seemed disoriented. If Randal hadn't been so full of 
remorse and horror at what had just occurred, he would have marked it.
But he did not. He only tugged and gasped out, "The kris! It did it. It did it. 
I didn't. By all the—"
Coming out the stable door, Niko shook off the mage's grip and demanded, "What? 
What did the kris do?"
Aškelon, his hollow cheeks deep with shadow and his mouth downdrawn and sad, 
handed Randal an embroidered handkerchief. Somehow, from the long-suffering look 
on the entelechy's face, Randal knew that this news, no matter how terrible, was 
not going to be entirely unexpected.
He blew his nose, a furious honk. He breathed deeply. He said, "The kris rattled 
in its scabbard, just as you warned." He faced the lord of dream and shadow 
wondering if, after all, what had happened was somehow his own fault. "I— I 
wasn't wearing it. You see, the free agent… she took a coin she thought was 
Niko's, but it was mine. So she was bound to… to—" He couldn't bear to tell the 
entelechy that his consort had seduced a lowly Tysian Hazard. It was going to 
sound bad. Yet, what had happened after that should not have occurred here, not 
in the land of dreams. On his way here, Randal had passed weeping, white-faced 
residents who knew, somehow, the travesty in which he'd had a part.
"Spit it out, man. Get hold of yourself. What happened?" Niko demanded, suddenly 
coming close and taking hold of his partner's shoulders. "Are you all right?"
Randal took a deep, shuddering breath, closed his eyes, and told all. "Cime, she 
tried to make love to me, to discharge a coin's worth of debt. I took off the 
kris; it was lying on the grass in its scabbard. It rattled. I didn't pay 
attention. She's dangerous, might have killed me afterwards—still might—and I 
knew it but I couldn't fend her off. She was… doing things to me… when the 
kris—it flew out of its scabbard and through the air right at this bush… I 
thought it was a bush. It was, I mean, but Sturm was behind it. Then he screamed 
and fell out, with the kris sticking out of him… And she laughed. She laughedl" 
He'd vomited, right then, and fled. He didn't tell them that. "She's after me, 
maybe."
"Sturm!" Niko snapped. "Is he dead?"
"Oh, yes. Dead."
"And your kris, Randal?" Aškelon said evenly, as if he weren't surprised, as if 
Randal were a very junior prestidigitator who'd made a rabbit disappear and 
couldn't bring it back again, "Did you leave it there?"
"I— She— Yes, yes." His anger flared. "I don't know if I want it. Look what it 
did! It killed someone! I mean— Do you think I did? Am I to blame? You said, my 
lord, that it was a mirror of my—"
Aškelon snapped his fingers, and in his hand the bloody kris appeared, gore 
smeared on its scabbard. "You had an enemy who wished your death. You knew it; 
he knew it; the kris knew it. Were she not so powerful, Cime herself would have 
been skewered. It is said of the kris that one's enemy's body is its only 
rightful sheath. And you, Randal, who use meekness as a shield and pretend to 
weakness, must come to terms with what else lies within yourself. It is 
unfortunate that Cime has brought violent death to Meridian, but she is its 
manifestation." Holding out the kris, the dream lord, seeming all of a sudden 
much taller and much harsher in his wine-dark robes, took a step toward Randal, 
then another. "Take it. It is yours. What it does, you rightly feel, is your 
responsibility. Succumbing to temptresses of Cime's sort never leads to a good 
result. Take it."
Randal's hand, of its own accord, followed the dream lord's order. The kris's 
sheath and grip were sticky and cold in his palm. With Niko watching, his 
imperturbable mask again in place, Randal knew he could not refuse the lord of 
shadow's gift.
"And Sturm?" Niko said, looking away toward Aškelon, once Randal had girded on 
the kris. "What of him?"
"What of him? We all hold our own fate. I will send his body back to Bandara. A 
ship the double of your own will take it. A self-inflicted death is not your 
concern, nor is this violence in my realm. Go down to the dock and board your 
vessel now, quickly. Neither I nor Meridian will be here much longer. Get you to 
the harbor and head due east, out to sea."
"Out to sea?" Triremes were seldom sailed beyond sight of land; one hugged the 
coast, sailing in so unseaworthy a craft. Randal, having questioned the dream 
lord's orders, met that gaze like hell frozen over and thought again. "Right. 
Out to sea. Immediately. Come, Niko." He began to back away. But Niko was still 
staring at Aškelon, un-moving, his mouth drawn tight.
"Niko!" Randal said more loudly, exasperation coming to fill the void where 
terror so recently had been. Aškelon wasn't holding him responsible for Sturm's 
death; he wasn't to be punished, or even damned, for what had happened. He 
wanted to quit Meridian before Aškelon changed his mind. Or before the 
treacherous, murderous Cime found him and made good her promise. "Niko, let's 
go."
"I won't thank you, Aškelon, but then you know that." Niko took a step back.
"Just go." The entelechy flickered; his aura flared into visibility, as if the 
moon came before the sun. Then he disappeared.

* * *

Aškelon, facing Cime in his study, drummed long fingernails upon his table. He 
was wan and weary-looking; death always made him tired.
She was wild of eye, defiant. He'd snatched her from Randal's rainbow-sailed 
trireme just in time; she'd been hiding below decks. He'd whisked her hither 
effortlessly, his power here so great she could not even attempt to forestall 
him.
"You! How dare you!" From her hair Cime took down wands of diamond, arcane 
weapons which once before she'd used on him and nearly wiped Meridian and all it 
stood for from the planes. Their tips she touched together and a baleful blue 
light began to shine.
But she had made a bargain with him, lived with him, and benefited from him: the 
time she'd spent here plus the ill she'd done today gave him power over her she 
hadn't known he had. Now she would: he raised his own hand and the blue light 
faded from her diamond rods. They glowed now red-hot and still she held them, so 
that he smelled her skin searing.
Yet she did not speak or lower her wands or look away, but held her ground. This 
tableau of a woman consumed with hate and full of scorn for even her own pain 
then touched him: he felt pity for her as strongly as he had the day he plucked 
her out of misery with a promise of salvation should she but spend a year with 
him.
And thus he waved his hand again, and all light drained from her rods of 
diamond. She turned them, dim and harmless now, in her fingers.
He said, "Free agent, murder doesn't suit you. In this, of all abodes, hell's 
fury is out of place. Let your temper fade away; we've so much more to live for. 
If I can overlook a death here, you can surmount your disappointment."
"You promised me," Cime spoke at last, "that I'd find peace here. Peace?" She 
laughed, flipped around her deadly wands in one sure motion, and fixed them in 
her hair again. "I've found just deadly boredom, servitude, despair."
"Give yourself a better chance. All you've done today is weaken your own power; 
this land itself now looks at you askance." And as they spoke, the islands of 
Meridian were fading from their place in space and time; a mist grew thick and 
closely cloaked the isles and all upon them, then closed in upon itself, lifting 
harborside and city street and every quay and denizen away. There was a crack 
like thunder where they'd been but none on the archipelago of dreams could hear 
it: all were safe and sound upon another plane, returned now to the seventh 
sphere, which nestles in between the heavens and the hells and the ball of earth 
from which everything man knows has sprung.
Even as it happened, Cime sensed it. Her shoulders slumped, she felt behind her 
for a chair. Sinking down upon it, she said to him, "You've done it, have you 
not? My exile is complete again. It isn't fair. I brought you your prey, let you 
twist and taint the purest soul I've seen in thrice a hundred years. And what is 
my reward? Further bondage? A greater sort of debt to you? Our bargain 
notwithstanding, I put it to you, soul to soul: I want your leave to fight this 
war of magics by my brother's side."
"You should have asked me outright. This murder on Meridian needs expunging; 
you've penance to do which you, not I, decreed. Do it, and you have my leave to 
sojourn—but not an instant before the soul you've freed here is at rest, 
placated, back where it belongs among the heavens known to men."
Her chin raised; her eyes met his. "Your word, Aškelon, this time, and no trick 
about it?"
"My word, dear Cime, is good until eternity itself wears out."

* * *

Niko and Randal had been amidships in the trireme when a peal like thunder 
sounded and a blinding fog came down about them. A giant shudder tossed the 
trireme so that, though they couldn't see their hands before their faces, their 
stomachs and their inner ears told them how completely and abruptly the very sea 
around them heaved.
Niko had been teaching Randal the basic etiquette of weapons, how to clean and 
oil and care for this kris a dream lord had bestowed. While the weather raged 
and decks below them bucked, he held the junior Hazard close as if Randal were 
his lover. Should the budding adept fall overboard, or let go the kris, then 
what was lost would never be regained.
Soon enough, the deck and sea beneath it calmed and the fog dispersed and blew 
away, leaving them becalmed on a sea which ended, perhaps an hour's sail away, 
in a fine and busy harbor.
By then Niko had loosed his grip on Randal's bony shoulders. Embarrassed, he'd 
turned away, and thus was the first to spy the port before them. "Look! Randal! 
What's that? Where are we?"
And Randal, who'd recently visited Caronne, recognized the ramshackle dockside 
district, the chock-a-block warehouses and sprawling mudbrick inns that lined 
the shore and, up the rolling hills agleam with whitewashed houses, the cedar 
courts and crowning walled and domed estates of the mercantile rulers of 
Caronne. "We're here!" he sputtered, quivering with excitement, soaked with salt 
spray, and chilled with cold. "Oh, Niko, the dream lord surely loves us: we've 
made Caronne this very day! There's still a chance I'll get you back to Crit in 
time and thus lay claim to my prize! My globe's stand! I'd despaired of it, but 
now I may yet win it!"
"Caronne? But how?" Niko saw Randal's quizzical look, then continued, "Never 
mind. Don't answer that. Let's get some rules straight before we make landfall."
As he spoke, Niko headed toward the mast to hoist the sail again, which he'd 
been at pains to furl when the eerie fog had enshrouded them.
"Rules?" Randal followed after.
"Rules. Tell no one where we've been—they won't understand it. I know I don't. 
If not for that kris at your hip I'd disbelieve the lot. And the kris—you've got 
to keep your wits about you. We can't have it flying off at will; they'll hang 
us here for murder without a care for what ensorceled weapon did the deed. 
Understand me? Mages are not well liked here; you've no powerful guild to help 
you. We're just a pair of mercenaries back from adventures we'd as soon not 
discuss. My guild has better standing here. We'll check in, see my uncle as 
Critias ordered, sell the ship, and be off overland by dawn." Then he rattled 
off a dozen orders which sent Randal scurrying to find the title to the ship and 
make it ready for inspection, scouring it for signs of magical "infestation"—any 
implements or protective amulets or whatever Randal might have brought on board.
When Randal came up again on deck, he had the handkerchief Aškelon had given him 
bn Meridian clutched in a trembling hand. "I've still got it, Niko, I've still 
got it!"
"That's nice," the fighter said, his thoughts with the slain Bandaran, Sturm, 
not understanding or caring to understand what special value a handkerchief from 
Aškelon might have. "Remember, we aren't talking about him or anything else. If 
you must, you can say that we were in Bandara, but no one should ask you even 
that much."
Randal, wiping his nose fastidiously and secreting the handkerchief in his belt, 
came close.
Niko noticed a new determination in the mage-ling's eyes and, without taking his 
own gaze from the portside or his hand from the tiller, said, "Yes?
Out with it."
"I— We'll never make it in time overland, Niko.
It's too chancy."
"You know a better way?" Niko frowned. He'd been hoping not to argue this; he'd 
prefer to make it back to Tyse without the aid of magic.
"You know I do. We'll sell the ship, see your relative, and be at the Hidden 
Valley farm by dawn. Please. I need that stand. The globe's not all it could 
be—nor am I—without it."
"You're what you are, with or without it. Don't depend on artifacts or even 
special weapons." Niko eyed the kris. "What's given can be taken back. What's 
found can be lost."
"You'll let me do it, though? Bring us home to Tyse however I may?"
"We'll see what happens onshore."
Six hours later, they reclined in Niko's uncle's dining hall, soft pillows under 
their elbows and sweetmeats before them on gilded trays.
The uncle was glad to see his nephew, so glad he threw a formal feast with the 
official town beggar in attendance to bring their reunion luck.
The drugs Crit wanted Niko to secure for Madame Bomba were promised—not just a 
single shipment, but a steady stream by caravan, the first load leaving late 
that night.
Niko's portly uncle, misty-eyed and long of tooth, waxed voluble, full of drink 
and stories of Niko's father's heroism in days gone by. But when the old 
merchant leaned an oiled head so close that scented curls brushed Niko's nose, 
and offered him a place in the family's trading empire, Niko once again refused.
And Randal, watching carefully, detected the discomfort in his friend at all the 
largesse shown and confidences given. Old wounds were here, ones not even a 
right-side partner should try to tend.
So when they'd bid their host farewell and sought the fresh air of the streets, 
Randal said only, "Ready now, left-side leader, to quit this town for home?"
Niko, uncomfortable with too much hospitality, had given the trireme to his 
uncle as collateral for the first transshipment of Caronne krrf and mountain 
pulcis. "I suppose. There's nothing holding us here, is there?"
Randal, fingers resting gently on his kris to make it fast, agreed and suggested 
that they seek a quiet clearing where a cloud-conveyance descending from the 
heavens would not alarm the natives.
Near the docks, where a cliff rose too high and steeply for commerce, they found 
themselves alone. "Ready?" asked Randal, raising his arms to heaven.
"Ready," Niko said with a touch of resignation, and let his partner spirit him 
home.



Book Three:
WITCH'S WORK


On the west bank of Peace River, directly across from the ruins of the Peace 
Falls house Tempus's men had burned down about her head during the summer war, 
Roxane the Nisibisi witch put her scrying bowl aside. This swampy haunt she'd 
made her home was called Frog's Marsh because no greater creature used it. It 
stunk of putrefaction and the sinking death it offered to deer or dog or wayward 
child who wandered lost among its quagmires and its moss-hung, gnarly trees.
A perpetual dusk reigned here, relieved only at night by the glowing marsh-gas 
rising, which smelled like belch or fart and bubbled, gurgling, from mulch and 
mud to cast its eerie light. A fine place, this, to meet the local 
revolutionaries; the perfect base from which to whip Tyse's burgeoning 
insurgency into shape.
Roxane's bower, itself, was clean and dry and hung with claret velvet. She quit 
it now to meet her pawns, who waited under an overhung swamp-giant two thickets 
and a lily pond away. They'd never see her spell-spun home. She had no need to 
make the rebels comfortable; she wanted them atremble with superstition and 
frayed about the nerves. She climbed her conjured stairs, then closed a mossy 
door behind her, casting a holding spell, which made her subterranean abode all 
but disappear. It was impregnable now, almost nonexistent; it would not really 
be again until she returned to stoop beneath the arching roots which hid its 
portal from the world.
Roxane stifled a curse which, these days, was more than rhetoric: curses from 
her lips were potent weapons. She'd risen in rank among the warlocks of Nisibis; 
though she was female, she was strongest of them all. None among the remnants of 
the once-proud Nisibisi mageguild—those who'd fled Tempus and his Stepsons to 
far Mygdonia after the war for Wizardwall, or even those who'd been at Lacan 
Ajami's side casting spells and curses upon the enemies of Mygdon when their 
routed fellows arrived with tales of deific intervention and pleas for asylum on 
their lips—dared challenge Roxane's suzerainty.
She had now what she'd always wanted—control of all Nisibisi magic. She answered 
to no one. It was Roxane who ruled magic's precious roost.
Of course, she was sworn to aid the warrior-lord of Mygdon; her clan labored in 
his cause. Threading her way through swamp cypresses whose treetops made a 
nearer, darker heaven, she reflected on her task. Spying for Lacan Ajami upon 
his Rankan enemy meant spying on the thrice-cursed Riddler. The 3rd 
Commando—should she fail in stopping Tempus as she had failed in stopping 
Imperial Ranke's second, covert messenger from reaching him—might soon be 
pillaging at Mygdon's Lion Gates.
Roxane didn't blame the wizard-spawn, young Shamshi. An agent could do no better 
than he was bid. Some Rankan witch or treacherous enemy adept had cast a 
protective ward over this hell-child, Kama—a pall of invisibility, a cloak of 
insignificance—so that her real mission and her message were submerged beneath a 
guise: she'd been seeking out her father. None among the seers and 
portent-readers had even marked her. Now she was marked—marked for death. Roxane 
would not assign this task to her hand-picked rebels, nurtured long ago and 
straining at their leashes. The news Roxane brought and the plans she'd 
implement would be fresh meat to these Mygdonian sympathizers: far too long 
they'd had to content themselves with baying at the moon.
Now Lacan Ajami, affronted beyond measure by the Riddler, who kept a son of 
Mygdonia hostage, sallied forth, the total destruction of Tyse uppermost in his 
mind.
These minions of hers would clear the path for his army of conquest and 
retribution. By the time Mygdonia's fierce hordes arrived, screaming "Lacan is 
great!", Tyse's forces would be in disarray, divided, her people terrorized from 
within and thus easy prey to Mygdonia and her allies when they attacked from 
without.
And then Roxane would be free to leave this foul and vaporous swamp for more 
suitable surroundings: the newly rebuilt palace in Tyse would do for starters, 
though she wanted, most of all, to raise her arms to heaven atop Wizardwall once 
more, to regain for all her kin their lost ancestral home where now Bashir of 
Free Nisibis held obscene services in the names of odious gods. Wizardwall must 
once again shimmer blue at midnight with the light of working wizardry: this she 
had sworn, as she had sworn to find out whether Tempus was truly an immortal and 
whether a Froth Daughter might be turned to drizzle upon the air.
Coming abreast of a patch of red-dotted mushrooms as large as human heads and so 
poisonous that even Roxane took care not to step on one, lest a bit of powder 
from a crushed one make its way onto her lips or into mouth or nose, she 
reflected that hatred and destruction were all well and good, but not the only 
thing she had on her mind. Nothing she'd seen in Tyse or on Wizardwall or in far 
Mygdonia troubled or angered the finest Nisibisi witch as did what she'd seen in 
her scrying bowl just tonight.
This unsought vision bedeviled her. Unbidden, it had come and turned the clear 
water of her scrying bowl viscous and putrid. Water had never defied her before. 
But it was not the audacious fluid which worried her, but the vision it insisted 
on showing her—one of the mortal Nikodemos being compromised by Aškelon, meddler 
in human affairs, bleeding heart among plane lords, the overpowered and 
obscenely greedy entelechy of dreams.
If Niko was to belong to any black artist, it was she, Roxane, who would have 
him. Niko's soul was hers, even loved her. She had, quite plainly, a prior 
claim. But contesting with the lord of dream and shadow outright was tricky 
business—bold and canny as she was, Roxane well knew she just might be 
outclassed. She'd thought, when the vision formed in her water bowl, and 
blinking or even stirring the water's surface with a finger would not change or 
mend it, that she ought to move her headquarters, find some sunny place where 
shadows did not lurk, where their lord could not make use of them to observe 
her.
Now she dismissed the impulse to flee. Darkness was hers as well as his; shadows 
have no allegiance. Like souls, they can be pursuaded to an unjust cause.
Waiting for her, in a clearing ringed by tall swamp reeds with bushy tips like 
the tails of frightened cats, were five men and a pair of women, each holding 
close a torch and talking loudly to one another, proving by their raucous 
laughter and coarse diction how fearless they were.
She cast a little ball she'd taken from her pocket into their midst. It exploded 
with a blue and fiery light, then settled down to burn steadily and clean. She 
had brought a gross of these incendiary pellets. Her laughter followed, then her 
piquant form dressed in spotless satin raiment. The proper entrance made, she 
coaxed the awed and trembling rebels from their cover behind logs and arching 
roots, even those who were face-down among the reeds, soaking in the mud.
Only one was dry of muck and sweat and had his torch and knife in hand. This was 
Oman, the rebel leader, swarthy and built like a bull, with a strangler's hands 
and squinty eyes. His expression, looking around at his comrades, all so 
recently buttocks up in the mire, was unforgiving. When he turned his gaze to 
Roxane, it hardly changed.
Their eyes locked in a silence an owl saw fit to break. "Whoo! Whoo!" came from 
the trees behind Oman.
"Who, indeed?" Roxane took control. "Who among you is ready to do battle with 
our enemies? Who is anxious to slit a Rankan throat or two? The moment is at 
hand." She still stared at the insurgents' leader, who was smarter than he 
looked, but vain.
"At hand, is it? What have we been doing for the last year or so? Knitting 
sweaters for our Rankan overlords?" Oman spat by his booted foot. "And you, 
Cybele—" For this was what they called her, an alias she'd used and a disguise 
she'd worn here in days gone by "—where have you been? Cuddling up to demons to 
sway them to our cause? We've seen what sorcery can do against the Rankans and 
their gods! I hope you've something better, this time, to offer us. Better 
plans, better aid, better information, better—"
She stopped him then, reaching once more into her pocket and bringing out a 
palmful of the little incendiary globes. "These little balls, as you have seen, 
will temporarily blind and sore affright your mortal enemies. Just drop or cast 
one—" She started to let them fall groundward; Oman lunged forward to catch 
them… and succeeded—just. The others, behind him, tittered. He scowled around at 
them, straightening up.
Roxane continued: "Cast them in the midst of your enemy, then strike while the 
terror lasts. Come, come close, all, and get your share." She gave out the gross 
of pellets, making sure that Oman got the lion's share.
This mollified the rebel leader somewhat and he began telling her what progress 
his group had made. She interrupted, saying that she knew what he and his had 
done and it was not enough, but just a start. "The merchant class must be 
disrupted, totally. Food shipments, drug caravans, wine and water poisoned or 
cut off entirely. Lacan Ajami sorties south even now with a mighty army to join 
with us, but—"
"Ajami!" One of the women squealed with delight. The other hushed her.
"Before he arrives, our part in this must be done. Now, I wish to meet with 
Grille, either by his leave or without it."
"Grillo? But he's a Rankan—" Oman interrupted.
"I know who he is; it is you who have been fooled. He is a profiteer who must be 
swung to our side or discredited and destroyed as having been, if he cannot be."
The rebels muttered among themselves. She let it go on a while, then added: 
"Bring him here to me, willing or no. It will go ill for all if I have to come 
to him."
Cries of consternation rose from the group, now huddled together, except their 
leader, who stood nearer Roxane, fists resting on his hips. Grillo was their 
enemy, sworn; he'd put prices on every head assembled here. Oman, who by day was 
a minor noble whose estate north of Tyse had been commandeered by the Rankan 
army and who now, to support himself, had a smithery near the souk that 
specialized in fine weaponry fit more for show than duty, spoke the mind of his 
group, saying that their necks might stretch on this one and asking how soon it 
would be before the Mygdonian force was close enough to be sighted by Rankan 
outposts or reconnaissance patrols.
"A month, no more. Perhaps less. There's no time to delay. Of course, if you've 
come to love your Rankan masters like the Maggots in the free zone love their 
begging in the streets, I'll find a bolder crew, men and women who remember what 
freedom was like…"
She was interrupted, this time, by a flash of blue light: Oman had thrown one of 
the incendiary pellets at her feet.
Almost, she controlled her temper. But not quite: a purer flash of blue poured 
forth from Roxane's pointing finger, whipped round Oman like a lasso, then like 
a net of power, and when the brightness faded so that mortal eyes could look, a 
giant frog squatted, man-sized, where the rebel leader had just been.
Screams and pandemonium broke out among her minions. The women threw themselves 
on their bellies at her feet and wept for mercy. Their tears falling on her toes 
and the terror in the wide-set eyes of the hoarsely croaking frog (too new at 
the amphibian life to realize either that it had a weapon in its long and sticky 
tongue or that it was far too heavy to live long, out of water: death lurked in 
its very size) convinced Roxane that her point had been well made.
"Close your eyes, fools!" When they did, she waved a hand and recalled the 
spell, at which point Oman, the proud, fell over backward to sit, knees up and 
hands covering his face, in the mud.
Roxane left them, then, with orders as to when and where and how she expected 
them to report; with targets to terrorize and businesses to destroy.
One of these was the establishment known as Brother Bomba's, thrown in for good 
measure, to make the Riddler mad.
As for herself, Roxane had a child name Shamshi to tend, a Froth Daughter to 
harry, a Rankan or two to compromise, and a legend named Tempus to defame. This, 
she told herself, was plenty even for the finest Nisibisi witch to do. But the 
matter of Nikodemos still vexed her and thus, instead of heading in appropriate 
guise into Tyse to put certain plans in motion, she retired once more to her 
underground bower to meditate upon Niko's soul, its jeopardy, and some suitable 
method of countering the machinations of Aškelon, shadow lord, lord of dreams.

* * *

Wizardwall had once glittered with blue wards of magical power; now it glowed 
faintly pink with the blessing of the god Enlil, lending Tyse, nestled at its 
foot, an aura of sanctity that Tempus's knowledge of the town belied.
Riding downward from Bashir's high peaks stronghold, over tricky ground at a 
speed only one of his Trôs horses or this Aškelonian mount would have dared, 
Tempus reflected that though all the laws of men are nourished by one divine 
law, in Tyse that law was in the habit of fragmenting itself, even destroying 
itself. Those who lived in Tyse and those of Free Nisibis fancied themselves at 
cross-purposes and no one, not even the Stepsons he loved or Bashir's Successors 
whom he respected, had any tolerance for another's viewpoint or considered it at 
all odd that prejudice had replaced community and every mother's son suffered 
from a curse of selfishness and self-importance only Tempus seemed to recognize.
A whole town accursed? A whole race of mountain-dwelling people frowned upon by 
the very gods they sought to serve? Even to Tempus, who knew Disorder like a 
mother and fancied that Strife marched ever on his right, these were daunting 
questions, chilling suppositions to entertain.
But Bashir was taking his priestly role too seriously, and frowned upon any who 
didn't have the god's ear. Jihan was threatening to marry Tempus and have a 
child by him, even give up immortality for him. Death squads and dead squads 
roamed Tyse's byways and even ventured into Peace Falls to torch grain magazines 
and fuller's stalls and, if what Grit's message said was true, were bold enough 
to swagger into Brother Bomba's, white eyes gleaming, and demand blood pudding 
and tripe and worse to eat, then vandalize the premises when they couldn't get 
it. And no one, not Grillo's specials or the Rankan garrison or Critias's task 
force, could ever be alerted in time to roust or intercept even one member of 
this rebel force of shades and gypsies.
In fact, talk was that certain elements of the various private armies and estate 
militias doubled as terrorists when off duty. Even his Stepsons had been 
implicated, a matter of a lightning-embossed silver concha being found in the 
rubble of what was once Brother Bomba's pride and joy—his public dining room.
This last had occurred while Tempus was with Bashir on Wizardwall trying to make 
some accommodation between the Free Nisibisi and the Tysians below. If the war 
Tempus smelled on every breeze— which made his pulse pound fast and his 
instincts cry out that he'd better be off to Mygdonia with the hostage Shamshi 
before he couldn't go at all— was really blowing hither, then the populace of 
peak and plain must make a pact that would hold despite the exigencies of war to 
come.
He'd spent six days in the acrid smoke of the gods, stirring sacrifices with a 
golden poker and mumbling prayers he'd had a hand in writing before Bashir was 
born, trying to convince the warrior-priest to consider the townies as part and 
parcel of his flock.
But Bashir belonged to one god, and Tysians venerated nearly threescore; because 
of this, Tempus had made no progress with Bashir—he had no proof to which he 
could point, beyond the recent increase of Mygdonian-sponsored agitation in 
Tyse's narrow streets, that war blew down on them like the thunderheads now 
massing above him, driven by an unseasonable wind from the northeast.
The horse, Niko's sable Aškelonian stud which Tempus had inherited when the boy 
gave up all he owned to sojourn west, snorted disapprovingly at the clouds which 
suddenly masked the autumn sky, but kept picking his way southward. Any horse of 
strong and noble breeding could partake of Tern-pus's own speed and stamina, 
twice that of a mortal man, but this beast didn't need his help. He'd taken it 
to Bashir to bribe the Nisibisi leader with the gift of breeding privilege. It 
hadn't worked, as nothing else had availed, to change Bashir's isolationist 
mind. If nearly fifty Stepsons couldn't quell the town's unrest, Bashir had 
pointed out, then it was fate. "Come up, sleepless one, and join with my 
Successors. Sanctify our cause and we shall hold this mountain firm against all 
of magic's demon armies and even jealous, foreign gods."
This wasn't like Bashir. Tempus had given up then, thinking that Crit had sent 
for Niko and perchance Niko could do better with Enlil's priest, his boyhood 
friend. Then Crit's message had arrived, wrapped around the leg of a homing 
hawk— no polite suggestion, or timely missive, as might have been expected, but 
a summons: all the men and gods and laws of nature Tempus had dared to trust 
were acting far too strangely for less than magical intervention to be at the 
root of it.
Thus he rode homeward, summoned by Critias to the Outbridge station like a 
truant groom to his muck-filled stable. If only Kama's Rankan masters would send 
the money he'd requested, he'd be out of town with all his Stepsons. He'd 
neither tarry nor delay, just leave.
And he'd leave Jihan in Mygdonia when he got there. It had occurred to him that 
either the Froth Daughter or her Mygdonian charge were the fount of all this 
ominous display.
The clouds above kept massing as he rode, so that the ground beneath with its 
furrows and chasms and rocky slopes became difficult to see and the Aškelonian 
stud stopped, its flanks aquiver, craning its neck around at him with a snort 
and a reproachful look as if to inquire which of them, man or horse, was the 
more foolhardy. It was nearly dark as night by now, madness to go on.
Yet he slapped its rump and kicked it hard: he had an idea what this 
daylight-devouring cloud might be.
Looming above them, it stretched north back toward Wizardwall so that no gleam 
of pink or mighty peak was visible; ahead, the cloud seemed to rise up from the 
ground so that no Tyse, indeed nothing whatsoever, could be seen.
Nevertheless, the horse, not one to defer a challenge or refuse a dare, started 
resolutely forward, each foot held long above the ground, then pawing 
tentatively before trusting its next step.
This continued until thunder roared and the Aškelonian halted once more, raising 
its muzzle high to let out a scream of challenge to the very sky. There was no 
lightning with this thunder, no lessening of the cloaking dark about them, so 
that the proud stallion, who had never in his life known fear, broke out in 
frothy sweat where he stood on trembling legs and hid his head between his 
forelegs, partly from terror, partly from shame.
Tempus, touched by the horse's plight, slid down and took it by the bridle, 
tying a kerchief from his neck about the sable stallion's white-rimmed eyes. 
This done, he led the blindfolded beast slowly forward, trusting his own sense 
of direction to guide them safely over ground he thought he knew, until, 
directly in his path and on a level with his own eyes, two burning orbs of red 
appeared, like the eyes of some mountain cat piercing inky gloom.
"Stand!" He stopped the horse and held it still, not going for his weapons: he'd 
fought an apparition quite like this once in Sanctuary, most venal southern port 
of empire. He'd fought it to a draw for a god. He couldn't win against it then. 
And now, he knew, he'd fare no better.
Its name could not be spoken by a human tongue. The thunderous sound they'd 
heard had not been lightning, but its growling as it came to be on this 
unaccustomed plane. The sound from that cloud-throat he'd heard before, much 
louder. He'd hoped never again to hear Jihan's father's voice ringing in his 
ears.
He spoke to it, calling it by its manifestation. "Stormbringer, what is it you 
want here? Your daughter, Jihan, is not with me. She's back at the barracks 
station, playing mother to a human child." Thunder roared. The sheer volume of 
that sound buffeted man and horse, and the blindfold was blown from the 
stallion's eyes. The steed emitted a high-pitched squeal and reared. For an 
instant, Tempus's feet left the ground and he dangled from its headstall. Then 
he brought it down.
"Scare my horse, will You, inhuman lord of turbulence? I've cast off godly love 
for affronts to my mounts before. Begone, if You've no purpose here. I've no 
time to—"
"Silence! Mortal toad, spawn of dirt and blood! Have you not said that the soul 
is water and from water comes the soul? You know your danger!"
"So You think to cow me? Am I not plagued with Your daughter? Is it not enough 
to torture me, that You must threaten me into the bargain? I've called it quits 
with gods and Their untimely aid and comfort. Get Thee back to Thine unearthly 
home!"
Thunder without words roared so that the horse dragged Tempus back a dozen steps 
and the very ground beneath them shook. "And, too," Tempus added, anger rising 
in him, not just at this inarticulate, incomprehensible father of weather gods, 
but at all the gods who throughout the ages had used him, plagued him, made 
sport of him, and afflicted mortals through him, "you've quoted me wrongly: I 
said that for souls it is death to become water, for water it is death to become 
earth; out of earth water comes to be, and out of water, soul! So if it is death 
You've come to offer, Ineloquent One, give it here! I'll take it! Otherwise, 
Weathermonger, piss off!"
The ground beneath his feet began to split then, so loud was Stormbringer's 
thunderous response, bereft of words but full of emotion. The red orbs grew and 
grew and seemed to come much closer. A fetid wind like breath from the earth's 
bowels blew in his face. "My daughter, mortal-lover, is with you. More, she 
craves to stay with you, at any cost. Her power and her heritage she petitions 
to forfeit, to be a wife to you and spread her legs for you and bear a child to 
you when, but for you, she would be the honored consort of the entelechy of 
dreams! I hold you responsible for this! Dissuade her, afflicted demigod." The 
roaring which carried Stormbringer's words had become softer, a rumble viscious 
and full of threat, "Or the sufferings of your wasted youth will be nothing to 
the torture of your endless old age! Be warned!"
And with a last, gusting breath which nearly made Tempus retch, and from which 
the sable stallion turned his head away, the red orbs, so close and hot, 
dissolved. The thunder ceased, and the black clouds scudded and dispersed, the 
last inky wisps of them blowing away on a crisp autumn breeze.
When the sky above was clear, Tempus raised his fist to heaven. "Crap!" he 
shouted. "I'm not afraid of you, Windbag!" And he wasn't.

* * *

Roxane held court in Frog's Marsh when the moon was high. She had a brace of 
minions, human, ex-human, and inhuman. She had conjured a throne of red granite 
and a pavilion of summer sky to illumine her where she sat above the throng. She 
fingered a small golden effigy of a man (or of a god, none could say, so old was 
this talisman of power) as Grillo was brought forth through the crowd with a red 
demon on his right and a gray fiend on his left and Oman's death squad—which 
included seven white-eyed undeads—trailing along behind.
Some humans in the crowd gasped and murmured, as humans will. The fear in 
them—in their voices, their sweat, and their minds—pleased Roxane. She fed upon 
it. It was not a meal to her, but a sumptuous snack, a delight, an appetizer fit 
for the feast she hoped would come.
This Grillo she would not sup upon in one single evening; gluttony was not 
Roxane's way. A nibble now, a nibble later; the meal she'd have would be a 
sacrifice from this crowd, one they'd choose of their own number, if they'd 
failed in their endeavors and come without a suitable victim for her enjoyment.
For this was a god's night. On such a night, a witch works hard. Many sacrifices 
were going up to heaven; many prayers must be countered; many priestly efforts 
circumvented and earnest prayers blasphemed.
Roxane was a defiler by nature and a spoiler for sport. Sacrilege during the 
harvest festival could ensure famine and evil throughout the coming year. To 
that end, she had brought out her finest weapons—those of the spirit, those of 
the flesh, and even those of material nature. Beside her, on its golden stand, 
was her own precious globe of power, inset with colored stones; in her palm was 
the tiny golden man.
When Grillo was brought by Oman to the foot of her dais, still dazed and under a 
spell of compliance so simple even Oman or an undead could recite it without 
error, Roxane reached out and spun the globe so that it caught the light of her 
conjured canopy of daybright sky.
Then she held up the little golden figure. It was bathed in the reflected light 
of each diamond, sapphire, ruby, and emerald in her globe as it spun.
Grillo teetered, swayed on widespread feet. Roxane waved Oman back and he, along 
with her throng of adherents, went down on bended knee at her signal.
Where the globe of high peaks clay stood, the very air began to shimmer and 
coalesce. Stroking the golden talisman, she bent the powers which loved her to 
the task of summoning one more guest: the Mygdonian-raised Shamshi, son of 
Datan, the deceased Nisibisi archmage.
Around the globe, the air now shone unbearably. People below shielded their 
eyes. Undeads chuckled. Demons chortled. Fiends cackled.
At the proper moment, Roxane reached out and stopped the globe's spinning with 
the flat of her hand.
An "Aah" of wonder escaped the bravest of the humans in the crowd who gazed upon 
a miracle through narrowed eyes: the materialized witch-child stood still for an 
instant, startled to be snatched from bed and sleep, then rubbed his eyes with 
his fists, lowered them, blurted: "Roxane!" and threw himself onto her lap.
For all to see, she caressed him. Stroking his flaxen hair with his head against 
her breast, the little talisman in her other hand, she bade Grillo come forward.
"You," she whispered to the child whom she had afforded his first experience of 
a woman's body and so many other, more arcane matters, "follow my lead, beloved 
Shamshi, and soon we will be united forever."
"Anything," Shamshi replied thickly, and she realized that his voice was 
beginning to deepen with age as Grillo mounted the top stair of her dais and 
with an effort visible on his face began to try to make sense of what he was 
seeing.
"What? Who are you? Where am I? There's nothing like this place around—" His 
hand indicated the throne, the dais, the canopy of sky splitting the darkness. 
"—Tyse. What do you want with me?"
"Shamshi," Roxane murmured sweetly, as if she had not heard, "fetch me my water 
bowl." The boy scrambled off her lap to find it.
"Grillo," she said then, "surely you know who and what I am. Or is this my more 
familiar aspect?" With a wave of hand before face she became Cybele, the 
fair-haired girl whom Niko had loved during the summer war. Another wave, and 
she was the dark-tressed, magnificently torrid Roxane again. "You may call me 
Roxane, since we are to be cohorts."
"Cohorts? Witch-bitch, you've got the wrong—" "Gently," she warned. "I'm your 
only chance for salvation. Do not offend me. These are my… troops of revolution, 
those who have previously been your enemies. Join with us now and survive what 
is to come." As she spoke, she probed his soul, finding the weaknesses of greed 
and fear and ambition that she knew were there. "Before you declare your loyalty 
to the Rankan empire and suggest that I kill you, if I must, but you'll never 
join me, know that I speak for Lacan Ajami."
Grillo crossed his arms and widened his stance still more. His mental acuity, 
she knew, was fully returned now. She wanted him to know exactly what he was 
doing. It was much more satisfying when a soul turned upon itself in full 
understanding that it was choosing evil over good. He said, "Fine. Speak," and 
she knew this to be only a ploy. He thought to trick her, gain information from 
her, escape with his life and soul intact. This, though he did not yet realize 
it, he could never do.
She nodded to the closest demon, red and snaggle-toothed, and to the nearby 
fiend whose eyes looked in every direction at once, and they came up the stairs 
and took Grillo by the arms. At the same time, Shamshi brought her scrying bowl. 
"Good. Go stand there." The boy went to stand beside her globe.
"Take your hands off me!" Grillo ordered the nonhumans.
"Come look in my scrying bowl of your own free will, Grillo. Come, see the 
riches awaiting you. See Lacan Ajami and make your pact with him. What 
difference is it to you whose banner flies over Tyse, so long as you prosper?"
And he came forward to look into her bowl and see what she would have him see. 
He couldn't know that he pacted with a dark father, not Ajami, or that his soul 
would be the interest charged on every gold coin he gained and moment of 
pleasure he enjoyed. He need just look, and he was hers.
When he did, a hiss of ecstasy escaped her as she tasted the bit of him she then 
acquired.
He looked up, but then looked again into the bowl, where he saw not only Lacan 
Ajami, but the caravan of drugs and precious wares headed overland from Niko's 
uncle in Caronne to Madame Bomba's Outbridge warehouse.
Again Grillo raised his head, his eyes somewhat glazed, for Lacan Ajami had 
just, as far as he knew, taken an oath of allegiance from him in far Mygdonia.
This one was not afraid of witchery; she'd known she could work with him, own 
him, and savor him. "Our gift to you, this caravan of contraband. Surely you'll 
confiscate it all and remember our generosity."
Grillo nodded, stiff and cold, not knowing that he was minus a fraction of his 
soul and that at every future meeting he would lose still more, so that someday 
he would be too weak to crawl from her presence and she would have him, in 
entirety, to feed her needs. No, now he was still suspicious, able to fight the 
euphoria she was offering him. But soon he would not be.
"What do I have to do? And who's that kid? He looks familiar…"
"Kid? There are no goats here." The boy, Shamshi, saw her signal and hid his 
face. The demon clacked its jaws, hoping Grillo would refuse her offer and all 
would dine on rare fare this evening. "Ah," she said, putting the golden 
talisman down before her slippered feet, "this, you mean." She nudged it with a 
toe and it seemed about to topple. Then its tiny golden legs spread and it took 
a step, then two, toward Grillo.
"That's right," Roxane purred, "take him. Pick him up. He's our contact. Our 
go-between. This little one will summon me whenever you need me. Just tell him 
to fetch me. Or even to fetch help. Or to carry a message."
Grille's hand reached out, touched the diminutive golden statuette, clutched it. 
"Ouch! It scratched me!"
The closest demon smirked; beside him, the fiend giggled out loud and the demon 
elbowed him.
"Nothing but a rough edge. His gold was smelted long ago." There was no turning 
back for this soul now, fight though it might. Grillo was hers. He had yet to 
discover this, but that delight she could wait to savor. Roxane had many things 
to attend to, and the wizardspawn of Datan was not the least of these. 
"Shamshi," she said softly, so that Grillo could not hear, "come spin the globe 
and deliver this new ally of ours back to his office." Then, to Grillo, in a 
normal voice: "Since you will be among us, go you down and study the faces of 
those who are your friends and cohorts. Study well, and work well. Prosperity is 
thine, and success whilst all of Tyse fails. Rejoice, Grillo, thou art saved."
Before the fiend and demon could assist him, Grillo backed of his own accord 
down the stairs.
Probably, she admitted to herself, the operations officer would still fool 
himself into thinking he could spy among her people and walk away, tell all he'd 
seen, to his Rankan allies, double-cross, even triple-cross her if he had to. 
Soon he would know better.
As he walked among the undeads, the insurgents, the peasants to whom it was an 
affront that others suffered less than they, these greeted him. Only her finest 
spell kept Grillo calm among the white-eyes, whose cold hands he had to shake, 
the demons, who fondled him wistfully, and the fiends, who kissed hum, lapping 
the salt sweat from his skin with rough and hungry tongues. But she was up to 
her tasks: she was Roxane.
When she nodded and the boy, Shamshi, utilized a power globe to alter a human's 
fate for the first time, Grillo disappeared from among those hideous and 
pathetic celebrants she'd picked to counter the harvest fetes in town.
Then she's«nt the boy down into the crowd to choose the sacrifices from among 
the living. He'd touched a fifteen-year-old girl and two strapping youths before 
she called him back. Tonight, Shamshi would sup on, tortured souls, an 
indescribable and addicting experience the likes of which did not exist among 
all the addictions and perversions of mankind.
But first, they would have some sport with them, so that the souls would be 
filled with concupiscence. It was this giving of pleasure and of pain that made 
a soul tender. It must not want to give up its life, but find that the very 
thing it lusted after would kill it.
When Shamshi came up from the midst of the revelers, Roxane gave the signal that 
the pleasuring begin. Succulent pigs on platters and whole roasted lambs 
appeared, and cushions and amphorae of wine and gurgling pipes wafting sweet 
blue smoke. She called the boy close.
It was Roxane's teat, she knew, he wanted to suckle; her legs were those he 
longed to part. Since he couldn't stay for the entire feast—he might be 
missed—and because she was kind, she allowed Shamshi a few moments with her.
And so, in as fine a fashion as had ever been done, the witch Roxane and the 
wizardspawn Shamshi began the debauch that would counteract, desecrate, and 
defile the harvest prayers which even then rose to a score of gods in Tyse's 
behalf.

* * *

Above the Outbridge barracks station, the moon was high and full and seemed to 
smoke, so misty was the night. Some of the Stepsons hustling about with ribbons 
and streamers and gilded wooden weapons for their harvest festival float peered 
up at the sky occasionally, muttering to one another about "wizard weather" and 
mumbling favorite wards.
Wizard weather come upon the town during harvest festival would be the worst of 
omens, all agreed. Second worst would be the failure of the Sacred Band's float 
to join the processional up Embassy Row. In it, effigies of the Storm God and 
his consort, nine feet tall and painted gold, must ride in honor and glory to 
the Spring of the Prophet where, if all went well, the squadron's entry would 
win the governor's prize.
As it was, their float might be the last to join Tyse's favorite parade, for 
which the provisional government had even lifted curfew—for the entire harvest 
month, martial law had been suspended. It was because of this that Critias was 
in a blacker mood than the oxen being hitched between the wagon's traces, who 
kicked and bellowed and generally behaved like the foul-mouthed mercenaries who 
struggled against time and superstition and the bad luck which had put the first 
pair of oxen that the band had purchased down with colic.
At times like these, Crit longed for bygone days, regular army postings, simpler 
men, and simpler wars than those he managed now. Belize's death still bothered 
him, although officially it was solved and because of it the resilient trader 
Palapot was an agent of his task force. But since that night when he'd sent 
Randal off for Niko and Kama had come into his life, everything smelled of fate 
and wizardry. He often wondered, now, if he had any free will left—if, by taking 
up with Tempus's daughter on the sly, he hadn't inherited some part of the 
family curse.
Straton thought he had. Strat didn't like Kama one bit. And now Strat was sick, 
and Madame Bomba, the only barber-surgeon any of the Stepsons trusted in this 
faction-ridden hellhole of a town, had to be persuaded to tend him—no easy task, 
since Brother Bomba's dining hall had been razed by hostiles pretending to be 
Stepsons, who'd left "evidence" around to prove they were.
Gayle came up, panting, stripped down to his tunic. "The porking porker's 
porking-well porked, pork it."
By this Crit deduced that the wagon's front axle wasn't salvageable—it would 
have to be replaced. "God's breath, man, then find another! Wait!"
Gayle had turned to go. He swung about, lines deep on his brow in the moonlight. 
"If you ask me, what we need is a priest to lift the curse off this whole job."
Crit jumped at his chance. "Fine. You find one. As a matter of fact, I'm putting 
you in charge of this mess." He waved his hand to encompass the oxen being 
unhitched once more from their traces, the obscenity-spouting work crew, the 
menials hanging about pretending to be useful but in reality gloating that so 
simple an undertaking had gone so undeniably and comprehensively awry. "As I 
remember, it was you who were telling me just last week how much good will we'd 
earn by joining in the local rites."
"But—"
"Stepson, that's an order. I've got better ways to waste my time." Kama was in 
Grit's quarters, waiting. Strat might need help at Bomba's. "If Tempus comes in, 
tell him I'll be at Bomba's or the Lanes station. And get that float rolling 
before dawn, or we won't be able to hold our heads up in the town." And Crit set 
off at a brisk pace, ignoring Gayle's sardonic, "Yes, sir, commander."
Discipline, Crit well knew, was breaking down in the face of Tempus's absence, 
death squads with incendiary pellets, dead squads with all-white eyes—and the 
prospect of the band quartering in Tyse for the winter. If they didn't get 
another assignment soon, and quit this town, the snows would come down over 
Wizardwall and none would fight in the north until spring.
This depressing thought weighed on everyone's mind and made personality clashes 
inevitable, Crit told himself, though the senior Sacred Banders had come to him, 
all six expressionless and icy-eyed, and blamed this deterioration of the esprit 
de corps on the return of Niko, with his "witch taint," and on Randal, whom no 
one among the Stepsons was anxious to call a brother. Crit had told Tempus that 
he'd see that the band accepted Randal. He'd given his word and he'd see it 
through, though Critias had never dreamed that the Rid-dler meant to keep a 
magician—worse, a Hazard-class adept—as a permanent member.
So consumed with his private problems was Critias that he paid no mind when a 
horse came galloping full-tilt through the double gates—everyone was in a hurry, 
these days.
The task force leader had almost reached his quarters in the smaller officer's 
wing of the rambling estate when the rider, now on foot, reached him, panting. 
"Crit, Critias! We've trouble."
"Don't tell me… the goddess can't keep her skirts down, even for one night: the 
god's having her on the float."
"What? No, sir." It was Ari, one of the few locals the unit had absorbed, who'd 
been one of Grillo's specials and, like Gayle, was an expert on the town. "It's 
Grille, sir, he's disappeared. Right out of his office during a briefing. Three 
specials were there, told me themselves, after a couple ales to ease the 
telling. There's no formal alert; only those who saw what happened know he's 
been snatched… or gone missing, or been witched away. But they'd like our help, 
seeing as Tempus was talking up the need for better security around him…"
"I'll be damned and accursed. Disappeared, you say? Tsk, tsk." Crit and Grillo 
had too much in dispute to settle. "Luck's not all bad tonight, is it? All 
right, I'll take care of it."
Ari, falling in alongside when Crit moved away, wouldn't let it go at that. "I'd 
like to pick a search party, lead them myself. It'll look better—look like we 
tried, at least."
"Don't tell me you think I won't try to find our favorite Rankan? I'll put Niko 
and Randal on it. You can't compete with their kind of expertise, not without 
slogging knee-deep in magical attributes and Bandaran tricks of tracking. If you 
insist, you can accompany them—"
"No, no!" Hands up, Ari backed away. He was a friend of Niko's, but none of the 
Stepsons wanted to be seen with Randal—they sneaked off to consult him when they 
needed help, but took pains that no one else would know.
Crit had just entered his quarters, tiptoeing through the front room to his tiny 
bedroom where Kama lay, a wet rag over her eyes and a candle guttering on the 
bedside table, when he heard a knock at his front door. He ignored it.
"Critias? Is that you?" Kama had been on the street doing task force work one 
night when the insurgents struck. She'd see again, most probably, but no one 
knew how long she'd have the headaches or whether the fever which racked her now 
was related to the swordcuts she'd taken and the claw-mark scabs that scored her 
upper arms. It wasn't going to be easy to explain to her father how he'd let 
her, get into this kind of shape.
"It's me, all right. Grillo's missing. Your father hasn't come in. The float's 
in trouble. I've got to go into town to see Straton." As he spoke he rummaged in 
his trunk, the room's other piece of furniture, and came up with a 
blanket-wrapped bundle—the stand to Randal's globe, part of the spoils from the 
summer war. Crit couldn't put off the junior Hazard much longer. And Randal was 
right—whatever rendered the single mage committed to the Stepsons more effective 
served them all.
The knock he'd heard forgotten, he bent low over Kama, touched her face. It was 
hot. He put his lips to her forehead. "I'd like Randal to have a look at you, in 
case there's more than simple fever here—a curse, some evil eye or poison in 
those wounds. You should see it out there—it's mages' mist and—" Having told her 
she should see what she could not, he bit his lip.
Her fingers found his wrist, brought his hand to her mouth. She buried her dry, 
cracked lips in his palm. "Come back soon," she said in a childlike voice.
"I will." He really hoped she was going to live.
Closing the bedroom door behind him, the blanket-wrapped stand under his arm, he 
realized that the knocker had entered. It wasn't good protocol and he was 
looking for an unfortunate upon whom he could vent his wrath—Critias wasn't used 
to problems he couldn't solve. A scathing rebuke on his lips, he looked up and 
saw not a Stepson or a hired townie, but Jihan, Tempus's Froth Daughter, glowing 
with health and eerie beauty.
First he noticed that she was frowning, then that she had on her scale-armor, 
gray/green/brown and impossibly supple. "Jihan, what's the occasion?" This 
inhuman creature made him nervous; her eyes held the fire of unnamed, primeval 
gods.
"Shamshi has disappeared. I missed him less than an hour ago. From his bed, he 
disappeared." Crit put the blanket-wrapped parcel down on the table; he had 
never seen Jihan distressed: her eyes glowed.
She crossed the room and took his shoulders in a crushing grip—Jihan was as tall 
as he, and twice as strong. "My sweet child… Tempus will never forgive us. You 
must help me, Critias. My father, who abides in the primeval sea, will show his 
gratitude. Now and forever, you will be blessed. But we must find him before the 
sleepless one returns, or my life will be ruined! The Riddler will spurn me! Do 
you understand?"
Crit understood that she was crushing the very joint upon which his sword-arm 
depended. He said, "Right. Got it. Don't worry, we'll turn him up," and was 
rewarded by a lessening of pressure on his shoulder. But then she slapped him in 
a display of good fellowship and he almost staggered. What could even Tempus 
want with such a woman? He couldn't fathom it. But, all things considered, any 
blessings from any god would be welcome right now—he'd take what he could get. 
It was shaping up to be one hell of a night.

* * *

Madame Bomba stood over Straton, a prizing tool a foot long in her hand. The big 
Stepson, mouth firmly closed, was shaking his head, arms crossed, his eyes 
watering with pain.
They were upstairs in Brother Bomba's, in the Madame's private quarters where 
the smoke and water damage had left no mark. "Strat," Madame Bomba said, "you've 
got to let me pull that tooth. It's not going to hurt any more than it hurts 
right now."
Niko and Randal had come by to pay their respects and to convince the Madame, as 
Crit was sure only Randal and Niko—or Tempus himself— could, that no Stepson had 
had a hand in the destruction of Peace Falls's—indeed, all of Tyse's— finest inn 
and victualer, and had walked in upon Straton, hand holding his jaw and his 
temper raw, and the Madame arguing.
Randal glibly confirmed her diagnosis. "A tooth. Yes, I see it now. It's a tooth 
and no magic can heal it: it's dying and if you delay it may just take you with 
it."
Straton declared in language which made even Madame Bomba blush that Randal was 
addled—it wasn't his tooth that hurt, but his ear which ached, his head which 
throbbed, his neck which had been strained and now was too sore to turn.
"You see?" Randal said to Niko with exaggerated sorrow. "It is his tooth. The 
tooth demon has visited him. It lives inside his tooth and it means to kill him 
by way of it. But first, it eats up his reason with its pain. Too bad, Straton. 
We'd thought, Niko and I, that you were the bravest, the strongest, of all the 
Stepsons. Even Tempus, we were saying just the other day, seems unable to excel 
you in feats of valor and stamina. But tooth demons bring the strongest men to 
their knees. We will remember you," Randal winked at Niko, urging him to agree, 
"the way you were before—a man of bravery unparalleled and a paragon of common 
sense and soldierly pragmatism—"
Strat eyed Randal with a look so promissory that Randal's kris rattled in its 
scabbard.
"He means," Niko cut in, realizing that Randal's choice of words was not making 
matters clear to Straton, whose face was white with pain and who shuddered every 
now and again and even closed his eyes once in agony, "that you'll die a 
coward's death, when you don't have to, if you won't let the Madame pull that 
tooth. Then what place will you have in heaven? You'll meet the Storm God and 
he'll say, "What enemy hath slain thee?" and you'll have to reply, "A tooth I 
wouldn't let my friends pull out." After a life of honor and glory, you'll lose 
your place in heaven after all. What heroics you can claim will never stand 
against a fool's death. You'll go down," Niko pointed repeatedly, dramatically, 
to the floor, "and wander eternally in the dark and rocky caverns of—"
"Cease! Desist! It hurts my head to listen to you both. My lady Bomba, do it, 
then. But be quick about it, before I change my mind." Straton eyed the iron, 
long-handled prizing tool of the sort a vet might use to pull a horse's tooth, 
and shuddered.
Niko couldn't blame him. He and Randal excused themselves to go downstairs to 
fetch Strat a drink "—with your leave, my lady, the strongest draught you've 
got; he'll need it."
Brother Bomba's wine cellar was extensive, a maze of casks. A steward at its 
entrance bade them wait and disappeared within to fill their order. Niko, 
waiting and counting what casks he could see, estimated that even his uncle in 
Caronne had no larger or finer cache. From his vantage he could see amphorae 
bearing crests and devices of a dozen nations, some so old that the countries of 
their origin no longer existed. Niko hadn't realized the Bombas were so wealthy 
or so cultured.
Critias caught up with them as they were climbing the stairs with a jar of 
anaesthetic wine in hand meant for Straton and told them he'd take it up. 
"Grille's disappeared—right out of his office," Critias said. "Some kind of 
magic, no doubt. Find him."
Randal, hand firmly on his kris, bristled. "When you give me my globe's stand. 
If there's witchery about, we'll need all the help we can—"
"Randal." Niko shook his head. "Let's go."
"Go? No! Where's my stand, Critias? What's your new excuse? You come here 
without so much as a thank-you when without us your grumpy rightman would never 
have consented to—"
"Randal!" Niko could sense the excitation in Grit's aura, the heat coming from 
his task force leader, and didn't understand why Randal would force the issue 
now, when Crit obviously had other things on his mind.
"Tonight, at Outbridge, when you've brought Grillo back. I meant to bring it 
with me. I just forgot. Niko—"
"There's something else?"
"Jihan's outside. She's misplaced Shamshi again— the boy's an inveterate 
runaway. If you should come across him, Stealth, make sure he gets back to 
Hidden Valley safe and sound—under guard. Questions?"
Niko didn't have any and Randal withheld his, following his left-side leader's 
example, until they had slipped out the back door where their horses were 
tethered.
Once they were mounted and safely away, sneaking like thieves through the back 
alleys to avoid an encounter with Jihan, Randal began complaining about Critias. 
"Besides being a welsher and an unprincipled scoundrel who's holding back the 
stand he promised me despite the fact that I brought you home in plenty of time, 
he is an ungrateful lout. Madame Bomba's faith in the Stepsons is restored, 
thanks only to you."
"No thanks to me," Niko said absently, guiding the bay he'd taken from the 
Hidden Valley stables toward the Lanes, where he hoped to pick up Grille's 
trail. "And the Madame never believed that rot about Stepsons gutting their 
favorite watering hole—it was her husband who had to be convinced. She's too 
much a woman of the armies not to have realized that if we'd sacked her place, 
we'd have burned it to the ground."
As he spoke, Niko was casting about for some trace of Grillo in the astral, some 
indication he might notice of a disturbance, an abduction, a struggle. His maat 
could help him only so much; he wished Randal would be quiet, let him think. He 
wished his mare was fit to ride, not fat with foal in her stall, or that Tempus 
hadn't taken the sable stud up to Wizardwall. But he'd given the Aškelonian 
horse up, along with any part in the profits of breeding farm or invested spoils 
from the summer war. If now he twinged with regret and wanted back everything 
he'd spurned, it was only a sign that he'd come to terms with his problems and 
was comfortable again in the world he'd fled.
Tempus, Niko knew, would return the horse to him if he asked or even allowed it; 
as for the rest, he'd not decided what he'd do. If he had to swear allegiance, 
become an adherent of some personage, man, immortal, mage, or god, it was and 
had always been Tempus he longed to serve. Aškelon's demands lay heavily on his 
shoulders now, here where his commander's spoor was strong."Somehow, Niko was 
not surprised when, as they crossed Broadway to head up Embassy Row and from 
there enter the convoluted alleys of the Lanes, young Shamshi called their names 
and came running up to them. Even in the misty dark, the youth's towhead gleamed 
in reflected torchlight from the sconces high above Tyse's best-kept street.
They stopped their mounts, and while Randal scolded the errant child for 
sneaking out of bed, and the boy answered in a defensive tone with just the 
slightest whine that he was only looking at the floats and the preparations for 
the sunrise parade, Niko wondered, peering up at the overhanging three- and 
four-story embassies which lined the wide and sidewalked avenue, if it was out 
of one of these the boy had come.
And thus he saw, on a balcony above, half-hidden by a curtain, a girl staring 
down at him, an oil lamp in her hand. And the look upon that young face was so 
wistful and so comely that he could not look away. Their glances met. She 
smiled. Niko waved.
"Who was that?" Randal demanded, sliding back to accommodate the young prince of 
Mygdon before him on his horse. And: "Come on, boy, use that statue there to 
climb up on. That's it." Then again to Niko, with an odd grimace: "I'll take 
Shamshi out to Hidden Valley right away, if you'll be all right on your own, 
Stealth."
Knowing Randal as he did, Niko understood that the mageling was discomfitted by 
the proximity of the Mygdonian boy and trying to hide it. Why, he wasn't sure, 
but he too had heard Randal's kris rattle like a diamondback and seen Randal's 
jaw clench tight.
"Good. And thanks. We'll meet at Outbridge. I want to be there to see that Crit 
makes good his promise. Task force leaders, Stepson, always keep their word."
"Hrrmph. We'll see that you're right, I hope. If not, this is the last night I 
spend as one. By the Writ that serves me—"
The Mygdonian boy broke out in a fit of coughing then and Randal turned 
solicitous. "Poor thing. Come along then; both you and I are better off far away 
from horses." The junior Hazard snuffled meaningfully and brought out his most 
precious prize—the handkerchief Aškelon had given him, which eased his allergies 
enough, with an occasional swipe or whiff, that he could ride a horse without 
tearing eyes or congested nose—and put it over the boy's nose and mouth. 
"Breathe deeply, thrice. That's it. Good boy." Randal put the linen carefully 
away and kicked the fat old gelding into a lethargic lope.
Niko wondered if Randal had noticed how the boy had stiffened, frozen still, 
when Randal put the linen to his nose, but then dismissed it: the girl he'd seen 
had come downstairs. The building's thick oak door opened and there she stood, 
smiling. She waved again.
It was the Machadi embassy's threshold which she lit with an elegant presence, 
he realized. Machad had been taken by Mygdonia in the summer war; refugees of 
high estate from Machad often asked for and received asylum here. The free zone 
was not for girls like this, accustomed to damask gowns and delicate lace and 
tiny sandals with heels. The girl's heels tapped as she came a few steps farther 
toward the street.
"Greetings, soldier," the young girl said, her cultured voice full of wicked 
pleasure at speaking first and coming out unescorted.
"My lady." Niko's horse danced forward in response to the pressure of his knees. 
"What service can I do a guest of the Machadi embassy?"
"I was just wondering, young sir," she replied, coming yet another step forward 
so that he could see the wide brown eyes and sun-gilded hair in gentle curls 
about her throat, "where the best vantage might be for tomorrow's parade. We're 
so far from the reviewing stand that I can't even see the Spring of the Prophet 
from my window."
Almost, he dismounted. He wanted to get a closer look. But he was under orders 
to find Grillo, and so he said, "If my lady wishes, I'll come by an hour before 
sunrise and take you to the reviewing stand myself—every Stepson is entitled to 
one guest."
"A Stepson? Oh, I didn't know." She backed a pace. "I've been forward. I can't 
accept. I don't even know your name. And my uncle… might not approve."
"I'm Nikodemos," he said softly, toying with the helmet at his knee.
"And I am Aisha," she replied, "niece of the Machadi ambassador."
"I'll be by to collect you. If your uncle disallows my invitation, I'll 
understand, Aisha, but I hope he'll let you come. Where are your parents?"
"My parents," she blinked back tears, "are prisoners of the foul Mygdonians in 
Machad. My uncle, the ambassador, takes care of me."
"Tomorrow, then." Niko had met the Machadi ambassador. His heart lightened; a 
well-bred girl with earthly problems was just the thing to soothe him. "I've got 
to go."
"Bide well, then, soldier—Nikodemos," said Aisha, raising her skirts to turn and 
go inside.
An hour later he'd ridden every byway in the Lanes and found no heat-track, 
reddish trail, or even wisp of Grillo fresher than a half-day old. He was giving 
up. This job needed a magician, not a western-trained fighter with a bit of 
maat.
He dismounted and tied his horse before the door of Grille's Lanes office, 
climbed the steps, and knocked. Within, he could sense the men in agitated 
discussion—some passion there, hot argument, even Grillo's peculiar aura: red 
and pink and tinged with bluish lines which shouldn't be there. Blue, in Niko's 
private mental code, was for mages, the ensorceled, the bewitched, the witches, 
and the damned.
When the door opened, to his consternation, Grillo's aide slipped out and shut 
it, then leaned back against it. "Ssh! Stepson, never mind! We sent out a dozen 
messages, trying to call off the search. Grillo's here—guess he never left. Or 
anyway, that's what he says. Some kind of witchy prank or harassment from the 
mageguild. He swears he never left the room, but couldn't see us the way we 
couldn't see him. He'll be mad enough to break us all to stable duty if he hears 
we let news of this slip out. Now go, go on! Get back and tell your Critias what 
I've said—we'll owe you one if you Stepsons keep our secret. Otherwise," the 
pasty-faced aide shrugged and looked away, "it's nasti-ness as usual, your side 
and ours. A deal?"
"As far as I'm concerned. Good luck with this deception." Niko turned and left, 
angry at this whole affair—his wasted time, crossed lines of communication—and 
certain that this explanation was not going to satisfy Critias.
As a matter of fact, it didn't suit Niko either, but he had no choice. He headed 
his mount toward the Outbridge station to give Crit his report, and as he was 
about to round the corner, heard a horse behind him and turned to look. A local 
type, a man named Oman who made ceremonial swords and rich-man's armor, was just 
riding up to Grillo's door. Stranger agents than Oman might be used by Grillo, 
but Niko had never seen one. He filed that bit of news away for further study 
without halting his horse or giving any sign he'd seen or recognized the man.
He had more pressing concerns: Randal would have his globe's stand this night, 
or Niko was going to have from Critias the reason why not. And in the morning, 
he would escort a lady named Aisha to the harvest festival's most wondrous 
event.

* * *

When Oman, self-confessed leader of one of the rebel groups which had been 
making Grillo's life miserable for the last few months, left his office, Grillo 
seriously considered siccing his specials on the fool, consequences be damned.
But it was Grillo himself who was damned. And Oman knew it: the cocky, 
puffy-eyed Tysian, whom Grillo had met in Frog's Marsh, coolly proclaimed just 
how and where Grillo's specials would interdict a shipment of Caronne krrf and 
mountain pulcis meant for the Stepsons' den mother, Madame Bomba.
Grillo knew he should have thrown the revolutionary out on his ear, at the very 
least—better, he should have arrested him. But he just could not.
Sitting at his desk, alone in his office, he nudged the little golden statue a 
witch had given him. It was proof that what he remembered was no nightmare.
Beside his oil lamp, it gleamed dully, no bigger than his middle finger. He 
touched it again and its slightly conical head turned; its golden legs quivered, 
separated; it moved a step, then two, toward his finger, then rubbed against his 
knuckle like a lonely cat.
He drew his finger back slowly and it followed, just as slowly, but moving more 
steadily with every step.
All his hackles raised, he sat back in his chair. He knew he was in deep 
trouble. He couldn't forget the witch's face as she'd passed her hand before it 
and her countenance changed from raven-haired, sultry Nisibisi to pale and fair 
young girl. In the midst of its transition, he had seen a crone, ancient lips 
pulled tight over a jutting chin. He imagined rheumy eyes staring at him even 
now.
What could he do? Report the witch? To whom? Plead for help from the mageguild? 
Rankan magic had fared poorly against the Nisibisi wizard-caste in the summer 
war. And what the witch had said was right—he really didn't care which faction 
held Tyse, although he did care deeply about Bashir and the mountain-dwelling 
folk of Free Nisibis. As long as she didn't ask him to betray Bashir, Grillo 
told himself, he'd go along with her.
The homunculus, or whatever it was in front of him, had reached the edge of his 
desk. One more step and it would tumble into an abyss of air and crash upon the 
floor. Perhaps if it could be destroyed by fall or fire or a stamping foot then 
he could shake this feeling that he was helpless—that the witch was watching 
him, that his soul was in danger of forfeiture.
Grillo prided himself on disbelieving equally in gods and magics, in luck and 
fate. And yet, no logical disclaimer had availed when the witch had spirited him 
from his quarters into the midst of her followers. Something inside him knew 
that she'd been controlling him ever since.
It wasn't like him to give up without a fight. Even now, knowing it to be 
futile, he thought to free himself from Roxane's gossamer web.
He nudged the little golden figure, cold as metal but indubitably animated, 
toward the desk's edge.
It teetered but, arms flailing, righted itself.
Again Grillo extended his finger toward it, his knees well out of the way so as 
not to break its fall. Sympathetic magic, symbolic action, call it what one 
willed, he had a hunch that if he could free himself of this evil little 
trinket, he could break Roxane's hold.
It reached out its tiny arms toward the finger inexorably approaching and, as 
Grillo jabbed at it to force it over the brink, it grabbed his finger with both 
arms, its metal hands digging into his flesh, its grip tight as a vise.
Grillo sucked in a breath; there was pain, surprise, anger. Then, even as panic 
set in and he started shaking his whole hand violently to throw it off, the room 
began getting hazy.
Desperately, Grillo grabbed its feet with his other hand and pulled as hard as 
he might. But strength was leaving him. With it went purpose; even the fear he 
had been experiencing was gone. In its stead came a fatalistic calm, a feeling 
he could only term foolishness. He didn't recall why he had been hostile to the 
tiny golden statuette—it was his future, his good luck charm.
He cradled it in his palm now. Only tiny, dry punctures showed where its 
claw-sharp fingers had gone deep into his flesh. He didn't notice the imprint of 
minuscule teeth, either, or understand that he was drugged by its venom, 
rendered tractable and pliable by magical means.
He held it up to his face in the lamplight, kissed it, put it to his ear.
It began speaking to him in a chirping voice, giving instructions to which he 
could only nod his assent: now he understood that the golden figurine that 
Roxane, Death's Queen, had given him was the best friend and protector he would 
have in this world or the next.

* * *

Tempus, cloak and helmet covered with trail dirt, on the great Aškelonian steed 
whose flanks were caked with dust and sweat, slipped unremarked through Tyse's 
back streets under a fey sky shot with colored light.
There was mist everywhere, steaming up as if from the cobbles themselves. This 
combination of mist and preternatural light in these last few hours before the 
sunrise parade to the Spring of the Prophet sent veterans of the summer's wizard 
wars hustling off to temples and open-air altars to pray, or to soothsayers and 
card-readers to buy prognostications, or to magicians in their lair on Mage way 
for protective amulets and all manner of prophylactic spells.
No one doubted, even before the paving stones on Embassy Row cracked wide apart 
and then smacked back together, catching men and oxen and wagon wheels in 
bear-trap jaws, that magic was abroad. Those seasoned in the field or long of 
memory worried most: if there were a worse sign than wizardry against the 
populace during the harvest moon, nobody could think of one.
More than a flock of birds lost their lives that predawn, pinioned to 
fortunetelling boards, copper nails through their wings. More than fifty livers 
of sheep and goat and pig were lifted quivering out of still-warm bellies to see 
how the bile was flowing. Virgins were hypnotized and sent walking, blindfolded, 
through the mageguild's garden maze, but not even this produced unequivocal 
results.
Tempus's return, however, when at last he had urged his filthy sable steed 
through the Outbridge station's gate, lightened the mood of the Stepsons 
quartered there.
The fact that their commander had already re-connoitered the town and knew in 
more detail than they just what sort of sorcerer's mischief they were up against 
made the senior Sacred Banders smile covertly and nod their heads when he'd 
passed by: they had orders from the Riddler now, orders none would hesitate to 
obey. It wasn't that any of them distrusted Crit or found him wanting as a 
tactical officer; it was simply that holding Tyse was more a task for gods than 
men—everyone knew that Tempus, now and always, had the Storm God whispering in 
his ear and the favor of the higher heavens.
Men who had been sullenly chewing straws on doorsteps set off trotting to their 
tasks. Swords were whetted, bucklers checked for rivets or straps worn thin; 
horses came out of their stalls and amulets out of their pouches—if the Riddler 
said a disruption of the parade was in the offing, then they'd be ready to keep 
the peace at any cost. Those who'd ridden through gouts of molten rock spewed 
from restless mountains with the Slaughter Priest would ride through worse for 
Tempus— he'd led them to victory on Wizardwall against the massed defenses of 
the archmage Datan and all his Nisibisi warlocks.
So as Tempus left his stables and the sable in the care of a grinning, zealous 
groom who mumbled shyly, "Glad to have you back, sir," he heard Stepsons 
whistling battle airs and Sacred Band pairs harmonizing hymns of war.
But before he'd reached his quarters, where he'd thought to shed his mud-heavy 
mantle and quench his thirst before seeking out Critias, the sight of Randal the 
Tysian Hazard on a horse made him halt, his fists upon his hips.
"Randal!" Tempus's gravelly voice rang out so that men paused in their tasks 
even on the battlements and looked on in silence. "I'd like to see you for a 
moment."
Randal dismounted, slapped his gelding's rump, and the old nag ambled toward its 
stall alone. The mageling, hitching up his swordbelt, approached Tempus with an 
uncertain but relieved smile upon his freckled face.
Swordbelt? Tempus looked again. By the time Randal was greeting him as befit a 
Stepson his commander, Tempus had determined that it was indeed a swordbelt 
Randal wore and that a kris, of all weapons, depended from it.
Ignoring protocol or even politeness, Tempus demanded: "Where did you get that 
kris? What are you doing with a weapon like that?"
The startled mageling blinked twice, his feelings hurt; even in the oddly 
colored light of this enchanted dawn, his flush was obvious. "Doing with it? 
Nothing much, as yet. Aškelon gave it to me. Isn't it wonder—?"
"Aškelon!" Tempus thundered, one fist pounding an open palm. "What have you 
done?" He cursed himself silently. No mage was beneficent. No sorcerer was 
trustworthy. Not even this harmless-seeming youngster had a single moral or 
ethical fiber in his entire body.
"Done?" Randal almost shouted back, his voice quavering with temper. "Done? I 
brought Niko back, as I was ordered—as a Stepson, I've so often been told, 
always does obey his orders. Without question! No one said to me, "Bring him 
back but keep shut of Meridian, if it should appear in your path in the middle 
of an empty sea!" I brought him back by way of Meridian and I assure you, 
commander, the choice of port was hardly mine! And I'm supposed to be paid for 
it with the stand to my globe, which Critias promised—"
"I'll pay you for it, if you've let Aškelon get his claws into—" Before he could 
speak Niko's name aloud, where so many ears were pricked, or before he said the 
next thing on his mind and expelled the mageling Randal from the Stepsons with 
an appended prohibition from associating with any man of his henceforth, Tempus 
marshaled his anger. If things were getting witchy, as they seemed, he needed 
Randal, his one sworn mage, right now. So he continued, in a quiet tone, "I'm 
assuming that both you and your partner suffered no ill effects from this 
visit—correct me if I'm wrong."
Randal, his bony arms crossed, inclined his head, his face suffused with blood 
from rage or embarrassment—Tempus hadn't time to determine which.
"Good. Then go in my behalf to your archmage and ask him for an opinion on the 
meaning of this weather and whether he will join with us in attempting to ensure 
an uneventful and pleasantly routine harvest festival. Then—"
"I'm not going anywhere until I get my globe's stand… sir!"
Tempus had to chuckle. "Who's got it—Crit, is it? Yes? Well, come along. We'll 
see you in possession of your trinket and you can tell me your opinion of how 
Niko fared with Ash."
"Ash? Oh, the dream lord. I can't tell tales, not even to you. You know the 
Stepsons' oath—you wrote it. As for that 'trinket'—give it here, and we won't 
need my archmage… or any help from anywhere but herel" Randal tapped his shallow 
chest, puffed out to its fullest. "Indeed? Then let us hurry." So it was that 
Randal, on the way to Critias's quarters, told Tempus about the evening's dual 
disappearances—those of Grillo and of Shamshi— and explained that he'd just 
returned from Hidden Valley, where he'd left the Mygdonian prince in Jihan's 
"capable hands."
"Good. Thank you, Randal." On Grit's office steps, Tempus paused and gave his 
orders gently. "Find Niko, will you, and bring him here. I'll have your reward 
for you as soon as you return."
"Niko? All right." Randal seemed disappointed, then he brightened. "We'll soon 
clear up this foul weather, once I've got it."
Tempus nodded absently and the mageling hurried off, a slight figure in the 
cobalt-shadowed dawn.
Crit, when Tempus found him pacing back and forth in his bedroom where Kama lay 
bandaged and a local healer was applying leeches to her wounds, was more 
troubled than Tempus had ever seen him. Even Crit's sardonic smile sat askew on 
his stubbled face as he suggested softly that the tiny room was too crowded and 
they'd best talk out front.
"I told you to stay away from her," Tempus said without preamble.
"I thought we'd burn that bridge after we'd crossed it. I couldn't leave her 
alone… not like this. She's virtually a stranger here—the locals don't care for 
fighting women, Jihan avoids her, she makes the pairs nervous… This state she's 
in… it's my fault. I sent her out with a task force patrol and they ran into a 
death squad with incendiaries as well as superhuman members… demons, white-eyes, 
the lot."
This speech, Tempus realized, was one Critias had long been preparing. He gazed 
at his second in command steadily.
Crit, crossing to his front room's table on which lay a blanket-wrapped bundle, 
an oil lamp, a half-eaten meal, and a copper humidor, motioned to one of the two 
chairs. "Have a seat, commander. I've got some flat beer and this…" As he spoke, 
Crit rolled a smoke, then another, and held one out to Tempus. "Say some damn 
thing… relieve me of my command or whatever you're going to do."
"Is that what you want?" Tempus took the broad-leaf Crit held out and lit it 
from the oil lamp, sinking down into the chair opposite his first officer with a 
deep, rattling sigh. Since the god had left him, though his regenerative 
abilities remained and his stamina and sleeplessness also, physical fatigue was 
no longer strange to him: his muscles ached from riding.
Crit didn't answer until Tempus had blown out a long stream of blue smoke. 
"Want? I don't know what I'm supposed to want. I'd like Kama to recover, but the 
leech in there says it's no simple poison—it's some witch's brew. Of course, 
that's the kind of excuse you'd expect from one of them, but…" He spread his 
hands. "Strat's in town with Madame Bomba—he's sick too, and Strat's as strong 
as one of the god's bulls. Tonight, so far, we've lost and found both Grille and 
Sham—" "I know."
"Then you tell me whether we've got another sorcerous infestation on our hands 
or I'm just trying to excuse a total botch of things. I'm sure I don't know. But 
the pairs think it's Niko—as soon as he got back, this weather boiled up and 
everything I've tried to do turned to dung." Grit's smile, this time, was its 
normal, cynical self. "Stealth says, by the way, that he saw Oman the once-noble 
coming out of Grille's Lanes hidey-hole tonight. He also says that—"
A voice interrupted Grit's dour monologue from the door which Tempus had left 
ajar: "—that it's more likely my fate than Grit's, causing all this trouble."
Tempus turned his head and saw Niko, wet hair slicked back from a recent bath, 
leaning in the doorway, Randal's head visible just behind. The young fighter 
wore no armor, only hillman's shirt and trousers, and his feet were bare.
Tempus wondered where the charmed panoply the boy had gotten from Aškelon was 
now—buried, most likely, in some forsaken spot; or on the bottom of the sea. 
Tempus remembered his own struggle against supernatural forces who craved a 
mortal representative. He thought he saw in Niko the loneliness of a man who 
fought a private war he knew he couldn't win. It was there for any knowing eye 
in the subtle changes this young fighter called Stealth had undergone: Niko's 
eyes, once merely shielded and blank to a casual observer, had retreated into 
his head. His movements, as he eased inside, made room for Randal, then closed 
the door and slid its bolt, were fluid, economical: no earthly threat weighed on 
Niko now. The boy had learned that death was not the worst that might await even 
him.
"Life to you, commander," Niko said with a commiserating smile, "and everlasting 
glory. I've come to see that Critias makes good his word and gives Randal, here, 
the stand for his warlock's globe. We need the use of it, from what I saw in 
town tonight," Niko reached behind and urged Randal to come forward, saying more 
softly, "Claim your prize, rightman. Then take it to the mageguild and see what 
you can do for us—for her." His gaze flickered to the other room, then returned 
to Tempus, where it stayed. "Randal thinks Kama's in receipt of some witchery 
meant for me or you from our old friend, Roxane. He needs a leave of absence."
"Done. Give it to him, Crit." Tempus took another drag upon the broadleaf and 
stubbed it out among the bones of quail on Critias's dinner plate.
Crit reached out without rising and hefted the blanket-wrapped bundle, then 
tossed it through the air toward Randal, who lunged forward fast enough to catch 
it.
Grit's lips twitched in disgust and he muttered, "Maybe it's fine and dandy now 
we've got our own resident Hazard-class adept, but I'm glad it's you, Riddler, 
not me, who gave the order and dispensed the weapon."
Randal, wrestling with the wrappings on the gilded stand, hadn't heard, but Niko 
did and gave his task force leader a withering look, saying, "I told you, 
Randal, that Crit would keep his word. Among Stepsons, it's necessity, not 
choice," and turned to open the door, adding: "I've got to see my partner to the 
mageguild gates. I'll be right back—"
"I'll go with you." Tempus rose, chuckled as he looked down at Crit, and clapped 
his first officer on the shoulder. "Don't blame yourself, or worry. Neither does 
a bit of good. What fools and gods and witches make, each party freely shares. 
As for the rest of us—those in between the victims and the manipulators—we 
simply do our best to help the innocents and save our own lives."
Crit stood up then. "Fine. Good. Then go say something to your daughter, who may 
not last the night, who only wanted to help—to earn her sire's respect, to take 
part in a saga worth retelling. You should hear her poetry. If she lives, she'll 
surely win first prize at the Festival of Man. Or rather, would have done: if 
her life's in Randal's hands, we'd best start felling timber for her pyre."
"Wait outside, Randal, Niko," Tempus ordered, putting himself between his task 
force leader and Niko's eloquently reproving look until the pair had gone.
Then: "Crit, you're not in love with that woman? She's 3rd Commando," Tempus 
reminded him. "She's not capable of love, only of using you."
"What's she using me for? To find herself an early death? I've done my best at 
that. I'd rather light her bier than have her live because of magical 
intervention. She won't like it if she owes her life to Witchy-Ears, out there."
"I want you at the reviewing stand in my place this morning. Get Straton and put 
your task force out among the populace. Keep off the actual parade route, in 
case the ground is hungry yet, though." The only cure Tempus knew for what ailed 
Crit was work and lots of it. "And watch this Oman; Niko's hunches are worth 
heeding. When the parade's done, send every Stepson not on crucial duty over to 
Bomba's to help rebuild her place. Put two senior band pairs out at Hidden 
Valley; I want the Mygdonian boy under surveillance, around the dial. I'll be 
keeping Jihan with me. From what I understand, her father may be looking in on 
us, by and by."
Crit raked a hand through feathery hair. "Anything else, commander? Raise the 
dead? Move Tyse lock, stock, and barrel out of harm's way?"
"Yes, now that you mention it: stay away from Kama. I don't want to have to tell 
you again. You've got a task force to love and nurture. She's not a member of 
it. Once we hear yea or nay from her superiors on the proposed sortie north, 
she'll be on her way. I don't want her taking you with her."
"You're sure she'll live that long?"
"I'm sure. When it comes to women plaguing us, this unit doesn't get that 
lucky."
But when Tempus was alone with Kama, he found himself moved by her plight, even 
distressed. Touching each leech in turn with wooden swabs lit from the candle by 
her bed, he caused them to loose their hold, then slowly and methodically he 
crushed each one beneath his heel.
"Healer?" Kama's voice was weak, uncertain. "Crit? Critias, is that you?" Her 
hand reached up toward the wet cloth over her eyes; his met it there and grasped 
her fingers.
"It's Tempus. I told you to stay clear of Crit. When you're well enough, I'll 
spank you until your bottom's blue."
She smiled faintly. "I can't wait. I'm… sorry."
"I see you are. Any word from your friends in the capital?"
"Not yet." Her face was shiny with sweat and he could see her frame twitch as 
the poison did its work. Her grasp was weak in his; she shuddered and he wished 
he'd known her better. Then she seemed to forget that he was there; her grip 
grew limp and her mouth moved as she whispered words he leaned close to hear. 
But these words she spoke were not for him: she recited poetic works in which he 
figured in some heroic part.
He shook his head and, as quietly as he could, left her. So foolish, to think 
that words in songs or stories were worth this kind of risk. Words of power 
belonged to the archmages and the politicians, to the generals in the field. And 
they had no time for art or hidden meanings. She sought what? Some ephemeral 
glory for herself through making a folk hero out of him? Some propinquity of the 
spirit she had not had, indeed could not have, in flesh?
If Kama died of this foolishness, Tempus decided—leaving Crit behind with just a 
wave answered by a smart salute—it was no worse a death than that a killer wolf 
might earn by exposing himself to crossbow quarrels atop a mountain where he 
must bay at the moon. But it was no better, either. A woman who craved heroics 
was like a dog who longed to talk or a horse who ached to fly: what could not be 
had was imbued with a value beyond what was natural, or attainable, or real. But 
then, she was his daughter, after all.

* * *

In the mageguild, Randal sat alone in his little tower room. He'd said goodbye 
to Niko and to Tempus behind the Outbridge stables. It was no more difficult for 
him to remove himself to his quarters by means of magic than to endure another 
trek by horse. Aškelon's handkerchief might not last forever; he didn't want to 
waste its power. And he didn't want Tempus to interrogate him or Niko to watch 
over him with that fondly distant look.
Here Randal was secure, alone, an upwardly mobile Hazard, not a fumbling 
semi-Stepson.
The floor of his room was flagged with marble. He took the precious golden stand 
with its arcane runes and ball-and-claw feet and set it in the middle of his 
spiral power glyph.
Why couldn't Stealth be content to be chosen by Aškelon, more humane and more 
powerful than many a bloody god who demanded never-ending sacrifice and laughed 
with garlicky breath in its desperate penitents' faces? If Aškelon had chosen 
Randal for such an honor as the one Niko deemed a curse, the seventh-level 
Hazard would have risen to the occasion with all his might.
But the fighters were inscrutable; they loved their war and death and picking 
through the bones of time to sort out right from wrong, good from bad, evil from 
holy, honor from dishonor.
Even Tempus, who knew better, played this silly game and justified it by the end 
results, whatever they turned out to be.
So, as Aškelon's single willing adherent and Tern-pus's single magical ally, 
Randal could not fail to prove himself worthy.
With hands atremble in anticipation, he got his globe from its warded chest, 
almost forgetting the power-lock he'd spoken over it so that he had to say the 
reversion spell twice.
With the globe poised over the stand, Randal cleared his mind and ordered his 
tasks: in these he must not, would not, fail. He'd foil the curse which wrapped 
Kama tight, which any adept could clearly see and even Niko had noticed. He'd 
give Niko the - courage to accept his fate and the strength to meet his 
challenges. He'd help the Riddler win his peace—for that, he knew, was what 
Tempus wanted most of all—and protect Bashir on high Wizardwall, even if it was 
Roxane whom Randal had to oppose. And his gut told him it was in truth Death's 
Queen, she who coveted Niko once and perhaps lay in wait for Randal's partner 
still. Randal had previously found within himself the bravery to fight against 
Nisibisi wizardry, against Roxane herself, for those he loved. And though he was 
a mage, committed, he neither felt nor was evil. He supped on no souls. The 
energy he needed, he took from the resonance around him as planes rubbed upon 
planes; he worked in harmony with nature, not against it.
But this was a Nisibisi globe he sought to use, to tame and turn to his purpose, 
the very globe the Nisibisi archmage, Datan, had used to bring coherent evil 
upon this and other towns.
So Randal was very careful as he set the globe upon its stand. It could be that 
in order to save those he loved and prove himself the whitest of mages, he must 
expose his very soul to all the evil he'd these long years been content to do 
without. He might become a soul-sucker, a contractee of powerful demons, or 
worse. But he would do it for the best of reasons, without a thought to personal 
gain.
And thus he finally let go the jeweled and prodigious globe so that it rested in 
its stand. And then he knelt before it and, with his palms outstretched to set 
it spinning, began the incantations which could put his eternal soul's survival 
in direst jeopardy, but which would lift the curse from Kama, deflect all evil 
directed at the Riddler back unto its source, and, if love could heal, might 
even set poor Niko free.

* * *

Roxane sat bolt upright in her bed, hands clapped to her skull in agony. The 
pain that lanced there tore a howl from her throat and made the human boy beside 
her scramble up, a sheet around him, and dash for safety to the corner of the 
room.
This disturbed her new house snakes, which hissed and rose up on their coils to 
threaten the child with darting tongues.
"Have him!" She freed the snakes to feed upon the twelve-year-old she'd chosen 
from the free zone.
Before his wails had ceased she was out of there, seeking her own globe of power 
in her Frog's Marsh summoning room.
Only one power tool in the known world was stronger than her globe. And that, a 
greater globe than this one she now spun with fervid invocations while sweat 
beaded on her upper lip, had belonged to Datan, the vanquished archmage whom 
Roxane had served so long.
Who had it now? Who dared to turn it on her, spin it contrary to her wishes—use 
it on Death's Queen as if she had no recourse?
Her water bowl beside her on the table, she watched the light her globe spilled 
out and held her breath against the pain that beat upon her flesh and bones like 
hostile wings from unknown hells.
When she had spun the pain away, Roxane was nearly exhausted. To refresh 
herself, she conjured up a fire in the stone hearth and called the snakes that 
ate the boy and ate the snakes, first one and then the other, roasting them in 
turn upon the hearth. Too bad—she'd thought to keep this pair. But snakes were 
expendable right now.
Her strength replenished, she gazed into her water bowl while across the walls 
colors spun from globe-light danced. In the water there formed an image of the 
mageguild, Tyse's home for hubristic prestidigitators.
She tried to see inside it. She waved the water with her palm and spoke words so 
ancient she had needed them but once in all the summer wizard war—that once, 
when she'd escaped the wrath of Tempus and his summoned gods unscathed, had been 
the first time in her life she had had to use them.
She used them now, for whomever or whatever had that globe within Tyse's 
mageguild was turning Roxane's own spells back upon her—the wasting death and 
anguished agues and lingering ill-fortune she'd cast upon the Riddler's spawn 
called Kama and on Straton, Critias's 'friend," and on all the other Stepsons… 
that bad luck which hung over the entire Sacred Band, a dedicated pall, had been 
thrown back at Roxane from a canny hand within those high stone walls.
She couldn't see her enemy's face, but just a hand, busy at its spelling and its 
spinning.
The results of this meddling fool's endeavor, though, lay clear upon her water 
bowl's bright surface: Kama sat up smiling; Straton swaggered down Brother 
Bomba's stairs with Madame tucked against him; the Stepsons' float rolled 
bravely down the middle of Embassy Row toward the reviewing stand in the midst 
of a parade unspoiled.
Roxane howled with fury once she'd gobbled the last bit of tasty snake and the 
last spell had been tried and failed to change the tableaux that her scrying 
bowl reflected. The worst, her bowl had left for last: young Niko, in his 
precious armor, with Tempus by his side and grinning; and Grillo, not out with 
Oman on the way to seize the caravan as he should be, but attending to law and 
order in the town.
Then did Roxane bend her head to magic as she'd never done before: she wrenched 
and molded time and space and even rent reality as she rent her own black 
garments before she cast off clothes and human form and, quenching her own fire, 
went soaring up her chimney in a falcon's form to wreak havoc upon the town and 
her enemies among men.
Her shadow, where it fell that sunrise morning, blighted ground and crops and 
sickened animals and men it touched while passing over.
When it fell upon the mageguild, stones groaned, foundations trembled, roofs 
began to quake. When it darkened Brother Bomba's doorway, the buttressed bottom 
floor gave way and fell in to crush the magazines and wine cellars and what 
luckless individuals were caught inside.
As she soared over the parade route, the governor's own float was beginning, 
with great fanfare, the trek up Embassy Row; beneath its wheels cobbles turned 
to muck and paving stones opened wide to reveal sharp teeth and gaping maws so 
that in moments the entire float, its oxen, attendant outriders and revelers by 
the tens, were swallowed up or sucked on down and crowds surged backward, 
fleeing.

* * *

Roxane screamed a challenge from her falcon's throat; this bird, the fastest 
winged warrior nature ever made, dodged with ease the crossbow bolts Tempus and 
some Stepsons launched at her. She veered; she dived; she dared to defecate upon 
the Riddler's very head and wing away, toward the eastern pass between mountain 
peaks where Oman's insurgents waited for Grille's specials, and for a certain 
caravan from far Caronne to come.
Meanwhile, on her orders, certain death squads and three dead squads made up of 
subjugated souls and led by demons marched on through the rent she'd made in 
Frog's Marsh. These met and joined forces at Peace River and by the demons' 
aegis went raiding in the town, headed toward the reviewing stand.
And as they did, in the blighted free zone, the holy Spring of the Prophet which 
fed the town turned red and ran with blood and bile, and overhead, a rain of 
toads began to fall.

* * *

Grillo, despite himself, had ended up deploying specials and Oman's grisly crew 
of "troops" at the eastern trade route's pass, called the "general's route" for 
some reason lost to antiquity.
He didn't remember riding out here. The little golden figurine he'd found 
somewhere was fastened to his collar; it was bringing him good luck.
Ahead, the caravan's dust could be seen in the first true light of dawn.
His specials silently assumed positions high above the pass where boulders had 
been rolled into place and fulcrums, wedges, and pushing-poles of freshly 
trimmed pine were waiting to box the contraband carriers in Grille's trap. His 
men were uncharacteristically reserved this morning, either spooked from rubbing 
elbows with the death squads, whom everyone was sure had devils' help, or just 
overworked.
Grillo couldn't worry about them—control, command, communications: these were 
his main concerns. Morale in times like these was always dicey. The same could 
be said of his allies—death squad members, revolutionaries who kept their hoods 
well down over their faces.
Watching a segmented, tiny procession far below, Grillo gave a whistled command. 
From fore and aft, boulders should have tumbled.
But pine saplings snapped and cracked, and boulders tottered, not to fall, as 
planned, upon the caravan below, but to roll backward, like living things with 
wills of their own, over the men who tried to move them—and over some who were 
not men, who lost their robes to rolling rocks and then, naked, unfurled 
fishbelly-wings and turned batlike heads about, and whirred and leaped into the 
air.
Thereupon, as only pebbles fell below and rocks chased men and crushed them flat 
in weird pursuit, the attackers broke in rout and fled, the humans stumbling as 
they ran, the others taking to the air or disappearing in a burst of sparks.
Men were turning now upon untrustworthy allies—Grille's specials drew their 
blades and hacked at nearby revolutionaries. Javelins flew and crossbows spat 
forth quarrels and everywhere pandemonium raged, so that below, Grillo saw as he 
too began to scramble for higher ground where a boulder couldn't roll him flat, 
the caravan was warned and picked up speed to make it safely through the pass.
Scrambling on scree which wouldn't hold his weight or afford him purchase, 
Grillo found that his mouth was dry and darkness edged his vision. Among the 
screams of wounded men and fleeing fighters run down in their tracks by hostile 
boulders, or pushed over precipices, or skewered by recent allies, he heard a 
fiercer, piercing cry and looked up in time to see a falcon circling high above, 
wings motionless upon the air.
He was just cranking his own crossbow, bead drawn upon Oman, the traitor who had 
set this trap to kill every special worth his salt, when a dark shadow from 
those wings above passed over him and Grillo knew no more. He never guessed that 
it was Roxane who wheeled above him in falcon's form, furious that her own 
spells had been turned upon her minions and powerless to stop the unknown mage 
who spun Datan's globe against her, spoiling everything.

* * *

There was madness in the streets which sought to swallow every Tysian and 
refugee and celebrant alive. Niko, riding his sable stallion at Tempus's behest, 
thought he might be the only one in town who could tell from the color of the 
ground ahead where it was and was not safe to tread.
He'd gotten out his panoply at Tempus's suggestion. At the time, he'd resented 
his commander's order to dress for the occasion, knowing Tempus meant him to don 
his Aškelonian weaponry; now he was glad he had it.
Niko had no sooner picked up Aisha at the Machadi Embassy and headed with her 
toward the reviewing stand when havoc broke out along the parade route.
Chaos about him, his first thought was for Aisha, astride a white pony right 
beside him. One hand on her mount's red bridle, he'd thought to see her home. 
But he'd lost her in the crowd somehow. He didn't understand it: a white horse 
was hard to miss.
So he was seeking her among the terror-stricken throng, restoring order where he 
could, using his steed to stop the desperate who'd take any risk to loot, when 
he saw the white pony, running, bolting out of control, southwest toward Peace 
River.
Giving the sable a kick, Niko set out after the white rump he now could see, now 
could not. And thus he galloped right into a pitched battle at an intersection 
which was cracked and heaving: Stepsons fighting death squads. He had to lend a 
hand.
He fought his way into the thick of it, the sword Aškelon had given him warm 
with recognition of magic close at hand. And when it sliced a human-seeming 
throat, its owner burst apart in flames. A blue wing whickered by his ear. He'd 
seen it coming, but not in time to duck away. It seemed to Niko that the flying 
wing had veered off as if his armor had deflected it.
A crossbow bolt which struck him between the shoulders shattered on his cuirass; 
another, coming low, went deep into his thigh, but he was infused with 
excitement and the lust of battle. He kept after a particularly enticing foe, 
one whose cowl never slipped away and who had taken swordcuts and even been 
pierced through by a peltast's spear and not been fazed.
Niko's stud, teeth clacking, did its share and once (as it snapped about it, not 
knowing friends' mounts from foes' and certainly not caring), it bit a Stepson's 
horse and Gayle shouted, "Stealth! Pork-all! Keep that porking nag of yours away 
from our horses or you'll be fighting by yourself." As if Gayle were prescient, 
soon enough Niko was alone: his horse and quarry had led him to Peace River. 
They forded it in a froth of water, this indestructible foe who did not seem to 
bleed still well in sight.
His sword sheathed now, Niko cranked and sighted through his crossbow, but every 
bolt aimed true seemed to go astray.
Frog's Marsh was on the far side of Peace River here. Approaching it, his horse 
slowed, snorting, head tossing, showering Niko with foamy spit from gaping jaws. 
"Come on, horse, we've gone this far… a little undergrowth won't hurt us." His 
quarry's trail was clear ahead, bilious blue-green and supernatural; so was the 
pinkish trail of the girl he'd promised a safe-conduct to the festival. If the 
wizard, or demon, or what-have-you, was chasing the girl's white pony, then Niko 
couldn't let it go. The sable danced in place despite Niko's urging knees. Had 
Tempus made a coward of this horse? Or exhausted it? No, the Aškelonian was 
neither fool nor weak: Niko knew this beast and respected it more than many men 
he'd met.
Stealth dismounted, rubbed its muzzle, held it by the headstall and looked it 
straight in the eye. "Either we go together, horse, or I go in alone. I left a 
pitched battle back in town to run this murderous creature down; I can't fail to 
do it. And I've my word to an innocent to make good. Come or stay behind, horse, 
it's up to you."
He realized then that he'd never named it. He should have, perhaps, to make a 
stronger bond between them. But he'd given it to Tempus and really had just 
borrowed it tonight.
It cocked its head at him and then, deliberately and slowly, pawed the ground 
three times, its tiny ears pricked forward.
"I hope that's 'yes', horse. I haven't got time to argue." He swung up on its 
back and this time it moved ahead with little urging, testing each step as if it 
trod on eggs before it put a hoof firmly down.
At this pace, they'd never catch someone fleeing fast, but the horse was right: 
this ground was tricky. In it were deep hoofprints; as long as daylight lasted, 
he'd have no trouble with this trail.
He had a moment then to realize he was almost glad the town had erupted in 
confusion; Tempus had been slowly and methodically drawing from Niko everything 
that Aškelon had said. Niko didn't want to explain about his rest-place, or that 
through it Aškelon had a hold on him that the western-trained fighter was 
powerless to break. Another time, perhaps, he'd tell the Riddler. As it was, 
he'd been saved from a discussion more perilous than a hundred-to-one encounter 
with assorted demons: he couldn't talk about Meridian yet.
And so, after what seemed an hour of reflection, he came upon his quarry: both 
the cowled figure and the Machadi girl.
She was backed against a cypress, her festival skirts heavy with soaked-up mud, 
a little sticker in her hand. Her white pony lay on its side, blood running from 
its mouth red as its trappings.
The cowled insurgent, if such the figure was, had its back to Niko and was 
closing in on the girl, who was telling it, "Stay away! I warn you, stay away! 
I'll kill myself before you'll touch me, you warty salamander!" And she called 
on a Machadi patron goddess, so that all around the trees began to shake their 
limbs.
Niko dismounted silently and crouched behind an ancient bole big enough to hide 
him and his horse, squinting through his peep sight: a crossbow bolt could go 
right through the foe and impale the girl from this angle. And if the bolt went 
wide, as bolts had done before when launched against this perhaps unhuman 
target, it might do her more harm than good. His throwing stars were likewise 
suspect.
He judged the distance, put the crossbow by, and slid his dirk from its sheath. 
He'd not used it since the summer war. It was yielding in his hand, warm and 
eager, proving magic lurked here, if Niko needed proof.
He thought an instant more and then, decided, cast the charmed dirk and followed 
right behind it, drawing his enchanted sword as he leapt toward the girl and her 
tormentor.
The cast he'd made, though even Niko doubted it would serve over so much 
distance, went true, and before him, as he closed upon his enemy, a back 
shivered. Then it seemed to swell and, from the wound around the dirk, in flesh 
up to its hilt, green and steaming ichor spurted.
An arm raised to fend off the acid blood, Niko met his enemy as it staggered 
full around and with clawed hands raised came toward him, jaws open wide, its 
disguise—if ever it had had one—gone away and a red and awful demon face there 
in its place.
It spoke. "Ah, death child, a worthy foe at last!" It hissed. "Well and good to 
meet you: I'll be an angel of high estate once these teeth have torn out your 
throat."
Niko knew better than to meet its eyes or listen to its threats, supposed to 
stun him. He lunged forward, ancient sword in hand and arcing back and, without 
thought to dodging demon claws, swung it down, right to left, so that even as 
the demon sought to grapple him, he cut its head from its neck.
Yet those claws screeched on his armor like fingernails on a child's slate, and 
its body bore him down under its twitching weight, and for a time he struggled 
there with something that should not be living, while the head, hanging by thick 
red skin, swung back and forth and jaws clacked near his naked arms.
Niko heard the girl's screaming coming closer, but didn't realize what that 
meant until her face appeared, mud-smeared and contorted, over the severed neck 
spouting acid blood, and she joined the fray, plunging her little lady's dagger 
into the demon's back and tugging at the weakening corpse, trying to get it off 
him.
Niko yelled to her to get away, to watch the claws, to avoid at any cost the 
stinging demon-blood and especially its spittle, but in the end it was the girl, 
Aisha, who pulled away the corpse, now foul and steaming, heating up as it 
started decomposing while it hugged him.
Freed from its deathly embrace, he rolled over on his stomach, wiping his face 
in the moist grass and dirt, seeking to clear away the stinging, viscous stuff 
that covered his face and made his eyes tear.
He heard a tearing sound and hands were on him. He felt something touch his face 
and wipe his eyes. It was her bodice, soaked in water, he realized when he could 
focus his eyes again. He saw her fair young breast as she sought to tend him, 
heard her soft, sweet voice assuring him that he'd been marvelous. "You are my 
savior, bold Niko-demos, and the finest hero that's ever lived since ancient 
times. There now, just be still." She leaned close, first wiping his eyes with 
her wet cloth, then kissing them with gentle lips. "You'll soon be all right. 
And my uncle will show his gratitude when I tell him how you saved me. You're a 
lucky one, too. Except for that—" she pointed to the crossbow bolt embedded in 
his thigh "—you're not badly hurt at all… a few burns and scratches mostly." She 
sat back and smiled at him. "Say something." But he could only take deep breaths 
and fend off pain and watch her, this noble wench so soft and fair, who perhaps 
had just saved his life.

* * *

If not for the timely arrival of forty mounted strangers, who joined right in 
without awaiting orders and moved the panicked crowd back from the heaving 
streets, roped the floats to drag them to safety by dint of horse and muscle, 
and generally took up the slack left by Grillo's absent specials, Tempus knew 
they would have lost the day and perhaps the town to sorcery.
At one point, when he had turned a corner near the reviewing stand and seen 
Jihan, on his other Trôs, working at crowd-control like a veteran, Tempus had 
found himself next to one of the nondescript riders who'd chosen to lend a hand.
The Trôs that Tempus rode was greeting its brother with a belly-shaking squeal 
just at that moment. The dark-clad rider whom Tempus didn't know turned in his 
saddle and saluted, "Hail to thee, founder."
Then Tempus saw the 3rd Commando device high on a leather breast plate and 
grinned his wolfish grin. "And to thee, soldier. Glad to have you with us." And 
he was. "There!" He pointed with his sword and charged toward a small group of 
insurgents, fleeing counter to the press of the crowd.
The 3rd Commando member kept pace, using his horse skillfully to part the crowd. 
"We didn't think you'd mind. We're tired of waiting for the seers to tell the 
omens," he called to Tempus as their horses leaped in tandem. "We're here 
without portfolio—or money—but we thought you'd have us anyway."
"How many are you?" Tempus grunted, leaning low to avoid a flying missile 
passing close. And so, as they fought their way toward victory, he learned that 
his terms had not been met in the capital and that, because of this, the 3rd had 
detached itself from the empire's army. Unless a coup or natural death made a 
change in emperors, these fighters were his for as long as he would have them. 
That they could keep their unit separate and distinct from the Stepsons was all 
they asked.
As the two of them backed six insurgents against a mud-brick wall, and the 
commando on his right put bolts enough into spread-eagled forms to hold the 
prisoners by the fleshy parts of arms and thighs until they could be collected 
for interrogation, Tempus allowed that the 3rd could stay, although silently he 
added that the rivalry between these fighters and his Stepsons might be more 
difficult to handle than even the three undeads among this captured cadre right 
before him, who calmly tore their flesh from the crossbow bolts pinioning them, 
leaving muscle, and in one case, a whole arm behind, and with a final, 
white-eyed gaze of taunt and silent fury, dashed away in three directions.
They chased no more rebels after that; they had the floats to tend and magic on 
their minds.
Over the reviewing stand the sky had darkened and Tempus pointed there: he had a 
suspicion blacker than those roiling thunderheads as to just what he might see 
when he got close.
To do so, he jumped his Trôs across the yet-heaving street where paving stones 
were restless and cracks had claimed extremities of man and beast.
When he looked back from the other side, the 3rd Commando fighter was crouched 
low and forward on his horse's withers, leaping it after his. Judging horse and 
rider, form and fettle, brains and courage, Tempus had to admit he was 
impressed.
The true test of this commando came, however, when they rode up to the reviewing 
stand and found the spectators who had huddled there, afraid to leave, with 
hands over their heads, and Jihan and her father, his red eyes piercing heaven 
and his growls making people hide their faces, arguing with lightning bolts and 
thunder claps over whether or not she would remain.
"Jihan," he shouted. "Stay or go, the choice is yours. I'll miss you," Tempus 
could not resist adding, "if you should leave. But ask your father's help with 
this—banish the curse from our parade."
"For you, my darling, anything!" Jihan's eyes were as red as her sire's and it 
seemed that sparks flew from her hair. She raised her hand and, in a way he 
still could not understand, she "spoke" to her father, Stormbringer, progenitor 
of all the weather gods, and things began to fall from heaven.
Falcons, eagles, condors, and winged things Tempus had never seen before came 
crashing to the bleachers so that the crowd there broke and ran.
The ground ceased its complaining and the paving stones of the street undulated 
like a troubled sea and came to rest in perfect order.
The mist that clung yet to byway and alley sparked bright and blew away.
At Brother Bomba's, lumber raised itself, casks reformed and filled themselves 
with wine, and all was as it had been before.
In the free zone, the Spring of the Prophet no longer ran as red as blood, but 
was clear and bubbling, pure. The toads that had fallen from the sky became 
stationary, turned to diamond, ruby, and emerald effigies which the starving 
free-zone Maggots trampled one another in their haste to grab.
The mageguild roof snapped tight again; no mortar fell or timber groaned.
And on a Trôs horse before the bleachers, Jihan, whose hands had been raised to 
heaven, lowered them until they were extended straight out to Tempus. "Your word 
is my command, lord of my heart. My father, too, accepts your gratitude. Look!"
Above her head, the clouds dispersed; a sunny morning blazed down upon her 
glowing form. "Now kiss me, prodigious human lover, for I have earned it!"
Tempus cursed himself for allowing her to construe his words as a deal he'd made 
with her and, worse, her father. But Stormbringer was gone, the sky was clear, 
and there was nothing right there and then that he could do but make the best of 
it.




Book Four:
IN THE SHADOW OF THE WALL


A fortnight after the harvest festival parade, the Machadi ambassador gave a 
dinner party in honor of the "valorous souls, men and women, whose bravery, 
above and beyond the call of duty, saved Tyse from peril and destruction during 
that night of horror…" etc., etc.
"What he's really grateful about," said Straton to Critias sourly as, on the 
pretext of checking their horses, stabled with the other guests' in the Machadi 
embassy's rear court, they marked with jeweler's files the horseshoes of mounts 
and dray beasts whose destinations later this evening might prove to be of 
interest, "is Niko having saved that niece of his from some Frog's Marsh demon. 
The rest of us are just here to make it look good."
Straton didn't like this sort of party, where a man had to dress like a fop and 
act like a politician, where the portions of food were small and the drinks 
smaller, where he had to laugh at bad jokes and be polite to the seldom-seen 
Tysian nobility, commanders of the local garrisons, and functionaries of the 
Rankan government.
Strat especially didn't like the feeling he got when Critias set eyes on Grillo: 
Tempus had taken Strat aside and told him that no matter how obvious it was to 
Crit that Grillo had been out to interdict the caravan bringing drugs from 
Caronne to Bomba's (and not, as Grillo maintained, to escort and, as it "turned 
out," save the shipment from insurgents), there was no proof of Grillo's 
treachery and thus Tempus was counting on Straton to keep Crit from going on 
record with his suspicions.
"Good?" Crit grunted, putting down the hoof of the 3rd Commando leader's roan 
and straightening up. "There's no way to make this collection of power brokers, 
rogues, and well-placed back-stabbers look civilized, let alone 'good." Five 
Stepsons certainly won't do it, not when one's Niko, one's a Froth Daughter, and 
one's a damned Hazard."
Crit, palm sliding along the roan belonging to Sync, the 3rd's commanding 
officer, spat over his shoulder in disgust when Straton didn't rise to his bait, 
and added with a theatrical sigh, "That's the lot. Let's gird for the 
forthcoming war of words and go back in there." From his pocket he fished a 
broadleaf sprinkled with pulcis, lit it with a flint from his beltpouch, then 
passed it to Straton.
Taking it, Strat tried not to notice how tired his partner and left-side leader 
looked. In the light of the flaring leaf, the dark circles under Grit's eyes 
seemed to dominate his face, the lines around his mouth were deeper, his 
forehead was crisscrossed with furrows. Strat had been careful not to argue with 
Crit lately; though he might survive it, it wasn't going to do any good.
Handing the smoke back to his leader, Strat inclined his head toward the party 
in progress, its laughter and music spilling out into the courtyard through open 
doors. "Let's go, Crit. Maybe Tempus needs us in there."
"Maybe the sapphire toads that bought passage out of the free zone for some of 
the worst criminals in town will turn back to warty flesh and hop away," Crit 
said cynically, but came along with no further urging.
Critias's problems in Tyse stemmed as much from a flaw in his character as from 
the town itself: Crit didn't know how to fail, never gave up on an operation in 
progress, couldn't turn away from a job—even an impossible one. Worse, he 
couldn't say no to Tempus. And Tempus was asking Crit to sort out the bad apples 
in a barrel which increasingly seemed to contain nothing but.
Not only had Tempus decreed that Crit must officiate as his first officer of 
record and liaison with the garrisons, but also work with Sync and his 3rd 
Commando, although the forty fighters billeted at the northern garrison were 
here as much to prove their superiority to Stepsons as to assist their founder 
in his endeavors.
Perhaps Crit could have done it if Kama hadn't been in the picture, but the 
woman was 3rd Commando first and woman second. When the 3rd came into town, 
she'd picked up and moved in with her unit, leaving Crit with all the problems 
she'd caused him and nothing to make it worthwhile.
So Crit had thrown himself into an operational tizzy, trying to turn up the 
culprits responsible for the destruction of the governor's float and prove that 
Grillo had been up above the pass when the Caronne caravan came through it not 
to preserve order or capture insurgents, but to give the Stepsons tit for tat in 
repayment for a shipment of Grillo's that Crit had interdicted earlier in the 
season.
The only cure for Crit's troubles, Straton was sure, would be a month or two out 
of town on long reconnaissance. When Strat had mentioned this to Tempus, the 
Stepsons' commander had said slyly, "I'm working on it."
Strat had chosen to take Tempus at his word, let the veiled promise buoy him as 
he'd sortied into the mageguild earlier this evening to collect Randal, who'd 
been sequestered there since parade eve and who, Crit had insisted, probably 
wouldn't come with anyone but Strat.
Now, as he and Crit reentered the embassy ballroom, Strat felt as if he were 
walking into a snake pit.
Everyone was there who shouldn't be: Niko, his leg healed and his witchy partner 
beside him in mageguild velvet and lace, was seated at the head table with the 
Machadi ambassador and Aisha, who might well be as guilty as her uncle of 
intrigue in Mygdon's behalf.
Strat, as chief interrogator, had produced from three different subjects the 
information that had led Crit to the conclusion that the fat Machadi ambassador 
was a pawn of Mygdonia: the girl's parents, the ambassador's sister and her 
husband, hadn't escaped when the Mygdonian Alliance conquered Machad. If the 
girl was personally involved, Niko wasn't going to take it well. Right now he 
bent his head to hers and smiled through a close-trimmed beard at some private 
joke. Only Niko was fool enough to pretend that any relationship could proceed 
normally in the middle of this muddled, treacherous war.
Beside Niko's girl was Sync, the 3rd Commando leader, dark and rangy in his 
formal panoply. Next to him sat Madame Bomba and her husband, a scarred veteran 
as tall and stoutly made as Tempus. Then came Kama, with Grillo on her left, and 
those two were getting on like old friends. On Grillo's left was the Rankan 
lieutenant-governor, fair and supercilious and vain; then Tempus and Jihan.
Crit had gone to Tempus earlier in the week and suggested that if Tempus was 
serious about quelling unrest in the town, four assassinations would do the 
trick: Grillo, the Machadi ambassador, Palapot the information-monger from the 
souk, and Oman.
Tempus had replied, "Find another way." However, Crit had not been willing to 
let the matter drop: he tried to tell Tempus what Niko had learned from the 
Caronne caravan master and while watching Oman's weapons shop. Tempus had 
dismissed Critias abruptly, the first time Strat could remember him ever having 
done so, and come later to Straton wondering how deeply, in Strat's estimation, 
Crit was involved with Kama and to what degree his association with her might be 
coloring Crit's perceptions.
The whole situation made Straton very uneasy. Crit's tenacity when on a trail 
was legend; eventually, the four were going to end up dead, and most likely Crit 
would deserve the credit.
So Strat was trying, as best he could, to keep four enemies alive while at the 
same time amassing incriminating evidence against them all as he'd been bid.
Just as Strat and Crit reached their table, parallel to Kama's, and Crit slid 
his chair back until it bumped the wall, the Machadi ambassador rose, tapping 
his electrum goblet with a two-pronged fork so that metal rang on metal and all 
fell silent, then joined him in a toast to "Tempus and his worthy fighters, 
every one."
Then, as luck would have it, Tempus proposed an end to "internal strife and the 
formation of a united front against our enemies, the foul Myg-donians and the 
Nisibisi adepts," and Straton noticed those who dared not drink to that one: 
Oman, present because of some accident of birth, Grille, and their Machadi host 
himself—all had empty glasses or mouths to wipe or dropped cutlery to retrieve.
Neither Strat nor Critias noticed that Kama had leaned over to Madame Bomba and 
both had left the table to seek the ladies' lounge until, when music commenced 
and folk began to circulate, the two women approached Crit and Straton's table 
to take seats a local merchant and his wife had just vacated.
Crit had been watching another girl across the room who looked, to him, entirely 
too much like the witch Cybele, a/k/a Roxane, to be coincidence, and asked 
Straton what he thought: "Would she dare, Ace, come here, brazen as a free-zone 
whore? Or am I—?" He broke off in mid-sentence as Madame Bomba in red satin, her 
mighty breasts powdered and perfumed, sat down beside him and Kama, in gray silk 
loose enough to have accommodated any manner of weaponry or armor underneath, 
slid into a vacant seat opposite him.
Crit greeted Madame Bomba profusely, ignoring Kama.
So it was Strat who noted the red-rimmed eyes and fresh-scrubbed face of the 3rd 
Commando's unit historian, Strat who saw Kama flush, then blanch, then pick 
nervously at the table's soiled cloth, and Strat who had to bid her welcome and 
wish her well. But his training told him something was not well with this one; 
he'd never seen Kama flustered. He'd never noticed anything girlish about her 
before. Even enthralled and cursed and bleeding, blinded upon what might have 
been her deathbed, this woman had behaved like a fighter; Strat had always 
thought of her as one.
Yet the voice which returned his greeting was tremulous. Her eyes were too 
bright. Kama had been crying, he realized, and when she'd said, "A pleasant 
evening to you, Straton. It's good to see you both so well…" and trailed off 
into silence, he found himself wanting to pat her hand or ask her what the 
trouble was.
Instead he turned away, to join the other conversation in progress.
Madame Bomba was saying softly, "… better sort this out, Crit, right here and 
now, before we have a situation no boy of mine would want to have a hand in 
causing. Straton, would you leave us for a bit? My husband, there, has got a 
packet of goodies we brought along to lighten up the evening. Tell him—"
"Anything you've got to say, you can say in front of Straton," Crit said flatly, 
still ignoring Kama, who pushed back her chair, rising, and said, "This isn't 
going to do anyone a whit of good, Madame. I'm going. Forget I said—"
"Sit down, Commando, if you are one!" Madame Bomba's hand flashed out and Kama, 
her arm in a grip the strength of which Straton well recalled, sat back down in 
her chair.
Strat's tongue probed at the hole where a tooth had once been. "Whatever this 
is, I want no part of—"
"Strat, you move and you can find yourself another partner," Crit said through 
gritted teeth, his eyes more pleading than angry.
Strat didn't blame him: alone with these two women was something he wouldn't 
want to be.
"We're all settled in now?" Madame Bomba teased in a dry, unfriendly voice. 
"Good. You are a little less than brave, the lot of you. I'm disappointed. 
You're lucky, Critias, that I didn't go over your head with this. The sleepless 
one might not be so patient as I with rampant childishness among your ranks. Now 
Crit, give Kama a civil greeting. And you, Kama, say hello to Crit—you know him 
well enough."
The two ex-lovers mumbled polite phrases neither meant.
"That, I suppose, will have to do. Straton, I'm sorry you're here for this, but 
perhaps it'll be a help—perhaps you can talk some sense into your leftman's 
addled head."
"What? He's sensible enough, now he's quit of her," Straton couldn't help but 
say.
"Marvelous." The Madame tsk'd and shook her head. "I should leave this to the 
Riddler, it'd serve you all right if I did."
Kama buried her face in her hands, elbows splayed upon the table. The Madame 
indicated her. "Look at what you've done to her—a noble fighter, once, she was. 
Now she'll murder an innocent unborn on your account and carry a stain no valor 
can erase, all the way to heaven."
"Oh, no. That can't be…"
"You deny it's yours, Critias?" The Madame's mouth turned down in disgust. 
"There's ways to figure out…"
"Wait up," Strat interjected. "I don't understand… oh, yes I do. By Enlil's most 
holy privates, is she—?"
Kama seemed to shrink smaller. Her hands slipped down to expose her reddened 
eyes, then her nose, then her puffy lips. She said, "All I want is to be rid of 
it. Madame Bomba seems to think you," she glared at Crit, "have some say in what 
I do with my own body. I told her you wouldn't give a damn. And she's told me 
that she can't help me abort—"
Critias put an elbow of his own upon the table and rested his forehead against 
his thumb and index finger. "Hold on now. Let me get this straight. She's 
pregnant; you think it's some business of yours or mine. Is that it, Madame?"
"Good boy, Critias," Madame Bomba nodded with a humorless grimace. "Now, let's 
do the decent thing and make the Riddler a grandfather, nice and legal. We can't 
have unwed parents of—"
"There'll be no baby, if I have to fall on my sword and kill us both." Kama 
choked, cleared her throat. "Can you see me at my post, or on my horse, big with 
child? Do you know how long and hard I've worked to earn the 3rd's respect and 
pay my unit dues? Crit, tell her you want no part of it… or me. Then it's done 
and I can go."
"Tell me it's mine, in there." Crit, raising his head, let his glance flicker 
toward her belly.
Whack! The slap Kama gave Crit rang across the room and turned his head with its 
force, and other heads with the sound it made.
He rubbed his jaw and nodded. "All right. I get the point. Kama, I…" Crit blew 
out a long, slow breath. "I'd like to be consulted, help you with whatever you 
decide." His hands came up before she got a word out of her mouth. "Now, don't 
yell at me. The damage is done, if damage it is. It's my responsibility but it's 
your body, I know. Just let's go off and talk about it by ourselves. Can we do 
that? This is no place for the sort of things I'd like to say."
Kama's mouth closed, her fists unclenched. She nodded wordlessly and Critias, 
moving quickly, was around the table pulling back her chair before she could get 
up. "Strat, I'm sorry about the timing. What we started in the stableyard… 
you'll see it through? Use Niko and Witchy-Ears, over there, and some of our 
'friends' from the 3rd Commando. Tell Sync I'll need his help."
"No problem," Strat said to Crit's retreating back, then turned away to Madame 
Bomba, who sighed and remarked, "That's how I like to see those two—arm in arm. 
Romance, Straton, my boy, is an area I've heard you Sacred Band pairs know as 
well as any woman." She winked to take the sting from her innuendo. "I'll be 
moving on now. Accompany me to my table and we'll have a little krrf to 
celebrate."
Straton went, not asking what it was that they were celebrating: Crit was in 
worse trouble, having gotten the Riddler's daughter pregnant, than Strat had 
thought him capable of engendering. And what was trouble for one, was trouble 
for both.
He'd had less qualms walking straight into the mageguild to bring out Randal. 
And when he'd been escorted up deeply shadowed stairs to a tiny room by overly 
polite junior magelings, into a sulfurous mist and out again and face-to-face 
with Randal, Straton had only recognized the mage by his freckles and his 
prodigious ears.
Now, at the head table, Randal tugged on Stra-ton's sleeve. Bending down, Strat 
said, "What is it, Stepson?" loudly enough that all would know he was not 
intimidated by this fast-rising Hazard.
"Did you see that woman over there, Straton? Does she look to you," Randal 
lowered his voice, "like Cybele? Or am I the only one who sees it?"
"Yep. No. Crit saw it, too."
"Can we watch her, where she goes? Keep her away from Stealth?"
Taking orders from Randal? Straton bristled, then told himself that he had too 
many responsibilities this evening to let personal feelings intrude. "You've got 
legs, Randal. And eyes. And you're better qualified than any other to watch that 
one. Report to me when you've satisfied yourself. Crit's left me in command."
Randal nodded, his gaze weary, yet game. "I can't stay out here, in the open, 
away from my… work… too long, you realize. I'm vulnerable in ways you don't 
understand. I'll give it until morning. Then you'll have to come to me. You'll 
find me where you found me this evening, task force leader."
And that was that; the mage turned away.
Madame Bomba had her krrf out, which drew Tempus down to their end of the table, 
away from Sync and someone else who'd just slipped in, covered with trail dust. 
The stranger whispered to the Riddler and left again so fast that Strat was sure 
only he and the 3rd Commando leader marked it. And when Tempus bent his head to 
snort the Madame's krrf through a golden straw, he said to Straton, "Bashir 
wants to see me—and Niko. We're leaving now for the high peaks. Where's Crit?"
Straton said casually, "Out in the garden with Kama."
Tempus nodded. "Bashir sent a homing hawk to Hidden Valley. He says it's urgent. 
You and Crit take care of things in Tyse while we're away. We won't be long. 
We'll take the Aškelonians and send back a message as to what the trouble is… 
two, three days."
"Fine with me, commander. Just let him—" Straton indicated Sync, who was 
regaling Niko's friend, Aisha, with some exploit or other while Niko, eyes 
half-lidded, looked bored to a casual observer but actually studied Strat and 
Tempus where they made their plans "—know that the 3rd's under our command for 
the duration… if we need them. Otherwise, we'll be stepping on each other's toes 
without you here to say who's doing what."
"I've done that already. But you deal with Sync; he and Crit have Kama in 
dispute, and other problems. I'd talk to Crit myself, but we've got to be off."
Straton agreed as if explaining this to Critias would be easy. It wouldn't.
"Good man." Tempus clapped him on the shoulder with one hand while he tugged on 
his own tunic with his other. At that signal, Niko got up and threaded his way 
through the crowd—going to get the horses, no doubt. "If for some reason," 
Tempus said, "you haven't heard from us within the alloted time, make use of 
Randal. You seem to be able to come and go as you please at the mageguild."

* * *

Yet again Tempus had left Jinan in the lurch, alone among his Stepsons and a 
clutch of mortals who neither loved nor understood her.
She left the ambassador's party early and wandered, distraught, among the 
jumbled streets. They were full of filth and crowded. Why the humans here 
huddled together, defiling one another and their environment, when just beyond 
the city's limits land stretched green and beckoning, Jihan could not 
understand.
Perhaps they were afraid to be alone. She was not. After Tempus had left the 
party, Sync of the 3rd Commando had propositioned her, either not knowing who 
and what she was or hoping to show his fearlessness in the face of it. She 
didn't know. Humans were a puzzlement, though for Tempus's love she would gladly 
become one. If that happened, then she would understand them.
Now she merely mingled with them, a bemused spectator, taking note, but taking 
nothing she saw to heart.
At the party, Sync's proposal that they "get together for a bit of fag-bashing, 
now that the Stepdaughters' denmother, Tempus, is gone," made no more sense to 
her than his vow to lay "the right hands of a hundred Rag-heads at your feet to 
prove my love."
Subsequently Randal had explained to Jihan that Sync was drunk, that "Rag-heads" 
was what the 3rd Commando called the Mygdonians who wore turbans rather than 
helmets into battle. But Randal had no time then for her wealth of other 
questions. "Meet me at the mageguild gates an hour before dawn the slight Hazard 
had proposed. "Perhaps we can help each other, since our partners have left us 
both to our own devices."
Jihan fancied she'd heard in Randal's voice a touch of the resentment and 
loneliness she felt. Thus, she agreed. Then Randal had bustled off to other 
business and once again Jihan was alone, embedded in the human crowd like a fly 
in amber. She'd drifted out onto the patio, seeking composure from the stars 
above, which never changed or turned away or played favorites, but gave their 
light equally to all, and thus she'd heard Kama and Critias, first arguing, then 
declaring love, fidelity, and passion in thickening voices. Kama was, Jihan 
learned, pregnant with Grit's child.
Weeping was foreign to Jihan; it still surprised her when water flowed from her 
eyes and her body gave up her mind to emotion's pain. But when the couple she 
could hear beyond the bushes began to sigh and murmur and then to gasp in 
pleasure, Jihan wept and wandered off into the deserted evening streets, letting 
her tears flow in the Lanes where none might see or ask her why.
It was she who should be pregnant, cooking up a child for Tempus within her 
human belly. What else was this equipment she'd been given for, and this life on 
earth she'd chosen, but to live most fully, to love and reproduce and bind the 
Riddler to her for eternity?
But Tempus would not accommodate her; her father had forbidden her (and, knowing 
Him, most likely Tempus, too) from earthly parenthood. The Mygdonian child she 
mothered was no substitute for a suckling babe. She'd not have Shamshi long, in 
any case. If Tempus had his way, the boy would be given back to his rightful 
parents; if not, time itself would take Shamshi from her. In the child's own 
eyes, he was fast becoming a man and even now treating her as if he were one.
Resentment rose within her, the fury of the undervalued. She strode the streets 
and kicked at garbage, piles of refuse from which rats ran. She'd even offered 
to give up her super-human attributes for Tempus, to make him love her more. He 
wouldn't have it; her finest gift he had refused.
She froze a rabid dog who leaped from shadows, mouth dripping foam as it sought 
to bite her. Its blood now solid ice, it shattered as it hit the ground.
Jihan strolled on, turning left onto Mageway, and as she did she heard a sound, 
spun around in time to see Grillo and some others from the party headed south by 
southwest, toward the old amphitheater on the outskirts of Tyse.
When she reached the mageguild, Randal was waiting under a torch set in the 
gate. His face was flushed and his words came fast. "Froth Daughter, if you'll 
join me, lend a hand, we'll sneak up on the witch—I think it's Roxane… I'm 
almost certain—and identify, maybe foil, her allies. Think of it! You and I, 
doing what the Stepsons couldn't! Tempus and Niko will take us more seriously, 
after this. What do you say, Jihan?"
She noticed then that Randal's right hand rested on a kris slung at his hip, 
that his pale young face was pinched and his eyes sparkling.
"You can't do it without me, is that it?"
"Yes. No, I can't. Wouldn't dare to try. I've got to be back here to meet with 
Straton by sunrise. My globe… it's given me hints, but it takes its toll. If I 
leave it and some other power should snatch it from its place while I am absent, 
then they've got me. I'm attached to it, you see— Never mind." The mageling 
shook his head. "If you don't want to show the Riddler what you're made of, 
we'll leave the honor and the glory to Straton and his crew."
"Straton! Never! Honor and glory, you say, Adept? Lead on. When next I meet the 
sleepless one, I'll speak to him in language even he can understand."

* * *

In the ancient amphitheater, old when even Roxane had been young, she'd met her 
human allies: Grillo, here against his better judgment; Oman, who had none to go 
against; the Machadi ambassador, who fretted and paced to and fro and looked at 
her accusingly, that she would risk him, flaunt him openly where all could see; 
nearly thirty other rebels, some here because they fought for freedom, some—like 
the Machadi and the Rankan, Grillo—because they had no choice.
Then there came her unnatural allies—her friends and contract demons, her 
undeads, two full score. The Riddler was gone upcountry, taking Niko with him. 
Now was the time to strike terror into Tysian hearts, take the Stepsons down a 
peg, send the 3rd Commando running, tails between their legs. For Lacan Ajami's 
army was closing; soon enough, despite the cloaking spells of her fellow 
sorcerers headed south, they'd be sighted. By then, the town must be ripe for 
conquest, inclined toward capitulation.
All this she told her gathered flunkies while, above, two young Nisibisi mages 
who'd flown in early with messages from Lacan glided, circling upon the 
predawn's gentle air currents, their hawks' eyes fixed on the surrounds to give 
her early warning should any uninvited folk intrude.
Tonight, much earlier, she'd dared to join the embassy festivities, brashly 
donning her Cybele form to see what Niko's response might be.
But the dream lord had his hooks in Nikodemos deeply, so much so that he'd 
either not remembered her, or been able to ignore his formerly obsessive 
attraction to Roxane's Cybele persona.
She fumed, reviewing her troops and giving orders. This coming evening, they 
would burn the northern barracks, where the 3rd billeted, to the ground. And 
Hidden Valley, too, would flame and smoke, horses roasting—for there Shamshi 
languished under guard. This second task she assigned to Oman, who was fearless, 
the one among these human pawns who knew he'd nothing left to lose.
The Machadi ambassador, whose niece sucked up to Niko, would suffer for the 
girl's audacity. Aisha, like all Machadi slime, fervently believed in an ancient 
mother goddess and aspired to be a priestess—not just of Niko's heart, but of 
the Order of the Earth. As such, Roxane speculated, she'd been a perfect foil 
for Aškelon to interpose between the witch and her beloved Nikodemos, who 
boasted Aškelon's protection though the fighter neither knew or wanted it.
She was just about to materialize a plethora of incendiary pellets, 
fireballs-to-be, and conjured wagons with drays of awful aspect for her minions 
to drive rampaging through the town when, above, a hawk cried, then another, and 
both came plummeting to earth to burst apart with a sound like shattering 
crystal as they landed at her feet.
Before Roxane could pretend that nothing untoward was happening, a demon 
shouted, "Attack! Take cover, mortals! The rest of you, fan out and find our 
foes!"
Thereupon others, fire demons from the earth's bowels, took wing, their breath 
already steaming and their jaws agape to incinerate the murderers when they 
found them.
Human women screamed as, from a blue-and-purple sky, a roiling cloud descended, 
black and lit intermittently with bolts of lightning forking down to land right 
in their midst.
Fiends cackled as the first humans flamed, forgetting their own peril to crouch 
over fresh-roasted flesh and lick their chops and eat.
A mortal's throwing star, the sort of weapon Niko used, came flashing by her 
ear; she lost a lock of hair to it and this, at last, convinced her that her 
person was in danger. Until then she'd thought to calm the crowd and form a 
cogent plan.
The lightning struck again, snaking around her feet in a full and vicious 
circle. In its light she saw the Machadi ambassador, robe lifted high, fleeing 
for his life.
Then the first fire-breathing demon, and his brothers, swooped, and the entire 
amphitheater blazed as antique wood caught fire.
Running from the deadly conflagration, Roxane caught sight of Oman, his back 
afire, rolling hysterically in the dirt.
Then above her head the clouds opened up in an attempt by her unseen enemy to 
douse the demons' flames with a downpour so fierce it beat the fire demons from 
the sky.
Howling humans and hissing undeads stumbled through the fire and smoke. Roxane 
saw, as she changed into her eagle-form and took wing above the carnage, that 
the demons had tried to trap in a fiery circle the adversaries who had brought 
the lightning and cast the throwing stars and deluged everything with rain.
But only two figures were in the circle of flame: one was slight and robed like 
a magician; one was feminine but sturdy, overlarge and glowing. And as Roxane 
watched from high above, all her minions, soaked with rain, began to slow, then 
stop, then freeze in place as frost and ice encased them and they tumbled over, 
toppling to the ground to lie there stiff and cold.
Then, when she attempted to spiral down, to dive and pull the encircling net of 
flame in and over her two audacious enemies, the mage got out a paltry, wriggly 
sword. And just before the flames would have met above the heads of these two 
accursed enemies, he spoke a power word and waved the sword. The flames parted, 
obedient to the sword's command, so that those two walked calmly out of danger 
on a charred but no longer fiery path.
Roxane screamed her eagle's scream and in her fury dived straight down at the 
adept who dared defy her, though it might singe her wings to claw out the 
offending rival's sorcerous eyes or snatch the charmed and hostile weapon from 
his hand.
But she hadn't counted on the woman-form, whom her eagle eyes now recognized. 
Jihan, the hateful spawn of Stormbringer, raised her pointing finger Roxane's 
way and all the blood coursing through her eagle-body turned to ice, so that she 
plummeted, out of control, into the raging flames with one final, defiant scream 
of fury which could not form itself into a curse when issuing from a mere 
eagle's mouth.
Frozen, she fell. Falling, she burned. Burning, she hated. Hating, she hit the 
ground.

* * *

Crit had brought Kama, at Straton's urging, with them to the mageguild gates at 
dawn.
Strat had suggested that Randal could help with Crit and Kama's joint dilemma. 
Not sure that he wanted any help, Crit still had to try it: if it were he who 
had a child growing inside him at so inopportune a time, he'd want what Kama 
wanted. He couldn't take it lightly that she wouldn't bear his child, but he 
couldn't blame her. She was 3rd Commando first. He'd always understood this.
Morose and full of conflicts of morality and honor, he shifted from foot to 
foot, leaning against the mageguild's marble-columned gate, leaving it to Strat 
to fill an awkward silence with small talk and help Kama pass the time.
He wished she'd reconsider; maybe she would, yet. If Crit could face the 
Riddler's disapproval— perhaps his wrath—then Kama could survive the snickers of 
her unit. Crit didn't see why she couldn't have their child and raise it with 
him, bravely, honorably. If the 3rd cast her out instead of giving her a few 
months' leave, he'd put her in his own contingent.
But because of Straton, who meant well but wasn't helping, they hadn't had a 
chance to talk about it when Randal, his robes askew and his face black as a 
chimney sweep and sweating, came hurrying up from somewhere with Jihan, her eyes 
aglow and her laughter hearty, on his right.
"Task force leader!" Randal chortled. "Straton! What a stroke, you've brought 
Critias along. We've won! We did it! Jihan and I, we've finally done it. Got 
her! Congratulate us!"
"Won what? Did what? Got whom?" Crit demanded before Straton or Kama, back to 
the wall and face in shadow so no one could see her puffy eyes, could say a 
word.
"The witch! Roxane… you know… Cybele! You saw her at the party, Crit!" Randal 
rubbed his hands together. "Jihan was marvelous! Freezing rain and thunder claps 
and lightning from the heavens! What a team we made! If only Stealth was there 
to see it."
"If only Tempus was," Jihan added huskily, and Crit saw that her chest was 
heaving under scale-armor smudged with smoke.
"Let me get this straight: you routed Roxane… Cybele, if they're really one and 
the same. Where? How? And why, without my orders?"
"Why?" Randal, his feelings hurt, nearly howled. "Why? We've a trifling bit of 
trouble with hostile magic, if you'll recall, task force leader. Or are you too 
caught up with… problems… of your own creation to remember that?"
Then Straton hastily explained, rubbing his neck as he spoke and with a rueful 
expression on his face. "I ordered Randal to follow the witch—or whatever it is: 
Cybele, the one we saw at the party. Tempus, when he left, said he'd told you 
that for the interim I was to take command…" Strat's face screwed up; he shook 
his head.
"… of our joint ventures with the 3rd, that's all. You've overstepped. You know 
it, Strat, from the look of you.
"Randal," Crit turned upon the Hazard, "since when do you take orders from my 
right—"
"Critias! Straton!" Jihan intervened. "We have seen the witch, in eagle's form, 
fall into a cleansing flame. We have seen the end of Oman, the revolutionary, 
seen him die afire, caught him in the act of plotting evil with a bunch of 
demons, fiends, white-eyes, and human traitors. We have seen that the Machadi 
ambassador, and our old friend Grillo, were present among our enemies, though 
those two got away. A compliment or two would be in order. Praise for our valor, 
a medal, or some such token of esteem that I can show the sleepless one when he 
returns." Jihan's fists, upon her hips, uncurled and her fingers tapped. 
"Individual initiative, when the results are good, surely won't be penalized by 
you." She stared at Crit and he felt his flesh begin to cool.
He raised a hand to fend off her freezing glance. "I didn't mean that, Froth 
Daughter. You did very well, just fine. We'll have a ceremony, some sort of 
honors assembly, so that everyone will know. Now, let's hear the whole tale, 
slowly, and in full detail. We'll see where we can go from here. The Machadi 
ambassador was there, you say? And escaped?" Kama cleared her throat then. Crit 
had nearly forgotten her. He said, "Ah… Randal, I've got to talk to you alone."
"Good." The Hazard eyed the sky, where purple was giving way to pink and gold as 
the sun began to rise over the mountains. "I've got to be indoors and with my 
globe quite soon. I can't go with you anywhere, not now, and all of you can't 
come inside—I don't own or run this mageguild, only work here."
Taking Randal aside, Crit said quickly, "It's Kama. She's pregnant and doesn't 
want to be. Just a little; it's not too late to do something. If you could help 
us… I'd be grateful."
"A little? Piff. Critias—sir. that's not my line."
"But surely you could—"
"Murder, by any other name… Not right now, not me. But I'll send someone around 
to see her who hasn't got a globe and stand… And, Critias," Randal added as 
Crit, with a grunt that meant he should have known better, turned away to hide 
his relief. "Are you sure you want to do this?"
"Me? No. But she is." He turned back. "Now, let's get down to business. Give me 
your expert, wizardly opinion of how best, in Tempus's absence, we might 
proceed."

* * *

Roxane had been thawed by the flames, protected to some extent from immolation 
by the ice within her veins. But more than her pride was singed. She'd had just 
enough of her wits about her to avoid capture or death at the hands of Tempus's 
unnatural whore, Jihan, and her warlock partner, Randal.
Roxane hadn't been able to remove herself from the battlefield, only to make her 
eagle's body invisible. And she'd had to lie there on the blackened ground until 
they'd gone away.
Then there was a grisly interval, before she had strength enough to change out 
of her wounded, broken eagle-form, during which she hopped about, eating the 
wounded and the newly dead—hearts and souls, where she could find them.
The sun was high above the peaks before she had the energy to transform 
herself—this time into a lowly sparrowhawk. She'd heard men and horses coming. 
Though this form was weak, she managed to take wing.
Out of harm's way on a laurel branch, she watched the soldiers root among the 
wounded and the dead.
When these were gone, she alighted on the ground and shifted shape again—a 
bleeding human arm dangling useless at her side was less troublesome than a torn 
and dislocated wing—and trekked in woman's form, still weak with pain from burns 
and loss of blood, to the first human habitation she could find.
This was a farm or small estate and the folk there took her in, believing her 
tale of attack by sorcerous insurgents, for they'd heard the thunder and the 
screams and seen the lightning and the smoke. By nightfall she would have 
strength enough, thanks to the tender care given her by the farm manager's plump 
and solicitous wife, to suck the souls from the human fools who tended her.
In the meantime she rested, just a wounded, luckless girl from Tyse, planning 
her revenge.

* * *

Straton and Sync had spent all day following up last evening's leads: they'd 
investigated the carnage out at the ancient amphitheater, a place which gave 
Strat chills. There they'd found the hoofprints of Grillo's horse and others 
Crit and Straton had marked.
Sync's horse, too, had a glyph filed into its iron shoe. When Sync realized it, 
Strat had had to tell the 3rd Commando leader how it got there. To his relief, 
Sync had only shrugged and said, "Well, that's one less we've got to track."
Six of Sync's 3rd Commando rangers had been drafted to aid what Crit referred to 
as the "cleanup." Whatever Randal had said to the task force leader when they 
went off alone hadn't eased Strat's partner's mind. Years with Crit made it easy 
for Straton to tell that his partner was preoccupied. Crit wasn't going to be 
much good to anyone but Kama until this personal problem was satisfactorily 
resolved.
So Strat stepped in without a word to fill the gap; he'd done it often enough 
before.
With Sync, he passed the time relating tales of wizard wars he'd known, in 
Sanctuary and other places. The Stepsons' tour in Sanctuary had made them 
experts on sorcery and undisputed masters of endurance. The 3rd had pulled no 
duty which could compare in terms of hardship with sorting out the foulest town 
in empire. Sanctuary veterans lorded it over other mercenaries that they'd 
survived there. Strat had hated the town when he'd had to live there, but now 
that he'd left, he found it was the sort of place it was handy to be able to say 
that one had been.
At the end of one particularly grisly story, Sync remarked that, these days in 
Sanctuary, there was nothing to revere in those who bore the unit designation 
"Stepson."
Not wanting to fall into any trap of Sync's, Straton let this pass. They'd 
traced Grillo's horse's prints as far as the double-dealer's home in Out-bridge. 
Short of going in there to arrest him, there was nothing more that they could 
do.
Oman's horse, however, its owner dead, had bolted on its own and made its way 
into the souk. They lost its track whenever it crossed a cobbled street like 
Embassy Row or Broadway, then picked it up again in the dirt and clay of the 
alleyways.
The souk was a hard place to track any animal; its clay was a palimpsest of 
wheel- and hoof- and footprints. But one of Sync's cadre was lounging on his 
horse near Palapot the horse trader's stalls and Strat found out the man had 
been on duty since last night. "Come to relieve me, sirs? After that fracas at 
the amphitheater, I don't think I'll sleep for weeks. I'd just as soon stay 
here—common folk making common mischief's more my style than demons and 
lightning bolts and what-have-you."
So it turned out that they had an eyewitness to what went on in the 
amphitheater. Strat proposed outright that they take the ranger to Crit without 
delay.
"Don't you want this Palapot?" The ranger had said that he'd followed Oman's 
wall-eyed chestnut here and that the horse was presently inside Palapot's 
grooming tent, "probably having his blaze dyed brown and his mane dyed black." 
"Wait here." Straton dismounted and went inside. Palapot remembered Straton only 
too well. The horse-trader tugged on his greasy pigtail and his face turned 
white.
"Want to come talk to me in the Lanes, Slime? Or can we do it here, without 
theatrics?"
Palapot fairly stuttered, falling over himself in his eagerness to please. 
Grooms were sent packing and tent flaps tied.
Strat took a stylus from his beltpouch: this confession would be one he'd want 
to have in writing. If it were good enough, and implicated folk enough, maybe it 
would shake Crit out of his funk.

* * *

Aisha's uncle had come to her, his eyes wild and his long gray hair disheveled 
so that it no longer covered his balding pate, but hung in strings about his 
face, saying, "My dear, I have to talk to you. In here."
And when they were in the ambassador's study, musty and warm and cluttered with 
folios, he said, "That young man of yours, Nikodemos—how well do you know him? 
How far would he go to help a relative of yours?"
"Uncle, I don't understand."
Sinking into the chair behind his desk, her uncle poured himself Machadi brandy 
from a stoppered jug, for the first time in Aisha's memory offering her strong 
drink. "Have some. You'll need it. And never mind why, child—just answer me."
"Nikodemos… left the party last night abruptly." She sipped the brandy. "He 
didn't even say goodbye. I might have offended him, paying so much attention to 
Sync. I… don't know. But I'm sure, if it's important, he'll help as best he can. 
He's a man of honor, one of impeccable—"
"But can he keep his mouth shut, respect a confidence, listen to a proposal and 
keep it to himself if he can't help or doesn't think it workable?"
Aisha shifted. She was fascinated by Niko. He'd come to her in a dream and taken 
her by the hand and together they'd approached, by boat, a glowing city on a 
pacific island from which wondrous music came. He'd been in his best armor, and 
it had been glowing. She'd been dressed in a wedding gown. A tall and dignified 
man with silver-starred hair in regal robes had greeted them at quayside. They'd 
been so happy… And then, she'd met Nikodemos. The very next night, her uncle 
sent her down to make sure the Stepson and his partner weren't out to harm the 
Mygdonian prince who'd been visiting at the embassy. Her uncle's actions, she 
knew, were dangerous; but what action was not, these days? Her parents 
languished in a Mygdonian prison camp. Whatever had to be done to keep them 
alive, both she and her uncle would gladly do.
She said, "This won't get Niko into trouble? Or hurt him? He'll never go against 
his commander's wishes—Tempus is like a father to him."
"Girl, just answer me: can you arrange a private meeting—him and me. Yes or no?"
"Yes… I think so. Yes, I'll try."
Blinking back tears for whatever might have been between them, thinking she'd 
never be Niko's bride on her honeymoon in the golden city now and that this war 
was ruining her life, no doubt about it, Aisha got up to go, to change, to set 
out brazenly to compromise the one she loved for reasons she was not supposed to 
understand.

* * *

When the Machadi girl came riding into Out-bridge on a flashy sorrel horse, Crit 
was up to his ears in trouble. Randal had rushed in not an hour earlier, saying, 
"Crit! Did you find Roxane's corpse? Or any trace of her?"
"Randal, can't you remember even an occasional 'sir'? In front of rny men, at 
least?" Crit had been with several Stepsons and two 3rd Commando rangers in the 
courtyard when Randal interrupted. Thinking Randal had come about Kama's plight, 
he'd left them in mid-conversation. "Did you find someone?" he demanded of 
Randal. "Or have you changed your mind and decided to do it yourself?"
"Find someone? Mind? Oh, Kama. By the Writ, sir, that doesn't matter now. I took 
a nap, just a doze actually, and when I awoke, this message was scrawled in 
blood on my power-glyph, this high—" Randal held one hand over his other, a foot 
apart "—on the mosaic floor." The Hazard closed his eyes and repeated 
verbatim:"'Thy doom, foul magician, is sealed. One by one your friends will 
suffer until you beg me for your well-earned punishment." And it was signed, 
"Roxane." Now, answer my question: did you find her corpse, some trace of her?"
"No. Strat went out himself and took a look. But what is the big surprise? You 
got yourself into this, you and Jihan. You solve it. If my problems aren't 
important to you, what do you expect from me, Hazard?"
Randal looked peeved. "You still don't understand. She got into the mageguild, 
somehow. She was there! Cut through all our wards like cheese. It's a wonder 
I've still got my globe."
Crit smiled knowingly. "I didn't want you to have that globe in the first place. 
I knew it would come to no good. And if she was there, why didn't she take your 
precious globe? You're imagining things—or she's content with scaring you to 
death."
"You're not going to do anything? It's your responsibility, taking care of 
Stepsons and the town while Tempus is away."
"Tell me what to do. Against a witch. When you can't handle it. If your knees 
stop knocking, maybe you can conjure your way out of this mess you witched 
yourself into. It's not my problem, as long as Kama's not yours. Now get out of 
here. I've got urgent matters to attend to. And don't come back until you've a 
magic potion or some damn spell to help the Riddler's daughter. Failing that, 
you and I are quits."
Later, Crit was sorry he'd been so hard on Randal, but he didn't have time to 
think about it just then. Strat wanted to arrest Grille on the strength of 
Palapot's confession, though for Straton, Palapot would have confessed to being 
the archmage Datan himself, risen from the dead. The safest thing to do would 
be, Crit thought, to bring in the widow Maldives, Grillo's bedmate, and see how 
Grille reacted. Personally, Crit wanted to leave Grillo where he was, untouched, 
until Tempus returned. The two were old friends; it wasn't Grit's place to lock 
up or put into Straton's eager hands someone Tempus was still trying to protect.
Crit was explaining this to Sync without letting too much slip or allowing the 
commando to think the Stepsons were protecting Grillo when Aisha galloped 
through the gates on her sorrel, ignoring orders from the gatewatch to halt for 
identification and almost getting herself speared. "Stay here, Sync."
Crit approached her alone, reaching up to take her heaving horse's bridle. 
"Aisha, isn't it? To what do we owe the honor?"
"Niko… that is, I've come to see Niko. It's urgent."
"I imagine it is." Arms out to help her down, he continued: "But Niko's not 
here. Will I do?"
She shrank from his touch. "Not here? Oh, no. What will I do? When will he be 
back?"
"Don't know. Can't say. If it's really as urgent as all that, why don't you let 
me help you? I'm Niko's commanding officer, after all. Anything you could have 
said to him, you can say to me—unless it's intimate, of course."
"It's not. It's…" Then, suddenly, she slipped off her horse, almost into his 
arms. As if she'd stumbled, she leaned against him, whispering, "My uncle wants 
to talk to someone in authority. I have a message, but it's meant for Nikodemos. 
If I give it to you, you must promise to tell no one, keep it confidential… Oh, 
Goddess! What if I'm doing the wrong thing?"
"You're not. Let's see it." With a gentle demeanor Crit reserved for horses and 
street men given impossible assignments in the field, he rushed her: if she had 
time to think, she'd get back on her horse and ride away. It had to have 
something to do with last night's escapade at the old amphitheater.
The message she carried, when he'd broken the Machadi embassy seal, said, "I 
want to discuss sensitive matters regarding the Mygdonian forces here and 
abroad. Come alone. Be prepared to offer assurances of safety for myself and my 
family." And it was signed in the ambassador's own hand.
"Stay right here. I'll just get my horse." As he spoke, Crit took a flint from 
his pouch and ostentatiously burned the parchment, turning it in his fingers. 
"Don't worry, Aisha. Niko, if he truly wanted to help you, would have turned 
this over to me in any case."
"Really? Oh, good." She let him boost her up on her horse and waited while he 
extemporized a likely explanation to Sync and his own mount was brought. The 
ambassador was right: nobody should know about this but the principals involved.
It took only a few minutes to reach the embassy at speed, but when Crit and the 
girl got there, servants were running hither and yon and three garrison soldiers 
were at the embassy door talking to guards who looked very unhappy.
Only Critias's rank got them in the door at all, and then one of the garrison 
soldiers accompanied them, saying, "Now, don't touch anything. Nothing 
whatsoever, sir."
"I know the drill," Crit snapped.
The soldier, unfazed, continued, "It's pretty bloody in there—nothing for a 
lady's eyes."
"I want to see him," Aisha said dully, her fingers digging into Grit's arm.
She was tough enough, he saw when they entered the room and viewed her uncle's 
disemboweled corpse. She didn't retch or cry or faint, just stood there; but 
Crit could feel her trembling and had to disengage her. "Stay here, Aisha. 
You've proved your love. He wouldn't want you to see him like this."
The smells of death and the apparent pleasure someone or something had taken in 
killing this man mixed to make even Critias, a field veteran, woozy in this 
close and shuttered space. The word "Traitor!" was scrawled on one wall in 
Machadi; other, nastier epithets in Nisi were appended. Crit hoped Aisha 
couldn't read them.
So much for an informer in the witch's confidence. More than anything else, Crit 
was disappointed. The ambassador's offer was the luckiest break he'd had all 
season.
He took the girl with him, bought her lunch in a cafe on Embassy Row to see if 
she might prove useful, but she knew no more than the "whys" of her uncle's 
entanglement with the insurgents and the Nisibisi witch.
Nevertheless, he took Aisha back to Outbridge with him. Though one more skirt 
was the last thing he needed to worry about, this one was Niko's, by her own 
admission. It occurred to him she could be another Nisibisi witch or some 
phantasm of Roxane's making; but if that were so, Randal would soon discover 
it—and one way or the other, he'd want to keep Aisha under surveillance for a 
while.

* * *

By dusk, in his mageguild tower room, Randal had finished scrubbing the 
defilement from his power-glyph and reinstating and rebuilding protective wards 
and consecrating spells.
He hadn't eaten, he hadn't slept since the one fateful nap he'd taken. He sat on 
his glyph in rumpled robes and nearly wept with distress: he should really tell 
the archmage what had happened, that the mageguild had been breached. But he 
just couldn't. The whole, horrible mess was his fault.
He'd repaired the damage, he hoped. If not, until he'd regained enough composure 
to consult his globe and meditate upon how to proceed, what he'd done would have 
to do.
His kris lay on the tiles nearby and suddenly it began to rattle. He reached out 
and picked it up, stroking it and crooning to it as a man would soothe a child 
or a jumpy pet.
But his kris wouldn't be calmed; it rattled more. At last, he put it on.
Maybe Niko was right; maybe the sojourn to Meridian was the worst, and not the 
best thing that had ever happened to them both. But he didn't believe it, 
couldn't believe it. Anything worth having exacts a price. Stealth knew that. 
Randal had learned it long ago.
He wished his partner hadn't gone off with Tern-pus, then chided himself: he was 
beginning to think like a Sacred Bander, and that was something he dared not let 
himself become. It was bad enough that everyone thought he and the fighter known 
as Stealth had a much more intimate relationship than in fact they did.
Randal was a mage sworn to his calling, the more so now that true Hazard status 
was his. He'd never guessed that his relationship with Nikodemos would bring 
such a conflict of interest, or such a peril, or, if the truth be known, such 
great opportunities. But Tempus had. Tempus had arranged the pairing—ordered it.
Tempus, though inscrutable at times, was seldom wrong.
A soft knock upon his door interrupted the mage's reverie, and when he opened 
it, the First Hazard of Tyse stood there, his wizened form drawn up tall and 
straight as a flagpole.
The nameless adept fixed Randal with a dark and piercing stare. "We trust that 
all's well with thee, young Randal?"
It was a question, no doubt of that. "Oh, fine. Very well, thank you, master 
Hazard. And yourself?"
The old adept's sharp nose had sniffed something—probably Randal's fearful, 
acrid sweat. "Curious, Randal," said the First Hazard, "curious as to how you've 
been faring and all the unexplained comings and goings of late." The First 
Hazard craned his scrawny neck and peered over Randal's shoulder, within, where 
the globe of high peaks clay winked softly in a single candle's light. "Have you 
unlocked its secrets yet? Or is it unlocking yours?"
"Half and half, my lord. Would you like to come in?" There was nothing for it 
but to invite the mageguild's highest official inside; it was obviously what the 
First Hazard wanted. But it was the last thing Randal wanted.
The old man sighed deeply. "Another time, I'm afraid. You have a guest. 
Downstairs. A guest of the sort we'd prefer not to have within these walls, but 
one, you'll agree, we'd best accommodate this time. Randal, if you intend to 
keep company with the secular and the damned, do it elsewhere from now on. 
You're disturbing wizards' work and most likely jeopardizing your own 
advancement here." "May I ask, my lord, this guest's name?" "Shamshi, the 
Mygdonian. And he's blue as a sorcerer, if one uses one's eyes. I'd like to 
suggest that you not bring him up here—rather, take him somewhere more… neutral… 
for this meeting. Furthermore," though I hate to do this, it's come down to it: 
us or them. Either you terminate your association with these soldiers to whom 
you've sworn spurious oaths of brotherhood, or take your word seriously and move 
out of this mageguild." "My lord!"
"You do understand, then. Your career, promising as it may be, is on the line. 
We can't have these sorts of disruptions. Them or us, make your choice. Today. 
I'll be waiting in my office. Other wizards could use this room to good 
advantage, and without putting the rest of us in danger."
"So you know what's been happening. I was afraid of that."
"Not afraid enough to come to me and honestly explain yourself. Conflict of 
interest in an adept doesn't last long—he dies of it. For your own good, Randal, 
quit the Stepsons. Cleanse yourself for a month or so; I'll help you. You've 
nothing more owed to those god-loving murderers; they will destroy you, if you 
let them." The bald head on its scrawny neck seemed to retreat into the 
shoulders below like a snapping turtle's into its shell. "Oh, and by the way: we 
don't do abortions here. Permission denied. If your friends can't own up to the 
results of their lust, then send them to Peace Falls; there are abortionists on 
Commerce Avenue, I've been told."
Speechless, Randal watched as his First Hazard glided away, fading as he 
retreated so that he never turned the far corner, but dematerialized before he 
reached the head of the tower stairs.
Shamshi? Here? It must be, Randal thought, that Jihan was in trouble.
And when he found the boy, sitting on the mageguild's outer steps with a wan 
face and dirty nails, this was exactly what Shamshi told him: that Jihan had 
gone into Frog's Marsh and not come out, so Randal would have to help Shamshi 
find her.
"I can't. I'm sorry, but I can't. She'll be all right. She can't die, you know. 
Don't worry. And don't go there yourself. Whatever you think your budding powers 
have shown you might just be a witch's trick." Randal patted the boy on the head 
and for a moment, as he caught those pale and guileless eyes, hatred and bloody 
hunger seemed to lurk in them.
Randal's kris, under his hand, quivered like a living thing and tried to jump 
out of its scabbard. He held it firmly.
"Come now," the boy said, imperious, insistent.
"No, I've told you, I can't." Randal wasn't going to try to explain to Shamshi 
that the child had put him in a very difficult position by coming here. He sent 
Shamshi off with a swat upon his buttocks and climbed the stairs, not for a 
moment realizing that by doing so he'd saved his own life and foiled Roxane once 
again.

* * *

Riding up to Bashir's high peaks keep with Tern-pus, Niko felt like a boy again, 
following his leftside leader without question, free from doubt and confident of 
the man in front of him as he hadn't been since his original leftman had died 
and he'd found himself leading pair after doomed pair into magical battles he 
wasn't qualified to win.
How easily he'd slipped back into his accustomed rightman's slot; maybe he never 
should have rejected Tempus's offer, back in Sanctuary after his first partner 
had died, to ride on the Riddler's right. But then he thought of Janni, who'd 
trusted him and died of it. To denigrate his own performance as Janni's 
left-side leader was to belittle Janni's valor. This, Niko was not capable of 
doing; he still honored the memories of both his perished partners.
Following the Stepsons' commander up Wizard-wall along trails Niko had known 
since his youth evoked conflicting emotions.
He'd been bound here in servitude to the Nisibisi archmage Datan, a year of 
horror so unrelenting he recalled little of it in detail. He'd become one of 
Bashir's father's Successors after that, and with Bashir had found true honor 
for the first time.
The guerrilla fighters of Free Nisibis had been high peaks bandits then. Bashir 
still thought of him as a brother, though time and Bashir's tutelary god, Enlil, 
had come between them. After the summer's war for Wizardwall, they had parted 
filled with melancholy, both men wishing the other was still the boy he used to 
love.
This time, it must be different. Tempus wanted Niko to talk some sense into 
Bashir. This wasn't always easy. The mountain bandit Niko'd known had grown into 
a warrior-priest who had the world's oldest and most bloodthirsty deity 
whispering in his ear.
Lord Storm—Father Enlil—was Niko's patron god once, too: but now there was 
Aškelon to be considered, and the panoply that Niko wore, the horse he rode, the 
dreams he had all signified that Niko served a different master these days.
Gods were jealous as a class, Enlil the worst of all. If the god gainsaid the 
bargain Tempus wanted Niko to make with Bashir, the warrior-priest would never 
go against Him.
But Niko couldn't fail the Riddler. Even if he must swear allegiance to a war 
god he'd outgrown and break his pact with Aškelon to assure Enlil's sanction, 
he'd do it. And if he did that, Niko knew, he might lose his rest-place and 
perhaps his soul forever. Easy come, easy go, he told himself. What lay ahead 
was fixed by the demands of honor, of solemn oaths given to the sleepless one 
who rode before him, calm, untiring.
What would he lose? A panoply which vexed him, which caused more trouble than it 
cured? Would it dissolve, or turn to normal stuff? Let it, then. And these two 
horses, who never stopped to rest, who never faltered, but loped peakward 
ceaselessly as if their hooves needn't touch the ground— would they turn into 
humble beasts who couldn't climb scree like mountain goats or soar across chasms 
like condors? If so, Niko was prepared to lose his sable mount. He'd already 
lost so much to Aškelon—his freedom, access to his rest-place where the shadow 
lord lurked in his every dream so that Niko wished he didn't have to sleep—he 
was prepared to lose the rest.
For Tempus—who knew Niko'd gotten entangled with Aškelon, yet during the long 
journey up to Wizardwall hadn't once rebuked or questioned him—Niko would do the 
impossible, or die trying, gladly.
When Bashir's forward sentries sighted them, Niko mentioned it: the wolf-calls 
announcing their arrival came from human throats. "Shall I give the countersign, 
say we're friends?" he asked, reining his mount abreast of Tempus's where the 
ledge widened and two horses could safely stand.
At Tempus's command he uttered a long and lonely wolf's howl which made the 
Aškelonian under him look around at him askance.
Above and straight ahead, the high peaks keep gleamed pinkish in the dusk, as 
much from Father Enlil's blessing as from the sun that set to their left. It 
wouldn't be long now; the way was clear and easier than it had been when they 
fought to take these marble towers. Bashir had built three bridges over rifts 
adepts had flown or spelled their way across. Checkpoints loomed above the 
spans, one of which was supported in the middle by a stone spire rising a 
hundred feet or more from a narrow canyon's floor.
A yipping, feral pup's response meant "Come ahead." He told his commander that 
and on they rode, across the Successor-crafted spans and up to the gates of the 
citadel.
The place still gave Niko gooseflesh: he had too many bad memories to believe 
that every demon here had been banished, all the evil exorcised.
As the thick pine gate winched down and the Aškelonians flattened their ears at 
the screeching sound, Tempus asked, "Is there anything you want to tell me? 
Now's the time, if you've questions or confidences. There'll be none later."
"Commander? We've got to convince Bashir to join forces with us and the Rankan 
garrisons in Tyse, I know. Is there something else?"
Tempus sighed. "Not until you say so, Niko. Not, that is, beyond whatever it was 
that made Bashir so nervous that he'd send for me." Then the drawbridge spanning 
the last crevasse thumped into place and Tempus spurred his horse onto it.
The Aškelonians minced across the piney bridge with snorts of disapproval. Once 
on the other side of it, Successors crowded around to greet them both with hugs 
and whoops. Many remembered Tempus with fondness—he'd commanded the joint forces 
of Successors, Stepsons, and specials which had secured this place last summer. 
Others knew Niko from before; still others wished they'd been part of the elite 
squadrons Bashir had sent into that battle and looked with hungry eyes upon the 
Aškelonians and the heroes riding them.
It wasn't long until, their horses led away, they were ushered upstairs through 
halls whose elaborate ornamentation had been defaced: wherever demon lords or 
evil adepts had strode in bas relief, those heads and names had been chiseled 
away in hopes that the evil they represented would likewise be erased.
Niko smelled incense and bay leaves and myrrh and knew that the cleansing of 
this black marble palace was still going on. But Tempus, up ahead with one of 
Bashir's lieutenants, speaking low and climbing steadily, either didn't notice 
or didn't care.
Most Successors still slept outside in low black tents, Niko saw when they 
passed a tower window; many of the open chambers to his right and left still 
showed signs of the fire of this summer's sack. It seemed to Niko that blue 
phantom-flames still licked at the corners of these slick, cool walls that 
wouldn't burn. He could feel and almost see with his maat's eye the ghosts that 
lingered here, unresting, hostile—ghosts that never were quite human and now, in 
death, resented the mortals who had banished them. To his inner ear came sounds 
of anguish, wails of hopelessness, and sobs of spirits in the throes of 
well-earned retribution.
He'd pulled back into himself, shutting down his senses to an unaugmented mortal 
five, by the time they were ushered into the presence of Bashir.
So Niko was unprepared for the worry scoring Bashir's flat, dark, Nisibisi face 
when his friend, in humble hillman's trousers and a wrinkled tunic, straightened 
up from the altar he'd been tending in a room where once Datan summoned devils.
"Riddler! Stealth!" Bashir strode to them, embracing first one and then the 
other. When it was Niko's turn, Bashir's arms lingered, tight about him, and the 
ritual touch of cheek to cheek was full of something more than greeting—relief, 
perhaps, or compassion.
Disengaging, the Successors' leader said politely that it was good of Tempus to 
come so quickly, then: "Shrivel me, Stealth, you look tired. Even if our 
stalwart friend here isn't, you're obviously in need of food and drink—and 
rest."
So Bashir sent a hillman for refreshments and they went out onto a rampart to 
enjoy the sunset.
While they were waiting, the guerrilla-priest said, "I have a problem that 
concerns you. We'll ask Father Enlil's help, then get down to business." Without 
waiting for Tempus to agree and looking straight at Niko, Bashir blessed them 
both with a smoking censer, sprinkled them with "holy dust," and proffered 
goblets of the god filled with pure spring water.
Ritual was ritual. Priests will be priests, Tern-pus's glance said when Niko 
chanced to meet it. Gingerly, Stealth took the goblet and sipped from it, half 
expecting Aškelon to appear in a burst of light or the goblet to shatter in his 
hand. But nothing untoward occurred, unless it was that Bashir, with one more 
low-voiced adjuration, sat down on the rampart's flags and crossed his arms, 
saying, "Now, I know you're wondering, Tempus, why I asked you here. Your sister 
came to visit me. When she appeared, I sent word right away. I—"
"What?" Tempus thundered. "That's all I need. She's not still here, I hope?"
Niko settled down into a squat beside Bashir. The Successor replied, in Nisi, 
"I'm afraid she is," and Niko thought uncomfortably that he should have had the 
wit to warn Tempus that the Rid-dler's sister was intent on joining in the fight 
against Mygdonia. He felt small, incompetent, and foolish for having let his 
personal chagrin at being recruited by Aškelon interfere with his attention to 
duty.
"What's the matter, Niko?" Tempus had seen something on the Stepson's face. "We 
won't let Cime get her hooks in you."
Bashir, too, was looking at Niko. Stealth said dully, "I should have told you, 
commander, that she'd try to do this. I knew. I saw her on Meridian. If it's not 
too late, I could tell you what happened…"
Out of the corner of his eye, Niko saw Bashir start at the mention of Meridian, 
and then he loosed his niaat and felt it fan out wide. Despite the ghostly 
horrors hereabouts, Niko needed every bit of warning his expanded perceptions 
might provide. "With Ash?" Tempus called the dream lord by a nickname only the 
Riddler and his sister dared employ. And Bashir looked from one guest to the 
other with a mixture of distress and distaste upon his face. "It's too late," 
Tempus declared. "I'll hear it all from her, no doubt."
"I'm sorry," Niko whispered.
"Don't blame yourself," Tempus said brusqely. "You didn't know. You've got 
troubles of your own. I had them, too, in younger days. It's not your fault, but 
mine, for involving you with a greedy entelechy and then assuming you could 
protect yourself. We'll solve—"
"Hold it, both of you. Have I got this right? Is Nikodemos yet and still 
possessed, in thrall to the regent of the seventh sphere? A slave of the hideous 
shadow lord?" Bashir's voice was lowering; it became a deep and almost godly 
growl. "If this is so, why did you wait so long to bring him to me? My friend," 
he turned to Niko, tears sparkling unshed in his eyes, "have faith. Enlil will 
fight a war for even your poor, tortured soul that will shake accursed Meridian 
to its very foundations, if you but reaffirm your oath to Him and—"
"Wait a moment," Niko said, an edge to his slow, deliberate words. "I made my 
choice. I'll live with it. Tempus has survived his godbond and his curse. You've 
flourished, Bashir, with a bloody Lord looking over your shoulder. I don't want 
to talk about it. And if the truth be known, commander," he turned to Tempus, 
"not only is it too late for you to step in and solve my problems, but I don't 
want you to mix in this. My rest-place hangs in the balance, and it's worth too 
much to me to lose just to make you or Bashir feel better. That's why I didn't 
say anything before."
Both the priest and Tempus were silent thereafter until the food came. By then 
Niko wasn't hungry. He'd had his fill of knowing looks and knitted brows and two 
men no better off than he—both contractees of supernal forces—trying to save him 
from a fate they'd both embraced.
He excused himself when the food was served, saying he was too tired to eat and 
sleep was what he needed, worried that this unfortunate rov at the beginning of 
so sensitive a visit was going to make it impossible for him to help Tempus with 
Bashir—or anything at all.

* * *

Once Bashir had told Tempus that Cime was on Wizardwall, all things became clear 
to the Rid-dler. There was slaughter in the offing, wizards to slay, hell to 
pay, and hazards undreamed of ahead. Whenever she appeared to plague him, Cime 
brought all of these along with her as if they were her personal retinue.
And once Niko had retired, Tempus could be candid with Bashir. "My sister 
notwithstanding, I'd have made this trip in any case. You and I must make common 
cause: survival. Not just for ourselves, but for Free Nisibis, Tyse and her 
people, as well as your fighters and mine. Our first priority must be this: Free 
Nisibis and Tyse must continue to exist, no matter what."
"This is news? You keep Tyse safe, I'll see to Free Nisibis. I've told you 
before, I'll have no Rankans under my roof or my protection."
"You don't mean that. It's a different war now than the one they won against 
your father."
"You mean you're not fighting against me, so I can't lose. I don't believe 
things are quite that simple. Did you bring Stealth here to convince me to send 
my people out to die in behalf of the Tysians who wouldn't lift a finger to help 
us when—"
"You hate Rankans, you say, but Grille's a friend of yours. True?"
Bashir nodded and Tempus could see his pulse beat in a neck thick with muscle. 
"We've helped each other," the warrior-priest admitted.
"He needs your help now. He'll lose the town. I'm pulling my forces out and 
we'll be leaving—" "You," interrupted a voice from the doorway, feminine and 
sultry, "brother, are right, for once. It must be a coincidence, it can't be 
luck—you've long ago used up all of yours, and the god you serve is too craven 
and too weak to be telling you secrets, these days."
"Hello, Cime," Tempus said dryly, not looking away from Bashir. "To what ill 
fortune do we owe this visit?" But as he spoke he could feel her gaze boring 
into his flesh and her body calling to his. The old excitement he always felt in 
her presence rose up in him and he thought that, since the god of rape and 
pillage who once inhabited him was absent these days, perhaps he'd rape her and 
find out if the Storm God of the South was truly gone. If Vashanka wasn't 
imprisoned or incapacitated, the rape of Cime would bring Him back, full force. 
Thinking this, he bared his teeth.
She hadn't answered. She came around where he could see her. She was just as 
beautiful and arrogant as ever. He had to remind himself that she was, by pact 
and consent of everyone but him, the consort of Aškelon, the dream lord. And 
then he thought that if he dared, he could use this albatross in woman-form for 
good, this once: he could take her from Ash and make Ash release Niko to get her 
back.
So he rose up and, for the first time in years, of his own accord and with all 
the prodigious passion of his person, took his sister in his arms and kissed 
her. When he let her go, Bashir's eyes were downcast.
Chest heaving, Cime folded gracefully down into a cross-legged posture beside 
Bashir, where Niko so recently had been, and poured herself some Nisibisi blood 
wine with shaking hands.
Tempus sat, too, then, watching her, for once sure that he'd gotten the best of 
her, if only evanescently. Seeing Cime nonplussed was something he'd long 
dreamed of—as he'd wondered, off and on throughout the centuries, how it would 
have been for them if, in their youth, his father hadn't insisted that, despite 
all evidence, she was his blood relation, and given her over to an arch-mage to 
wed. From that unfortunate decision, born of passions between Tempus's father 
and his stepmother only those two understood, had come the curse on both the 
children, his involvement with the gods and hers with antisorcerous magic, a 
contradiction, he had often thought, in terms, but one which made her deadly to 
the adepts she stalked through all the years of time.
She was contrite, now, and friendly; she'd gone into her seductress's act. This 
time, like as not, he'd let her have what she so dearly wanted… No! He shook his 
head, realizing that she'd almost got to him, and said to her, "By the way, does 
this visitation mean the dream lord's on his way to fetch you? Have you escaped 
from him?" Bashir muttered blackly, a petition to his god. "Still afraid of Ash, 
my sweet brother? Don't be. He's on our side. He let me come. I'm here with his 
blessing to make sure you win this war this time. No one wants a botch of it. 
You never finish anything, your engagements just drag on and—"
"What war?" Bashir broke in, trying to follow a conversation which wasn't held 
in Nisi, or any one tongue, but a polyglot of dead and living languages brother 
and sister both knew all too well.
"What war? Oh, Bashir," Cime licked her lips, pretending concern, and ran a 
finger down his face from his flaring cheekbone to his mouth. Then she patted 
his cheek thrice saying, "Poor man. You've been so busy you haven't had the time 
to look out your turret window, is that it? Or is your god, Father Enlil, 
playing another one of his fearsome games? Can it be that neither one of you has 
read the writing on the wall? That magic has conquered heaven one more time? 
That you don't know?"
As Bashir demanded that she explain herself, Cime waved a hand and on the far 
wall words in Nisi appeared, chiseled by enchantment deep into the stone: The 
Mygdonian army, two divisions strong, approaches from the northeast.
As one man, Bashir and Tempus jumped up and dashed over to the crenelations, 
Cime's laughter echoing in their wake. "You two should see how comical you 
look…"
"There's nothing there!" Bashir glared back at her.
"Tsk, tsk, of course there is. You are just too blind to see it, both of you."
She joined them, diamond rods taken down from her hair and aglow in her hands, 
and pointed. "There, in the far distance. Surely you can see them now, among 
yonder hills where the trail is dark."
And they could, though without her ensorceled wands no human eye could ever have 
discerned the Mygdonian army so far away.

* * *

By the second night Niko wasn't sleeping well in Bashir's fortress. He was 
trying not to sleep at all: standing up on one foot, then the other, in Bandaran 
exercise postures that should have refreshed him in lieu of sleep, but weren't 
working here. He'd catch himself when he began to fall, prop his body against a 
wall, and start the whole procedure over again. Stand on the right leg, left 
foot tucked up against his groin; struggle for balance; gain it; let his head 
fall back; lose consciousness; fall forward; catch himself on his hands; 
straighten up and begin again.
The blue flames he'd seen licking at these walls and the moans from hell he'd 
heard weren't visible or audible to Tempus. Not even Bashir seemed to understand 
what Niko was hinting at, and Nikodemos wasn't about to explain it outright: he 
didn't want the Riddler or Bashir to think he'd lost his nerve or that his mind 
had snapped from too many brushes with witchcraft.
He found himself wishing that Randal were here, worrying that his partner might 
not come. Despite the Riddler's summons—sent by homing hawk to Tyse to marshal 
all their forces—one never knew with Hazards, though Niko's heart said that 
Randal wouldn't desert him.
Meditation soon became the only refuge left to Niko. His rest-place offered 
refreshment without the loss of consciousness; he could regain his strengh in 
his green and fertile valley without surrendering his volition or losing touch 
with his conscious mind. But Aškelon was there, sometimes, compassionate and 
understanding, true—but there.
Niko didn't want a consultation; by his own reckoning, he hadn't even begun to 
fulfill his obligation, honor his word to the dream lord. He hadn't done a 
single thing to spread the entelechy's name or glorify him.
Once, when he was too weary to care and ready for whatever lecture or 
chastisement Aškelon would give him, he lay down in his rest-place on grass he 
could feel, its every blade distinct and dewy, though he knew he was yet propped 
against the black marble wall. Clouds drifted overhead, diaphanous, then fluffy. 
The feeling of relief that overcame him was unmatched by anything he'd known in 
the world or even in Bandara.
But then a shadow fell and the dream lord's gray and loving eyes transfixed him. 
"Tell Tempus that Shamshi must be brought to me."
"I argued with him once about the boy—I wanted to take Shamshi to Bandara. It's 
not my place to tell the Riddler what to do." The ground seemed cold now, 
unyielding.
"Then you bring him to me. Otherwise, my son, young Randal will have a child's 
blood upon his hands to satisfy Belize's shade."
"Shade? Blood? Wait! I don't understand…"
But Aškelon and Niko's rest-place were fading; he could see the furnishings of 
his chamber like an apparition taking shape. "Wait!"
Aškelon, translucent, turned and came toward him.
"What shall I do?"
Aškelon inclined his head. "The best you can. Heed your dreams. Guard your soul. 
Follow your heart. That will be enough." Aškelon's hand reached out and Niko 
knew he was supposed to take it, but as he tried to, the dream lord and his 
rest-place disappeared and Niko lost his balance once again, this time falling 
forward to land, breathing hard and sweating, upon the cold stone floor of 
Wizard-wall's second-highest tower.
A woman was there, a Nisibisi girl, with a platter of food and drink and a bowl 
of water into which she dipped a rag and then came forward with it dripping in 
her hand.
"Who are you?" he asked. "How long have you been there?" He felt foolish, 
embarrassed. She'd seen him fall, probably heard him talking—seemingly to 
himself, as if delirious.
"I've come to ease your troubled night. Lie back. Let me put this on your brow. 
That's good. That's fine," she crooned as he rolled over.
The cloth was cool and her hands were soothing and he never realized she 
reminded him of his lost girl-witch Cybele as her touch drove everything but 
fleshly comfort from his mind and he pulled her down on him.
In the morning, when he tried to apologize to Bashir for taking advantage of a 
Nisibisi maiden, Bashir denied having sent anyone to see to him while Tempus 
caught his sister's eye and Niko saw the worried look they shared.
An hour later, after obvious contrivance, he and his commander were alone. "I 
had a dream about Aškelon," Niko said. "There was a message for you in it. Do 
you put any store in messages that come from dreams, commander?"
"It depends on the dream and the dreamer. Tell me yours."
Niko did, finishing with: "I wish I knew you'd not blame me for bearing bad 
tidings."
"Blame you? It's Ash I blame, for making you a pawn in this."
"Will you give up the boy?"
"Absolutely—to his lawful father in Mygdonia when the time is right."
Niko grunted. "I thought that was what you'd say. I shouldn't have told you 
anything… it's probably just a dream of mine. I haven't been sleeping well."
"So I assumed. Tell me about the girl who came to you. Describe her."
As Niko did, he started to sneeze and his head began to ache. Ignoring this, he 
continued, daring to tell Tempus about the phantasms he'd sensed lurking in the 
halls and poking their heads out of solid walls and the blue flames that licked 
at the corners of his vision.
"What do you propose we do about it?"
Niko spread his hands. "Sleep outside with the troops? I don't know. I know I 
can't sleep another night in here."
Tempus's eyes narrowed as if Nikodemos had said something important. "Good 
point. Are you well enough, sniffles or no, to trek on out tonight? Beyond 
Wizardwall, just you and I, on long reconnaissance to cause what harm we may 
among the Mygdonians?"
"Blessed be Ask—" Almost having praised the dream lord like a god, Niko stopped 
himself and said hastily, "Yes, sir, commander. I was hoping you would say 
that."
"Good. Get ready, requisition what we need from Bashir's stores. We leave at 
dusk, just you and—"
"Leave?" came a silky voice from behind Tempus. "Without me? Surely, brother, 
you can't mean that."
"Niko, please excuse us. I've instructions to leave for those who'll come after 
us."
He was glad enough to go: the Riddler's sister was the only woman Niko'd ever 
known who made him thoroughly nervous. He prayed that the Rid-dler would leave 
her far behind, that she wouldn't be riding with them.
And in the soft dusk, with the Aškelonians snorting their joy to be away from 
the Nisibisi stronghold and a chill wind in their faces as they headed north, it 
seemed that Niko's prayer was answered.
Just the two of them, the Riddler and the young fighter, Nikodemos, set out to 
war among the Mygdonians.
This pleased Niko greatly, and it must have pleased the gods as well, for as 
they rode the chill wind died and the whispering pines enfolded them and 
Nikodemos, safe upon his great war horse at the Riddler's side, dozed in his 
saddle without a single evil dream or manifestation of the shadow lord appearing 
to bedevil him.





Book Five:
BEYOND WIZARDWALL


An epidemic ripped through Tyse like Lord Storm's lightning, sending the strong 
to their beds and the weak to their graves. Only strangers and the refugees in 
the free-zone blamed the gods for their misfortune—veterans of previous wizard 
wars had suffered through worse in Tyse; they knew sorcery was to blame.
This explanation the Stepsons gave to the 3rd Commando and the priests to their 
congregations, so that crowds with rotten eggs and moldy vegetables and 
wineskins full of lamb's blood began to gather before the mageguild.
Crit and Sync had to deploy men along Mageway to help the garrison troops 
control the mobs. As soon as one chanting throng was out of eggs or beaten back, 
another would form. The only result of this milling and shouting before the 
mageguild was that the disease spread faster.
The Hazards of Tyse barricaded themselves within ensorceled walls and withheld 
the only aid that might have helped.
Nor were the 3rd Commando rangers, quartered in Tyse's northern garrison, immune 
to this sickness which began with a red rash on the neck and escalated rapidly 
to sneezing and congestion, then a fever followed by coma and, in most cases, 
death. Garlic was hung on doorposts; incense burned by every sickbed. Rankan 
gods were petitioned for mercy but still commandos sickened.
When three of his rangers had died, Sync came to Crit, demanding to know what 
secret defense the Stepsons had: not one of them had even caught a chill, though 
they'd been among the demonstrators as much as any man of Sync's.
"The god loves us," Crit had said, deadpan. "We've got divine protection."
"Which one, man, which one?" Sync demanded, taking Crit seriously.
They were in the Outbridge station, alone in Grit's front room, poring over 
reports strewn on his table—including orders brought by homing hawk from 
Wizardwall to muster their forces and proceed north posthaste: one to Crit, one 
to Sync, one meant for Grillo and his specials, and one to Randal that Crit had 
had no luck delivering.
"Which god?" Crit repeated, not believing at first that Sync was asking his 
advice—he'd never seen the 3rd Commando's leader flustered. But the dark, 
cleft-chinned ranger was deeply shaken by the loss of three of his top men to an 
enemy he wasn't qualified to fight.
Sync just stared at him.
Crit said, "Look, Sync, why don't you move your unit over here? Those we can't 
accommodate here we'll send out to Hidden Valley for a day or two— we've got to 
be on our way north day after tomorrow, at the latest. It's just a matter of who 
we'll leave behind." He tapped the strewn table top in front of him. He wasn't 
going to try to explain to Sync about the Slaughter Priest's ghost, who'd 
appeared to Critias and half a dozen others in a dream the night townsfolk 
started dropping with the plague. The ghost of Abarsis had given Crit a draught 
to drink, a recipe for making more, and a litany to recite to ward off "witch's 
work."
It had been bad enough to have to tell Kama about Abarsis, the Stepsons' founder 
who was in heaven, so that she'd take Crit seriously and drink the foul potion 
made from lichen and mold and toadstools and fertile eggs; he wasn't going to 
give Sync a chance to scoff.
So they got down to specifics: whom they'd take north and which fighters would 
have to stay behind in town. Crit was bringing Grillo, as Tempus had requested 
which meant he'd have to release the widow Maldives from custody and be polite 
to the double-dealer both he and Sync detested above all others.
Just then the door burst open and Straton, who'd long ago forgotten how to knock 
or observe the courtesies of rank where Critias was concerned, stomped in, his 
face bitten red from the cold outside.
"God's dung, Crit, you've let the fire go out!" The chill coming from Strat's 
clothing was palpable as he strode past them both and knelt before a hearth gone 
nearly as cold as the first frost freezing the ground outside. "Greetings, 
Sync," came from Strat's bowed head. "Come to seek asylum from the witch?" 
"Strat," Grit's tone was cautionary; he didn't need more trouble than he had. 
"Any luck getting into the mageguild?"
"Maybe. We'll see. I got a message as far as the bottom floor. Whether Randal 
will receive it, or deign to answer, is a matter for the seers, not me." With a 
poker, he fussed among the banked coals, coaxing them to life. "That's better," 
he sighed, and turned, still hunkered down. "Let's just go; we've a job to do. 
One baby wizard isn't going to make or break this mission." Ignoring Sync's 
presence, Strat spoke confidentially to Crit. "We'd better go while we still 
can: that girl, Aisha, Niko's friend—she's not feeling well. Neither is the 
cook. I'd rather die fighting shoulder to shoulder with Bashir than here, if it 
comes to that. We'll end up killing horses if we wait much longer and you expect 
to make that rendezvous with the Riddler." The fire caught behind his back, 
crackled and blazed, backlighting Straton as if a god had touched him. If 
Straton, most cautious and pragmatic of men, was hot to leave, it was surely 
time to go. But Crit was enmeshed in a web of administrative details so binding 
that if he didn't know better, he'd have thought the witch Roxane, herself, had 
spun it.
Crit still hadn't figured out a way to keep Kama here, a safer place, plague or 
no, than fighting Mygdonians and Nisibisi wizards in a guerrilla war beyond 
Wizardwall. His orders bade him lead his men through Successor-held passes north 
to harry and divide an army outnumbering them ten to one. He had a job to do and 
so did Kama—he shouldn't dwell on what grew within her belly so that it 
distracted him from work and even caused him to think of Kama in ways a fighter, 
regardless of sex, would have reason to resent.
So he said to Strat, "What about Jihan? The boy?"
With a gusting sigh, Strat levered himself to his feet and came to join them, 
his guarded eyes saying he'd give Crit a moment to reconsider just how much of 
Tempus's strategy the 3rd Commando ought to know.
But when Crit still waited for an answer, and Strat, with a scrape of wooden 
chair on wooden floor, had slid into a seat and poured himself some flat Rankan 
ale, which had kept its chill because the room was cold, Strat said, "All set. 
She's taking him up to Bashir's on the Trôs horses."
Just then Sync, reaching for the earthen pitcher that held the beer, sneezed, 
spraying Grit's wrist and Straton's face with moisture.
"Great!" Strat said.
"Feeling under the weather?" Crit asked, wiping his arm on his breeches.
"Sorry. Just a chill—the cold air you let in, Straton."
"Let's hope." Crit suddenly wanted Sync well out of there. He began wrapping up 
the meeting, creating a timetable for troop movement and leavetaking. He was 
nearly done when the door to his sleeping chamber opened.
There'd been no one in there; Grit's back was to its threshold. Straton's 
widening eyes warned him and he snapped upright, pushing back his chair with his 
knees: he couldn't draw his sword or get any momentum behind a knife-throw 
sitting down.
As he whirled to face whatever enemy had sneaked up on them and Straton reached 
behind him (from the wall taking a crossbow and fitting a bolt, levering it to 
firing position), a laugh—throaty and distinctly feminine—filled the room.
"Don't shoot, O mighty warriors! Stepsons, I surrender! Skewer me not, or my 
brother will have both your skulls made into lamps!" Then the figure stepped 
through the door and into the hearth-light.
Crit already knew by then who it was. That voice, neither he nor Straton would 
soon forget: Cime, Tempus's fey sister, had healed Straton's failing eyesight 
and Critias's battle wounds during the Wizardwall campaign.
She'd done more than that for Crit—bestowed her charms upon him and, for all he 
knew, on Straton, too. This had caused some little friction between the task 
force leader and Tempus, and because of that, Crit had found it expedient to cut 
her loose. Or so he chose to remember what had passed between them.
Whatever Straton thought was not mirrored in his eyes, but Sync—who'd never seen 
Cime, or anything, Crit was willing to bet, as arresting as the Riddler's sister 
in her Aškelonian blood-brown armor and her fearsome helmet with three bobbing 
plumes—looked as though someone had just clouted him on the head.
Straton said, "Oh, god's balls, now we're in for it. Lock up your family 
heirlooms, boys; try to get some sleep during the day."
"Excuse me?" Sync had no idea what Cime's presence meant—an escalation of all 
conflict, a surfeit of extracurricular problem-solving, division among allies, 
all the trouble this woman signified.
"Cime," Crit said. "Lovely to see you. Are we that late, that he's sent you down 
to hurry us along?"
She came toward them, her hips swinging as she moved in a rustle of armor and 
leather. Her gleaming boots punctuated her words as her heels cracked on the 
planked floor. "Critias, well met. And Straton, nice to see you. I trust you see 
me as well, Strat. And no, he didn't send me. I thought I'd come down here, 
though, and facilitate the mobilization of our forces—we wouldn't want the 
troops worn out from trekking just when we need them for such a tasty little 
war…" As she spoke, she snapped up her visor and then took off her helmet. Black 
hair cascaded down around her face, shining locks freed by the removal of 
diamond rods to whose power Critias could personally attest.
She took Grit's seat, opposite Sync, and smiled. "Who is this? Will neither of 
you two Stepsons introduce me?"
"We'd as soon not," Straton said. "We need him just like he is."
Crit looked down at Cime. He wished she'd disappear back into the dream lord's 
realm; he hoped she wasn't the jealous type, and that he could keep from falling 
under her spell again—for his own sake as well as Kama's and the Riddler's. He 
said, "This is Sync, captain of the ex-Rankan 3rd Commando, now reunited with 
your brother. Sync, meet Cime, sorcerer-slayer of renown. As you may know, Cime 
is Tempus's sister and thus off-limits to all of us—"
"Oh, yes?" Cime's neck craned and, peering up at him, her eyebrow raised, she 
reached for him and brought Grit's head down to hers. He couldn't do anything 
but let her kiss him.
He didn't like this at all. One thing was certain: with Cime here, he'd 
double-time his preparations; get his people out of town as soon as possible.
When he could disengage her, he wiped his lips with the back of his hand and 
said, "Can you move nearly a hundred fighters? Or is that too big a job for 
you?"
"Too what? Foolish boy. Sit down." She patted the table where she obviously 
expected him to perch while she wrested his command from him and started in 
straight away: "Tell me about this problem you're having with the mageguild—that 
junior Hazard, Randal, is it? I couldn't help but overhear."
Sync was watching her with the sort of fascination a cornered mouse has with a 
hungry snake.
Straton finally put his crossbow by arid sat, then, saying before Crit could 
find a nicer way: "Randal's a Stepson, a valued asset. You keep your hands off 
him. Our mage, a good one. Do you understand?"
"I understand, Ace," she called Strat by his war name, "though I'm not convinced 
that you do. If you really need to talk to Randal, I might be of help. But then, 
of course, it's up to you." She looked between Strat and Crit. "As for moving 
the troops by other than natural means, we'll talk about it this evening, 
Critias, just you and I.
Meanwhile—"
She turned the full force of her smokey gaze upon Sync and said, "Can it be that 
you're not feeling well, soldier? A touch of influenza, perhaps? You wouldn't 
want to catch that witchy plague going around hereabouts, would you?"
"Is that a threat?" Sync misunderstood.
Crit stiffened, but Cime only chuckled, saying that if Sync would repair with 
her to yonder bedroom and cross her palm with silver or with gold to satisfy 
"the ritual," then she'd make him well in no time, and immune to the plague 
thereafter.

* * *

Everyone prepares for battle in his own way.
Tempus, on the night he and Niko came within sight of the Mygdonian camp, got 
out his leopard-skin mantle and his helmet set with boar's teeth and sat quietly 
before his tethered Aškelonian, oiling his leathers and whetting his 
sharkskin-hilted sword and wrapping with cheesecloth every buckle, D-ring, and 
clasp among his panoply and tack that might clink. His horse, like Niko's, had 
been cooled, fed, groomed, and had its forelegs sheathed in oxhide wraps and its 
hooves silenced with leather boots. Now it stood above him, head high and 
nostrils distended to learn all it could from the breeze which brought the scent 
of Mygdonian horse-lines, cookfires, and enemies to it through the mixed grove 
of pine, ash, and maple in which they camped. Its oblong pupils glowed as it 
stared upwind through the rustling leaves.
Niko's stud was with its master, some distance off among the trees. A while ago, 
Tempus had heard the susurrus of horses' hooves disturbing fallen leaves, but 
now no sound came from the direction in which Stealth had disappeared. The boy 
sought his maat, no doubt, through meditation, or had piled up rocks and now sat 
waiting for Father Enlil's blessing before an improvised Storm God's shrine.
Tempus sought no divine sanction, no blessings from on high or even promptings 
from within. He blacked his face and limbs with soot, donned his fearsome helm, 
and smoked a broadleaf laced with krrf, his hands cupped around the coal to hide 
its light. Then, feeling as much the avatar of destruction as he looked, he set 
out to find his right-side partner. Though he respected the youth's need for 
privacy and ritual, it was time for them to go.
He found Niko standing in a clearing, his face pressed to his mount's neck, one 
arm over the beast's withers, and wondered transiently whether Stealth, a 
boy-soldier of unparalleled reputation with over a decade's experience in the 
field, was actually afraid. Then Tempus chided himself: in spite of the charmed 
panoply he wore and Aškelon's "best" intentions, Nikodemos was resoundingly 
mortal. If the youth knew fear, he had every right to entertain it: 
circumstances had conspired to put Niko on Tempus's right hand, alone, against a 
Mygdonian contingent two divisions strong.
In times like these, men went exclusively by war names. The habit was so 
ingrained in him that Tempus, whose true name was safely buried in his past, 
thought of himself now as men described him: the Riddler. And when he called to 
his rightman, he said, "Stealth. Time's up. Let's go."
His words were Mygdonian; they'd been speaking the language since coming down 
off Wizardwall to brush up on the tongue and thus on the mindset of their enemy. 
It was lucky Niko had spent time among Mygdonians; no other Stepson had.
As Stealth raised his head and turned to lead his horse in Tempus's direction, 
Tempus decided he'd best not fool himself: there was no luck abroad tonight, or 
any night he and Stealth did battle. As it had been for Tempus long ago, so it 
was now for the youngster coming toward him—with one glaring exception: Niko was 
no sleepless one.
Otherwise, they were a true pair, prompted by forces neither venerated into 
actions neither condoned. The worst thing about tutelary gods and supernal 
patrons' habits of "helping" chosen warriors was that deific or magical aid took 
all the honor out of war, the meaning out of sacrifice, and the joy out of 
winning.
By the time he'd mounted and reined his horse toward the Mygdonian encampment, 
Tempus was missing Vashanka, his old companion, Rankan berserker god and 
pillager extraordinaire: when Vashanka had habitually possessed him, at least in 
battle his own melancholia was eased and surmounting an enemy made some sort of 
sense.
If ever he came through this without losing his Stepsons—or especially without 
losing the particular Stepson slouched on the horse to his right— he'd cut loose 
the boy and his whole beloved cadre and go alone to seek his missing god in 
whatever hell or sorcerous prison He now dwelt. It was as close to a prayer as 
he could manage. But then, it had been centuries since Tempus had put any stock 
in the power of prayer.
He had that in common with the Mygdonians whom he and Niko then set out to 
spook: Mygdonians were godless to the man. They died without mumbling prayers or 
even making warding signs.
The first pair of sentries he and Stealth sneaked up on found their throats slit 
where they sat dozing and couldn't make a sound with their vocal cords cut. 
Though they had plenty of time before they bled to death to consign their souls 
to the gods with handsigns, they didn't—they just scuttled toward their camp, 
stumbling as they ran.
It didn't matter if the sentries made it back to camp, though that would be fine 
with Tempus: he wanted every casualty of their evening's work investigated, 
examined, accounted for.
But he couldn't wait around. They vaulted to their horses and split up: Stealth 
to use his throwing stars and poisoned blossoms along the western edge of the 
encampment, the Riddler to set tripwires across the southward trail.
When they met again, the youth had used nearly all his stars and Tempus's trap 
was well and duly set.
"The horses, now?" Stealth whispered, shoulder to shoulder with him and barely 
out of breath though in the camp alarms were sounding, men running to form 
search teams and groping for their weapons in the dark, trying to make sense of 
what was happening and shake off drunken sleep.
"Now," Tempus confirmed, knowing that war upon the horse-lines was distasteful 
to the youth: the flash of cold eye he met under Stealth's raised visor 
confirmed that, as of this moment, young Niko loved him less.
Feeling cheered, the Riddler took the wineskin full of naphtha that Stealth held 
out wordlessly and continued what the boy had started: laying an inflammable 
circle of the oil-based incendiary around the perimeter of the entire Mygdonian 
camp.
The poisoning of hay and water and the running off of mounts in which Stealth 
now engaged would save some beasts from fiery death, which horses fear the most 
of all.
Only for a moment did Tempus pause to watch the youngster slip through the 
undergrowth without a sound; one blink, and even the Riddler couldn't see him. 
Stealth had covered his panoply as well as his skin with soot: it was up to 
Tempus to affright them, Niko'd said; for his part, he'd content himself with 
killing them.
Then, as now, Nikodemos had reminded Tempus by his grim attitude more than his 
words that it was in behalf of Mygdonia that the witch, Roxane, had first 
tortured, then possessed, this Stepson. Revenge for Niko's ravaged spirit, his 
partner Janni's horrid death, had been what lured Tempus and his Stepsons north 
from Sanctuary. To avenge the harm the witch had done while inhabiting the boy 
and after, to his self-esteem and his reputation among his fellows, from whom 
Stealth still felt estranged, would take some doing: more Mygdonians than those 
camped before them would have to die before they got the witch.
Whether even Roxane's head upon his pike would reinstate the love and trust 
Nikodemos had once enjoyed as a core member of the Sacred Band, Tempus was not 
certain.
As Stealth slipped off to lime the water, taint the hay, and foul the wine and 
food on which the Mygdonian army depended, the Riddler circled west and north, 
the goatskin bag of naphtha ever lighter in his hands.
Twice he encountered sentries and twice he killed where he could not maim.
The object here, as previously, was to let some luckless fools run hysterically 
into camp with tales of a leopard-skinned apparition, a giant with no face in a 
boar's-tooth helm who was in a dozen places or more at once: let Roxane explain 
to the Mygdonians, if she could, what he was and from whence he'd come.
To make sure it was on him the soldiers concentrated, after him they searched, 
and upon his terrible aspect they meditated, he showed himself at times, riding 
into jittery, noisy groups of four and five who combed the woods on foot, 
letting his foul-tempered Aškelonian wreak havoc with its teeth and hooves while 
he cleaved about him with his god-given sword in his right hand and an old, 
beloved war ax in his left.
He took two crossbow bolts in one encounter, though he'd judged the quarters too 
close for archers, and bellowed loudly that they'd better get their warlocks and 
their witches to protect them as he pulled out the bolts with more contempt than 
he really felt and snapped them both in twain, casting them back into the midst 
of Mygdonians quaking in their turbans as his steed, squealing, galloped away.
When he reached their due-north rendezvous, Stealth was not yet there. The 
Riddler poured the last of the naphtha sparingly until he found the spot where 
Niko'd begun pouring his; then he sat at the joining of a naphtha circle which 
would soon be a ring of fire.

* * *

All this, without the aid of gods or the appearance of magical defenders? He 
could not quite believe his luck—nary a demon nor a fiend nor a white-eyed 
undead had come out to engage him. His horse had suffered only three superficial 
wounds on its rump. His own wounds hurt but they were bleeding less now; the 
profusion of blood making his right side sticky boded well for healing. Pain was 
something he'd learned long ago that one must endure.
Squatting on the ground, he bound his wounds and walked his blowing horse in 
circles while, just south of him, in the Mygdonian camp, chaos raged. By now 
they'd be shooting at each other. The point of this sort of harassment was to 
induce confusion; more casualties would result from the hapless in the way of 
their own crossbow fire and men too frightened to identify themselves before 
they started swinging than from what Tempus and Niko, striking as quickly as 
they could from all directions, had done so far.
Time was passing and the sky was getting bluish; they were losing the darkness. 
Where could Niko be?
The Riddler had to set the fire while the night was still upon their enemy. 
Though Mygdonians were godless, they were not free from superstition. They had 
no magic of their own because they feared it more than death. Their 
contract-mages, Nisibisi black artists, might hold them firm by threat in the 
face of mortal enemies, but if Tempus could convince them that they faced a 
vengeful god, they'd break and run.
When, after what seemed an interminable interval, Stealth had still not 
appeared, he considered alternatives: he could set the fire and return to his 
own base camp, trusting that the youth would join him when and if he could; he 
could try calling upon Stormbringer, or Aškelon, for aid; he could sortie into 
the camp himself to find the boy.
One remark that Nikodemos had made kept coming back to Tempus as he hesitated: 
"We ought to have Randal with us, commander. Much as I hate to admit it, we 
could use the Hazard's help."
The Riddler had said nothing at the time. Now he wished he'd heeded Stealth, 
back in Bashir's high keep, and ordered Randal to join them in the field rather 
than come up later with Grit's cadre. But like Cime's, Randal's help was 
tainted, could turn out for ill as well as good.
And Niko was Tempus's responsibility, if a fighter of his quality could be said 
to be anyone else's but his own.
So the Riddler got out his flint and steel and lit the naphtha, standing well 
back from it: if a diversion would be helpful and timely, the racing circle of 
flame, licking skyward, would do the job.

* * *

Niko had been passing among the horse-lines, his palm trailing off rump after 
rump, his work there all but done, when some ill-tempered beast had kicked him.
Some horse's hind feet had struck him so hard in the chest that the force of it 
had lifted him off the ground. But for his cuirass, forged by ancient hands and 
tempered with magic, his ribcage would have been caved in, his breastbone 
crushed.
As it was, he woke flat on his back, trying to catch his breath, the sky above, 
bereft of stars, turning gray and brown, with the screams of men and horses in 
his ears.
Gray? Brown? That wasn't right. By some piece of serendipity he'd landed under a 
short pine tree with broad and thickly needled branches. As he struggled to his 
elbows, he caught the breath he'd needed. Then he understood the gray/brown sky: 
fire. The Riddler had lit the naphtha.
Although he knew what he would see, Niko pawed at the branches hiding him from 
the Mygdonians, half their turbans unwound to cover mouths and noses now, to see 
the ranks struggling with balky, fire-shy horses who'd already eaten and drunk 
enough of what Stealth had added to their hay and grain and water that many were 
already swelling with colic.
Some steeds had gone to their knees, heedless of the fire and the men who held 
their heads and tails to try to keep them on their feet. Others snapped at 
soldiers who tried to blindfold them or remove the tainted food.
From their concern with their mounts, he realized they did not yet know that the 
fire encircled them; when they did, it might be too late for most of these.
Gasping from the pain of cracked ribs as he struggled to his knees, Stealth 
sought a likely exit.
But none was immediately apparent: the smoke billowed inward and the Mygdonians 
ran hither and thither, and from the center of the camp where the brightly 
colored tents of royalty were pitched, women and robed figures which might be 
Nisibisi warlocks streamed to seek in vain the water Stealth had limed.
From his waterbag he poured mineral water onto a strip of linen he'd torn from 
his undershirt and bound the strip over mouth and nose. He tried not to dwell on 
the fact that Tempus had closed the trap with him inside: he told himself it was 
a compliment, that it proved his commander thought that Stealth could fend for 
himself.
He'd better be able to, or else he'd fry.
Standing was too painful; he scuttled on his hands and knees toward the northern 
perimeter of the camp, where the fire would have started and where, with luck, 
he'd find a spot where it had burned up all its fuel, or burned thin, or burned 
low.
He'd left his horse beyond, among the trees to the west. He wished he had it now 
as his ribs grated upon one another. His breath came hard and stars danced in 
his vision. He needed both hands to make headway in this thick brush he must 
keep to, or risk discovery in the midst of his enemy, but reflexively, his arm 
pressed against his side to try to keep his bones from grating.
He'd made a bit of distance and calmed enough to realize that his cuirass was 
not even dented when a whinnying horse with tail ablaze galloped by, a rider on 
it; then another; then three more riders, yelling to each other in Mygdonian 
that it was time to save themselves.
Niko couldn't have agreed more, but the fire was faster than he was and he 
couldn't seem to muster courage or equilibrium enough to stand and run or even 
stand and fight. He must have hit his head as well, he thought, and turned to 
look behind him just as three Mygdonians came crashing through the underbrush 
the other way, javelins in hand, faces grimy so that their eye-whites seemed as 
bright as the all-white orbs of the undead.
But they weren't undead yet—they'd seen him and knew he wasn't one of theirs 
from his helmet and his gear.
At least they hadn't had the wit to call for reinforcements, though whether 
they'd have been heard amid the din was anybody's guess.
"There's one! Get him!" their leader called.
"One what?" another replied, but cast his javelin so that Stealth's reflexes 
threw him to the dirt and he saw pinwheeling stars when he hit.
He had three blossoms yet; one axiom he followed was to always hold something in 
reserve, a last defense.
"Did you hit him?" Niko heard the leader's voice and thanked the gods for the 
smoke obscuring everything.
"I don't think so. Let's look."
Yet lying prone, Niko slipped his dirk from his scabbard and the three blossoms 
between the fingers of his left hand. He'd try that first: it was his right side 
that really hurt him; the movement needed to slip his charmed dirk free had made 
his breath catch in his throat. And that dirk in his hand was warm, telling him 
sorcery lurked close by.
One thing at a time, he told himself, and when he could see booted feet clearly 
through the smoke he gritted his teeth and rolled to his knees, casting the 
blossoms—one, two, three—steeling himself for the effort it was going to take to 
stand, if he missed any of them.
He knew that with his right side in this condition, in hand-to-hand he wouldn't 
last long against a Maggot from the free zone, let alone well-trained soldiers. 
But he'd give it all he had.
Before he could gain his feet, one man yelled, another cursed, and Niko heard 
the unmistakable thump as human deadweight hit the ground.
The third, however, launched himself at Niko from above, telling him, "All 
right, devil bastard, man or shade, you've killed your last!"
The force of the impact bore Niko, in heavy panoply, over backward; cheek to 
jowl with the sweating Mygdonian whose turban was flopping, half-unwound, 
between them, making it hard for either man to see, they wrestled on the ground.
He felt something sticky on the other's back, recognized it as blood, and 
realized that the poison on his blossom would help him win if he could just hold 
out—he'd grazed this enemy, so some poison had to be in the other's bloodstream.
Meanwhile, there was a short, curved sword to keep from his vitals and a 
grasping hand to keep from clawing out his eyes.
His dirk was better than his opponent's sword in such close quarters, but it 
slid along the armor of the man on top of him; he hadn't the strength in that 
arm to pierce hardened leather, let alone bronze plates.
The Mygdonian's fingers were pressing painfully upon his eyeballs when, as 
Stealth got a leg around the other's thigh and raised his dirk to bring it down 
into his attacker's bladder by way of unprotected buttocks, the man went limp 
upon him: the poison at last had done its deadly work.
He lay under his assailant, breathing hard, listening to the running feet and 
hooves around him and the fire crackling as it closed in.
If only Randal had come along, he'd have been out of harm's way and back with 
the Riddler before Tempus torched the naphtha. As it was, he couldn't see a 
better move right now than playing dead under this still-warm corpse until he 
could regain his strength.
Suddenly he thought of Aškelon and the dream-bred horse he had. He really should 
have named it. Aškelon had said that it was special. He wished it would come and 
fetch him home; he envisioned himself upon its back and the two of them leaping 
over flames to safety.
All this time he still held the charmed dirk in a sweaty grip. And it was warmer 
by the second. He wondered if a warlock or a witch was coming close and, if so, 
whether his pretense of death would fool a black artist.
He knew he should get up, get out of here, die a clean death in the flames if he 
had to die. If the Nisibisi wizards caught him, he'd wish he'd died that way.
Decided, he prepared to roll the corpse off and make away, and then he heard the 
chanting, coming near. One voice among that soulless choir petitioning what did 
not live in heaven froze him: a woman's alto voice it was, so familiar that he 
didn't have to see her to know that Roxane was among the procession passing by.
And then from high above a squeal of unearthly rage rent the smoke, and the pall 
was buffeted away by the beat of giant wings.
He had to see: he raised his head and squinted through one eye, not enough that 
an adept might see him, he hoped, and there before him was a group of six 
warlocks with the magnificent Roxane at their head. Beside her walked a man in 
Myg-donian dress armor, embroidered surcoat, curled-toed boots and all. And 
these walked calmly, as if in a country garden.
Or at least they had been walking so, until the great wings beat down and talons 
raked their group and a wizard threw himself out of the way, landing crosswise, 
half atop Niko and the dead fighter sprawled on top of him, so that Niko could 
feel the man trembling and every beat of a racing heart.
And while the warlock on top of him intoned invocations through gritted teeth, 
the processional— all but Roxane and the Mygdonian commander— also dove for 
cover.
The witch had the general by the arm and was pointing, it seemed, straight at 
the warlock who lay across Niko and the corpse, and was cursing "the damned Roc 
and all the lesser mages who change shape but cannot change their nature." At 
this, the beating wings above, silhouetted now against a gray/brown/red sunrise 
sky, seemed to shimmer and, as if struck by a weapon, the giant bird whose 
wingspan was thrice a man's height came crashing to the ground.
A miasma exploded around it as it landed; Roxane pulled the Mygdonian warrior 
back and Niko saw her raise her hands as from behind the sound of hoofbeats 
racing grew loud and the trumpet of a war horse in furious assault made Niko's 
ears ring.
He still had the dirk, almost burning him now with its eagerness to strike the 
warlock who lay upon him as if he were a cozy couch.
He took the chance: he'd just kill what enemies he might and go with grace to 
whatever heaven had in store for him. Escape was impossible now, a pointless 
exercise in cowardice. He hoped the Riddler would say words for him, commend him 
to heaven in Abarsis's company—that he'd done a decent job here and that the 
Stepsons would in death forgive him for taking up with witches and magicians.
Then he stabbed the warlock in the loins and ripped on up; used all his strength 
to push both corpses, old and new, off him, and stood up just in time to see 
what kind of bird had descended from the heavens and to be knocked sideways by 
the war horse whose hooves he'd heard.
As the miasma settled, Randal, changed back by a hostile spell to his own form, 
flickered naked for an instant, then was clothed and armed. Drawing his kris, 
Randal leaped toward Roxane and the Mygdonian warlord, throwing stars and 
poisoned blossoms that Niko had given him rising from his belt and speeding on 
their way toward the warlocks scattered round about—behind dead horses, bushes, 
or whatever cover they could find.
The sun was rising now, and shadows were long in a bloody dawn. From somewhere a 
mighty wind came and seemed to spin above the fighting so that all the smoke was 
blown outward and away.
Niko, knocked once more off his feet, scrambled up, his side in agony, and only 
then realized that the war horse was his own and in the thick of the battle, 
trampling wizards, biting witches where it could.
And these could not seem to believe that their pointing fingers would not 
dispatch this horse, who only was angered more when a hostile spell was cast its 
way.
Limping as fast as he could, his sword drawn, picking his own blossoms out of 
his kills along the way, Niko tried to reach his partner.
But Randal wasn't hurt, and though he seemed no more formidable than ever in his 
hillman's outfit, he was giving back spell for spell and hell for hell among 
these Nisibisi mages. Hurrying, his kris outstretched (or being dragged forward 
by it, for all Niko knew), he seemed to skip across the ground, stabbing certain 
footprints as he went.
Whenever the kris penetrated a footprint, a wizard wailed and flared, or 
crumbled into dust.
Between the crazed, froth-mouthed horse and Randal—who stabbed, as Niko watched, 
a standing warlock's shadow so that the mighty mage begged for mercy as he fell 
to his knees, his body seeming to melt into a multicolored puddle—the 
wizard-caste was having second thoughts.
Only Roxane held her ground, her hand on the Mygdonian commander's brocaded 
sleeve, and pointed, not at Randal, but at Stealth. And Niko heard her through 
that melee and all the pandemonium as if she were whispering in his ear. "Come, 
Niko! Come to me, my dear. Right now, I do command thee!"
"Nikodemos!" Randal's long and mournful call came to him as if from a great 
distance. "Don't let her do it! Not again. Fight her! Fight! I'll help you!"
But Stealth couldn't seem to understand Randal's Nisi; Roxane's summons was 
spoken in the language of his soul. His ribs hurt, his breath was short, her 
arms were out to welcome him. What was the use of all this fighting, anyway?
He walked toward her. Then his horse knocked him once more from his feet and the 
pain of the concussion as he hit the earth took his breath away.
When next he knew anything, the Aškelonian's wet muzzle was whuffling against 
his cheek, the horse kneeling down with its forelegs outstretched beside him as 
if waiting for a dowager or child to mount it.
Randal's words rang in his ears. "Fight her, Stealth. For all our sakes! She 
can't force you, don't let her take you! What will the Riddler say?" That did 
it. With those galling words echoing in his head, he dragged himself toward his 
kneeling horse's saddle: the Aškelonian, its head bowed between its bent 
forelegs, was watching him with soft, wise eyes that seemed sorrowful; even his 
horse didn't have faith in him.
He grabbed the saddle's pommel, levering himself aboard awkwardly: he'd show the 
Hazard and the witch that neither one of them controlled him. He couldn't have 
Randal strutting around, boasting that he'd saved his partner's life. He 
couldn't go back among the Sacred Band with the witch's taint renewed. He had to 
show Roxane, too, that he was under no sorcerous compulsion or any witch's 
command.
Then his horse lurched to its feet and he heard Roxane's voice again, telling 
Randal that everyone the mageling loved would suffer for his hubris.
Behind her, the fire was closing in, its flames licking skyward and its heat 
rolling over him in waves that made Niko grip his saddle hard and pray he 
wouldn't faint; it backlit the witch and the Mygdonian general and blazed so 
brightly behind them that he had to squint.
And Randal was retreating from Roxane's pointing finger, while around her the 
surviving warlocks gathered, dark, ominous shadows which might yet sum defeat.
Still Stealth couldn't take his eyes from her, and as he watched, he saw Cybele, 
the girl-witch he'd come to love, and then the Nisibisi maiden who'd healed his 
fever up at Bashir's, and then their glances met. "Cybele… Roxane… no," he said 
to eyes which promised him eternity and an end to strife and pain if he would 
but get off that horse and walk those few paces to her…
As he said it, Randal's retreat brought the Hazard to the horse's side. A sweaty 
face turned up to Stealth's; a mageling's mouth formed words: "Good. Ready? I'll 
just take hold of this bridle and we'll be out of—"
The junior Hazard's hand closed on Niko's horse's reins and everything—the fiery 
circle; the witch Roxane/Cybele; the Mygdonian general; the tall, robed 
sorcerers and flickering shadow-forms behind them; the dead men and beasts and, 
in the distance, turbaned Mygdonians running toward the royal tents now catching 
fire—disappeared.
"… here." Randal finished his sentence in a copse of trees free from flames and 
firelight so that at first everything around them seemed pitch black to Niko, 
then granular, undifferentiated green, then subsided into daylight.

* * *

Roxane, with Lacan Ajami close beside her, had watched helplessly as the 
accursed Aškelonian steed and Randal, a puny, Hazard-class Tysian mage, stole 
Nikodemos from under her very nose.
She had to cover her distress before Ajami then, save the man and the body of 
his troops, regroup her warlocks and set them to snuffing out the ring of 
fire—which they could only do when well away from all its hellish heat and 
smoke.
Fire was their nemesis, a cleansing weapon brought down on them by Tempus and 
his gods.
And Niko… she'd wanted him so much that she'd risked singeing her own hair and 
losing wizards to acquire him. Beloved Niko, who'd finally realized what the 
patronage of Aškelon, the panoply he wore, the horse he rode, could mean: he'd 
said no to her unspoken declaration of love and power and safekeeping. It was 
well that no wizard had overheard her offer him eternal life, or heard his 
heart's response.
They'd been too busy, that was something. They'd seen only what Ajami saw, heard 
only "Cybele… Roxane, no." Oh, they knew Niko had worked free of her control, 
but that was nothing—the blame for it easily and truly lay with Aškelon.
What Roxane knew that no one else would understand was that Nikodemos, for the 
first time, had used the power of his maat and of his patron to disavow love in 
favor of his honor.
He'd spurned her, discounted her, despite everything—their excruciating trysts 
when she was Cybele, the night she'd come to him at terrible risk on Wizardwall 
and eased him. In spite of being enemies, on different sides, she'd loved him 
and looked after him, taken care of him all this time.
Yet love counted for nothing before Aškelon's protection; services done meant 
nothing to Nikodemos. She'd been playing for time, never turned her full powers 
of destruction upon him, no matter what the provocation, hoping love would win 
out over prejudice.
For Nikodemos truly loved Cybele, and Cybele was Roxane as much as Roxane was 
Cybele.
But this was a final parting, and she summoned hatred from the depths of the 
underworld to punish him, though it seemed she sat in council with her Mygdonian 
allies, explaining away failure and saying how the wizard-caste could yet assist 
Myg-donia in putting the Riddler's men to rout. "We've saved the bulk of your 
motley crew, Ajami; what you lost, you lost through negligence, superstition, 
incompetence of the Mygdonian sort. Now here's my plan, since yours has gone 
awry—and remember as you hear it that once we're south of Wizard-wall, the town, 
in the throes of plague and revolution, will fall as one man whimpering at your 
feet and beg you to lift its yoke of ill fortune and Rankan servitude…"
All the time she spoke, she was marshaling her anger. She reached with 
immaterial hands and struck dead the girl in the Machadi embassy whom she'd 
designated a plague victim but allowed to live this long: Aisha. That would hurt 
Niko, make him know what awaited a mortal man who scorned Death's Queen.
This she did instead of what she'd meant to do: a splinter of one of Niko's 
broken ribs could easily be coaxed to pierce a vital organ. She would have 
healed him if he'd come to her; she could kill him just as easily, right now.
But she did not.
She'd laid a curse on Randal and the mage must feel it: Niko's suffering would 
teach the hubristic mageling whom he dared to thwart.
And there was Grillo, riding hither with all speed among a "secretly" advancing 
contingent of enticingly human foes, his little golden homunculus— his master, 
for that was what the figurine had become—in his pocket.
She told herself that she wanted Nikodemos to be the last to die, and made 
herself believe it.
If, among the remaining Nisibisi adepts, any realized that Roxane was a prisoner 
herself—a slave to love and a servant of her own emotions so that her judgment 
was affected and her decisions not the best—then these kept silent: she was 
still Death's Queen, still Roxane. If she'd come out second best against a 
Tysian Hazard, this was a combination of two elements: her infatuation with a 
mortal and the fact that Randal had possession of a globe of power mightier than 
her own, the very one which Datan had once used to teach the witch her place and 
keep her in it.
But among themselves, the Nisibisi adepts muttered, late at night when Roxane 
was asleep. If only they'd succeeded in capturing Nikodemos, they could have 
traded him to Randal for the globe of high peaks clay; without it, victory was 
not assured.
Who had the globe, had power others dreamed not of.
In the morning, their consensus taken, the Nisibisi wizards came to Roxane, 
proposing an all-out offensive: they must retrieve their globe.
Of this there was no question; on this point, no disagreement. But on how to 
penetrate a brace of warding spells spun by that very globe, many held diverse 
opinions.
Some Mygdonians would have to be sacrificed, of course. Mygdon's lord and Tempus 
would have to engage each other. Though not one Nisibisi adept present had ever 
taken seriously the possibility of Shamshi, Datan's son, heir apparent to the 
throne of wizardry, being handed back to his Mygdonian mother and her husband, 
the ploy would do to get them within snatching distance of the coveted power 
globe.
Then, if Roxane had not demonstrated competence, leadership, and dedication 
enough, or called upon dark lords powerful enough, they'd deal with her: no one 
held the highest post among the Nisibisi black artists without passing certain 
tests of fire.

* * *

"It's all my fault." Randal wrung his hands and paced to and fro before the 
Riddler, who was bent over Niko's semiconscious, sweating form.
Tempus had pulled the youth from his snorting Aškelonian. He'd had to pry Niko's 
fingers from mane and pommel. The Stepson was holding onto his mount for dear 
life and to consciousness by a thread. With Randal's help, he'd gotten off the 
breastplate and laid the youth down on a bed of pine needles in the clearing 
which was their base camp. Conjured bandages appeared when Tempus asked for 
them, but binding those ribs in place by feel alone when Niko's whole chest and 
side were bruised and swollen wasn't easy.
There was no way to tell if the job Tempus had done would be good enough, or if 
the ribs would heal improperly and Niko be left with a crippled right side. And 
Stealth was right-handed.
"Stop whining, magling. You can't heal this; I've done my best." Tempus sat back 
on his heels and shook his head. "I hate to say this, but we need my sister. 
Cime would put this right in no time, or at least make sure I've done it 
properly. What say you? Can you call my sister, let her know we need her now, 
not later? Bring her up here?"
"Me? Her? Here?" Randal stopped in his tracks and stared at Tempus with real 
horror.
Cime was, after all, a mage-killer, a sorcerer-slayer who'd put better adepts 
than Randal in their uneasy graves.
"You. Her. Here," Tempus confirmed. "Now."
"Sir… my lord… commander, you don't understand—"
"What's to understand? Your partner's hurt. We've got to help him." Tempus 
straightened up and walked around the youth he'd drugged with pulcis to keep the 
pain at bay. When he reached the firepit he'd built inside a low black tent, he 
called to Randal. "Come here, Stepson, and answer me."
When Randal stooped to come inside, Tempus patted the dirt beside him. "Sit 
down, Randal."
As the Hazard did, his kris jittered in its scabbard.
Tempus raised an eyebrow.
Randal pulled on one ear and explained earnestly: "It's worried for my safety. 
Because I am. What I meant… what you don't understand… what I'm trying to tell 
you is that in my room back at the mageguild, when I was last there, the witch 
Roxane had left a message: those who are my friends and loved ones will suffer 
until I offer myself up to her for punishment. That's not an exact quote, but 
that's the gist of it—that's why Niko's…" Randal bit his lip, palmed his eyes, 
then dragged his hands down across his face. "So you see, it is my fault. And 
not just that: there's the plague in Tyse. That's what she meant. If I give 
myself up to her, all this will stop."
"Don't believe it. You give yourself up to her and she'll have you for lunch and 
then burp you in our faces. As for the 'curse' she laid on you, I've lived 
longer than your mageguild's stood, with a curse worse than that one on my 
head."
Randal's bony shoulders slumped. He bowed his head. "Then… you don't think it's 
all my fault?"
"I'd like to, but I can't. Anything else I don't understand? Anything that's 
keeping you from summoning Cime?"
"She might not like it, being summoned, being brought here. Couldn't you ask 
Aškelon to send her?"
"I don't sleep, remember? How am I supposed to contact him? Besides, I'm not 
asking you for counterproposals, I'm asking if there's any real reason you can't 
carry out a simple order. You took an oath, Randal, to do just that—no 
questions."
"I took an oath to protect my partner's life with my own."
"We've been over that. Unless you're telling me you'd rather give yourself up to 
Roxane than trust me to protect you from my sister, do whatever you have to do 
to get her here, right now. Crit and the rest won't be at our rendezvous until 
midnight, and I can't move Niko in his condition, nor should her healing skills 
be denied him that long."
Having finished, Tempus held out his hands and rubbed them before the little 
fire; though the day was unseasonably warm and the base camp sheltered, Tempus 
was chilled from within. Earlier, looking back whence they'd come, he'd seen 
lowering storm clouds, a gray and leaden sky which might mean that the snows had 
begun among the high peaks. If so, there was no retreating to Tyse.
This boded well for Tyse but ill for the men he'd led here. If Roxane and her 
warlocks should spirit the Mygdonians south by magic, he'd need Randal and the 
globe the mage now fondled wordlessly, which had appeared as if from thin air 
while Tempus watched out of the corner of his eye. It looked as if Randal had 
opened a box top where nothing but empty space existed; then he'd lifted out the 
globe nestled in its stand and placed it gently on the ground.
"My lord, if your sister kills me, you ought to know that this globe will hire 
you any mage of any power you desire. Oaths of fealty taken on it can't be 
broken; it's the highest power piece an adept can own. So guard it well, if I 
cannot."
Tempus made a noncommittal noise. He knew what he was looking at. He'd rather 
smash it on the rocks; in younger days, he would have. But lately right and 
wrong were not so clear as once they'd been.
From outside, he heard the Aškelonians snorting, then a whinny and a menacing 
squeal cut the air. "That sounds like Niko's horse."
"Could be," Randal said distractedly, still playing with his ball of high peaks 
clay and precious stones.
Tempus had left the stallion loose to guard its master.
When he scrambled out of the low black tent to see what was afoot, he saw that 
the horse was doing just that: protecting Niko's recumbent form from Cime, who 
had her shield out before her and was backing, step by step, toward the trees, 
with the horse, on its hind legs, tail flagged, ears back, coming after.
Tempus whistled. The horse came down on all fours and looked around, ears still 
flattened, teeth bared.
"Some greeting, this, brother," Cime said, both her diamond rods in her right 
hand, glowing slightly. "What right have you to use your foul witchcraft-monger 
to pluck me off my horse without so much as a by-your-leave?"
"Niko's hurt." He indicated the youth under a blanket behind him.
"So? Why tell me? He'd not want me to tend him. He doesn't like me." Her smirk 
was hard, contentious, a showing of teeth which, if he'd been familiar with his 
own defensive little kill-smile, he might have recognized.
"Tend him."
She let her shield clatter to the ground. "Yes, my lord, right away, my lord," 
she said scathingly. "You're turning into an old woman, do you know that? Any 
little scratch your favorite, here, takes, is a major crisis." As she spoke, she 
stalked over to the fallen Stepson and pulled off the blanket. "Oh. I see. Yes."
That was as close to an apology as Tempus was going to get from her.
He turned away; he didn't want to interfere or even watch her at work. The last 
thing he saw was the pair of diamond rods, points together and glowing in her 
fingers, poised over Niko's chest, before he ducked back into his tent to steel 
himself for the forthcoming encounter with his personal nemesis, to think of 
some way to enjoin her from harming Randal, and in general to gather his 
composure: she still made him feel like a wayward boy.

* * *

When Cime and the Riddler came swaggering into the rendezvous base camp, Grillo 
felt the world's weight being lifted from his shoulders.
Although Grille's specials formed one quarter of the joint force fielded against 
the Mygdonians, Critias was in charge of their deployment. Of the more than one 
hundred and twenty fighters, only a select dozen were present to meet with 
Tempus: Grillo himself, Crit and Straton, Sync, Kama, a pair of Sacred Banders, 
one Nisibisi free man (a scout Bashir had loaned them), and four 3rd Commando 
rangers, alike as peas in a pod with their deep suntans, short hair, and alert 
quietude.
Grillo knew that two of these last had been assigned to watch him. It wasn't 
that he was under arrest—nothing that obvious. But none of his specials, not 
even ex-specials like Gayle or Ari from whom Grillo might still have expected 
loyalty, were among the rendezvous party. The two rangers dogged him like 
bodyguards; even when he sought a tree upon which to relieve himself, one of 
them would offer to come along or happen to be mictu-rating nearby.
This was making Grillo very cautious. In his pocket was the golden figurine 
which was no more damning than the bits of abalone shell and eagle's claw and 
lead statuettes that Crit carried in a pouch with one die and an old field 
decoration to bring him luck. On its own, it meant nothing. But it spoke to 
Grillo at night and now it wanted him to deliver a message scrawled on parchment 
that he'd found wrapped around it when he woke this morning. He didn't want one 
of the 3rd to discover what the little golden man could do or what the message 
meant for Tempus was.
With the Riddler here, things would change. Tempus and he were old friends, 
veterans of other wars who shared a bond of trust.
But when Grillo approached the sleepless one, Crit had gotten there before him 
and was whispering in Tempus's ear, Straton just behind, and the task force 
leader's partner was watching Grillo and his two "bodyguards" with obvious 
disdain.
So Grillo said only: "Well met, Riddler. When you can free yourself from 
underlings, I need to talk to you alone." In his pocket, Grillo could feel the 
golden statuette stirring; he put his hand in there to still its movement. All 
he needed was for Tempus to notice, or for the damned thing to crawl out. He 
felt a prick, a sharp pain in his index finger. Then he felt better than he had 
in days.
Tempus, his face gray with remnants of camouflaging soot, toyed with the 
boar's-tooth helmet he held and nodded, "Right away."
Grillo knew that when the Riddler put away his favorite shabby duty gear in 
favor of leopardskin and ivories that what amounted to ritual slaughter was at 
hand.
But the part of his mind which compiled detail and reached conclusions wasn't 
working as it should. Grillo had a message to deliver; it was the most important 
thing he'd ever do.
As Tempus bent his head to Crit to hear some last remark, behind him Grillo saw 
Sync and Kama, so close together that their girded hips were brushing as they 
walked, coming toward the little group.
Crit turned to stare in Kama's direction as Tempus disengaged.
Grillo, free at last from the pair of rangers who shadowed him, found time to be 
grateful for the tension in this camp: between Sync and Critias, no love was 
lost. And the Riddler's sister, looking to see what Crit was staring at, put her 
hands on her hips when she caught sight of Kama.
Then Tempus led the way into a stand of pine, and Grillo and the Riddler were 
finally alone.
"What's the trouble, Grillo?" Tempus asked in his rumbly voice. "Why is it that 
you and Critias cannot get along?"
"He's telling tales of me, I expect. That's just poisonous politics, not what I 
want to talk to you about."
"I'm glad of that. Crit's my first officer; this mission is his responsibility 
and, after a fashion, so are you. And he's worried. You're telling me he has no 
cause to be?"
"People talk." Almost, Grillo was tempted to tell Tempus about the witch, about 
his blackouts, about the little figurine now growing hot in his pocket. Instead 
he reached under his sword's scabbard where the statuette and message were to 
pull out the parchment. "Crit's a simple man, fine for simple problems. I can't 
explain to him—or to you— the reasons for my actions, nor should you ask me to. 
We've worked together too many—"
The little homunculus wouldn't let go of Grille's finger. He didn't understand 
why or how it happened, but as he brought out his hand vith the message in it, 
the tiny golden man leaped from there onto the Riddler's face.
Then Tempus was staggering backward, clawing at his cheek. There issued from 
Tempus's throat a howl of pain and fury the like of which Grillo had never heard 
a mortal utter.
Crash! Armored man went down, falling over backward.
Stunned, Grillo watched the Riddler thrashing on the ground, rolling to and fro, 
clutching his face.
In the distance Grillo heard shouts and then running feet, crackling leaves, and 
cracking branches.
Somehow, Grillo couldn't move; he was logy, lethargic. And he had to see: 
something was compelling him to watch and hoping very hard he'd see Tempus kick 
and convulse and stiffen in the throes of death. Though the Riddler's life was 
unnaturally prolonged, an unnatural assault like this could end it.
Grillo hovered, fascinated. Tempus's harsh breathing and grunts and the sounds 
he made, struggling with the homunculus burrowing into his face, blotted out all 
other noises, so that when the rangers tackled Grillo from behind and wrestled 
him to his knees it came as a surprise to him.
He didn't resist. He watched, ignoring the shouting and Crit's attempt to launch 
himself into the weird battle, so that now two men and a figurine thrashed on 
the ground while around them a ring of onlookers grew: Straton was there, 
bellowing orders; then Sync appeared with Kama and forcibly turned her head 
away, dragging her backward to make room for Cime, who strode into the chaos 
cursing like a mercenary.
Her hair cascading around her heart-shaped face, gray eyes flashing, her diamond 
rods bright blue in both her hands, she yelled, "Crit, get away from him. Get 
back! Let me handle this."
When that didn't work, she motioned to the Sacred Band pair, who dashed in and 
dragged Critias ignominiously from the fray.
Grillo saw Cime kneel beside her brother, on his belly now and howling like a 
wolf, lift his head up by the hair, and force her diamond rods between his hands 
and his face.
Then the whole clearing seemed to explode in a burst of light, and when he could 
blink the afterimage away and see again, Grillo saw Tempus sitting crosslegged, 
one arm out to support himself, and Cime crouched beside him, her hands upon his 
face. From under her palms blood streamed, and she was crooning to him that he 
would "be all right, just let me help you, my brother. That's it, be still, let 
me draw out the poison."
And at her feet he saw a little blackened figurine, its tiny head severed, its 
miniature fingers spread like claws. Crit was stamping on it with one booted 
foot and Straton, by his side, had out his warding charms.
Soon enough, Grillo was dragged away among muttered epithets, the parchment 
message he'd thought to deliver still crumpled in his hand.
There was no way to make them understand, no use in telling underlings that he 
hadn't planned it, or known what would happen when the homunculus got within 
range of Tempus.
Now Grillo was under arrest, bound hand-to-foot and lying on his belly, his face 
to the earth. There was an interval during which men came to kick and spit upon 
him and promise him a slow and unpleasant death. This he shrugged off until 
Straton came and hunkered down beside his head and told him just how Strat had 
it in mind to punish him for what he'd done to Tempus.
Only then did Grillo think he'd better act in his own defense, though if Tempus 
wasn't conscious, or was dying, nothing in the world would save Grillo from 
Straton. He said, "Ace, in my hand. There's a message there, a parchment meant 
for Tempus. The Mygdonians sent it to me, somehow, wrapped around the damned 
idol. How was I to know the thing would come to life? Please, Strat, you must 
believe me."
A boot kicked him in the teeth. He spat blood and chips of incisor, but 
continued. "A parchment, crumpled up. It might be our only chance to negotiate a 
settlement with Mygdonia. No matter how you feel about me, you'd better have a 
look."
The ploy worked, at least temporarily: Straton's bulk disappeared behind him; 
strong fingers took the parchment, balled up in his fist. Then Straton's 
footsteps faded.
Alone, Grillo wept. Tempus was a man he'd cared for, long respected. How had he 
gotten into this? The witch! The damnable witch! He cursed her and swore that if 
mercy was bestowed upon him and he lived to make things right, he'd find a way 
to pay her back for what she'd done to him.
Some time later, Grillo became aware that he was once more not alone.
The other knelt and he prepared himself for death or torture. But neither came: 
a woman's voice, gentle yet firm, told him that if he did just what she said, 
there was a possibility that together they could save his life.
And since it was the Riddler's sister, Cime, he had no choice but to agree.

* * *

The message Grillo had carried was from Lacan Ajami. It proposed a meeting and 
said that if Shamshi was alive and well and brought along to prove it, perhaps 
further bloodshed could be averted.
The last thing Tempus wanted just then was to avert further bloodshed; his face 
hurt and his pride hurt and he wanted to kick Rag-head butt from one end of 
Mygdonia to the other.
With his sorcerer-slaying sister's help, he'd be ready for whatever Lacan Ajami 
had in mind. He had to make it clear to her that Randal, who'd just brought Niko 
into camp, was off-limits, before he sent her to fetch Jihan and Shamshi. So he 
called Cime to the tent in which he was recuperating, where none could see the 
speed of his healing, and gave her a lecture.
When he was done, Cime remarked that there was "something odd about Kama. More 
than even her heritage warrants, I mean."
He'd been thinking, as he talked to her, that this plague of women upon his head 
was worse than the letter of his curse: it was one thing to wander eternally, 
being spurned by whomsoever he loved and bringing death to those who loved him; 
it was quite another to have this clutch of bitches and witches and antiwitches 
and superwomen to contend with. He wondered if Datan, the vanquished Nisibisi 
archmage, had laid a parting curse on him. That would account for it. But he 
said only, "She's after Crit. I've forbidden it." It hurt to talk. He shook his 
head. "Bring me Jihan. Forget Kama. Concentrate on the Nisibisi witch if you 
must war on other women."
Cime stuck out her tongue at him. "Foolish man. You never see what's right 
before your eyes. Keep Kama out of whatever's brewing, I'm warning you."
He struggled up on his elbows, incensed, all the meddling of these women in his 
affairs suddenly too much to bear. "How?" he thundered. "As I have kept you at 
arm's length? Jihan in her place? The witch-bitch away from my fighters? If I 
could banish the lot to any purgatory—Sanctuary, Bandara, a handy underworld, or 
worse, be assured I'd have done it long ago!"
"Ah, Tempus, Tempus. You still don't understand, poor thing." She reached out to 
touch his cheek and he struck her hand away. "You need me, brother, to fight 
your battles for you. Or will you be content to lose this one, too?"
And she stormed out, hopefully to get Jihan and Shamshi. If not, Critias and he 
had a backup plan they'd as soon put into effect: descend on Ajami's party and 
chop the lot into pieces small enough to be sent throughout Mygdonia in 
presentation boxes. That's what Crit was doing now—positioning one hundred 
fighters in hidden but strategic emplacements around the demilitarized meeting 
place, ready to strike on signal.
It was a comforting thought; he yawned, lay back, and stared at the tentpole 
with its quivering luffing. At times like these, he really wished that he could 
sleep, avoid the most disagreeable stages of his body's healing. The area in 
question burned and ached and pulsed at every cut and mending wound and, as he 
lay there, it began to itch.
He mustn't scratch it. He sat up and yelled for the Sacred Banders who had 
appointed themselves his sentries. When they came, he said, "Get me Critias and 
Randal."
But Crit was nowhere to be found. Straton came instead, outspoken and blunt as 
usual. "What's this about pardoning Grillo? Your sis—the lady Cime—says to let 
him go, that he's turned informer and now he's worth his weight in gold."
"You don't think he is?"
"Not to me. Not to Crit. We've known about him since before we left Tyse—we 
brought his bed-warmer in and we'd have sweated him ourselves except for his 
friendship with you."
"Sometimes Cime's right, you know. We'll give Grillo another chance—he's not 
going anywhere but with us, not for the winter season, anyway."
"To Mygdonia? You still think we will, no matter how this negotiation works 
out?" Strat's eagerness was obvious: he flexed his big hands as he spoke.
"We will. Trust me. And, since we're speaking of friendship—where's Crit?"
Straton looked uncomfortable. "Lots of details to attend to, commander… this and 
that."
"Which this? Which that?"
Strat grimaced. "Kama's which 'this and that', sir."
"Is Crit disobeying my orders?"
"Don't make me tell tales about my left-side leader, commander."
"I count on you, Ace, to keep me informed, in confidence, of what I need to 
know. I haven't time to confront Crit with minor infractions or the inclination 
to interrogate him. If whatever's on his mind is affecting his performance, it's 
your duty to let me know."
"I really don't see that it is, commander. He's got a lot of details to take 
care of, that's all."
"If the situation changes, you'll let me know?"
Strat took that as a dismissal. He stood up and backed away, stooped over, 
toward the tent's flaps. "Yes, commander, I surely will."
When Straton was gone, Tempus had a few moments to consider Sacred Bands and 
loyalty beyond question and to wonder whether it wasn't time for him to show 
himself, wounds or no, to the men who were about to risk their lives for 
him—Stepsons, 3rd Commando, Grillo's specials, Bashir's free men.
He'd just gotten to his feet and endured a spell of dizziness and pain when 
Randal, who didn't have to duck to enter the low black tent, came inside and saw 
him.
"Here," Randal offered, "let me help."
With an arm around Randal's bony shoulders, Tempus made his way outside where he 
could supervise the preparations, and where his men could see him—his presence 
itself was a galvanizing force among these fighters.
"How's Niko, Randal?" Tempus asked the Hazard as he took his arm away and stood 
unsupported to return salutes and greetings from the men busy breaking camp.
Above Randal's head the day was cloudless but for a roiling gray mass coming 
toward them against the prevailing wind from the high peaks to the south. "Not 
as fit as he'd like to be; he wants to accompany us to the meeting with Ajami. 
He thinks he's paid in advance for the 'honor' and that he's got a vested 
interest… some Sacred Bander's right he can invoke—"
"Go with us?" Tempus was watching the cloud behind Randal's head.
"Well," Randal wheedled, drawing himself up tall. "You can't go without me! What 
if the witch attacks again? You'll need me."
"Cime will be there," Tempus reminded the mageling.
"She doesn't scare me now that I've got my globe—except…"
"Yes, Randal?"
"Well, you see… on Meridian she happened to get hold of a gold coin of mine and… 
ah… she is your sister and she doesn't care for mages, as you know. I've got to 
get it back from her somehow."
Tempus's lips twitched. "In other than the customary fashion, you mean? I'll see 
what I can do."
"Would you? Oh, thank you! I really would feel better. I'm, ah, untried in her 
area of expertise, if you understand me. And I'd prefer to stay that way—makes 
for more power in an adept if he's celibate by choice."
"Surely you're not saying that you've never—Yes, I see you are. And is that so? 
Most sorcerers I've run into seem to fornicate with more abandon than—"
"Not all." Randal raised one hand as if giving a tutorial. "Not all adepts, that 
is. Power can come from demonic aides and devils under contract; another sort is 
had by becoming a pure black artist of the twelfth degree… untainted by passion 
or—
Randal continued explaining, but Tempus wasn't listening. The cloud coming 
toward them was arc-ing low. "Excuse me, Randal. Go see if you can use your 
adept's gift to help Niko get ready to ride. If he wants to come and he's able, 
then he's welcome." Patting the mage on the shoulder, Tempus walked away from a 
fountain of protective objections and suggestions aimed at keeping Niko out of 
harm's way.
Tempus hoped Randal would learn without an object lesson that no pairbound 
partner has the right to stand in front of the other: not even to protect his 
life would Niko accept that sort of help.
Then the cloud touched down and in it a vortex spun, opening like a maw. Through 
it could be seen three horses—one sable, two grays—and behind them Bashir's high 
peaks ramparts.
Tempus's Aškelonian trumpeted its joy to see him and to step once more on solid 
ground. Behind Cime, on the Aškelonian, Jihan waved from the back of one Trôs 
horse, who rumbled a softer greeting; ponied to its saddlehorn was its brother, 
with little Shamshi riding tall and bringing up the rear.
Once the cloud had irised in then popped out of existence, Tempus had his hands 
full: Cime had to be convinced to give up Randal's coin; Jihan had to be greeted 
with decorum. He must assuage Jihan's wrath at the damage done him and the 
slight he'd delivered unto her by leaving her "babysitting on Wizardwall" while 
"Cime and your favorite Stepsons had all the fun!"
"There's more fun to be had, I assure you," he told the Froth Daughter, and was 
rewarded: the red, feral flecks faded from her eyes.
If it was going to be difficult to wrest the mageling's coin from his sister, it 
might be impossible to convince Jihan that for all their sakes she must give up 
Shamshi, her all-but-adopted child.
"But he's a wizard's son," she objected, once they were alone and the murmur of 
her scale armor as it slithered over her glowing musculature made him wish he 
felt a little better, and then tell himself he might just feel well enough.
"They'll kill him," Jihan continued, "poor little wraith, when they find out 
he's not Adrastus Ajami's—and kill his mother, too. She was blinded by the witch 
Roxane. Is that not punishment enough? Besides," Jihan pouted, kneading his sore 
muscles where they'd found privacy among the pines, "he's made me promise not to 
give him back to the Mygdonians. He loves me. He wants to stay with me."
"What say we escort him to Mygdon so he can tell his father that? He's 
officially a man, by age at least, and in private, confidentially, we can 
probably convince Adrastus to give the boy leave to serve with me—under your 
protection, of course."
Tempus was grasping at straws, he knew; but Jihan, her breath coming faster as 
she ran her fingers over him, was by no means an expert at the machinations of 
strategy or diversionary tactics.
"And if I say yes to you, sleepless one, and lose the boy in spite of all you 
say, will you give me a child of my own to love and care for?" she demanded as 
she straddled him, her lips puffed with passion and her voice thick with 
longing.
"You know I can't do that," he said, his hands on her waist as he guided her 
into a position so compromised that he was sure that at least for the nonce she 
would do just what he told her. "Your father's forbidden it. Talk to him, not 
me. But short of that, I promise, you'll have nothing to regret."
That was one promise he could make good and one tactic at which he had no peer.

* * *

At dawn on the meeting day the sky was clear and a flock of geese passing 
overhead, right to left, was taken by both the overt negotiating party and the 
hidden commando units as an omen of success.
Down on the flat of the valley Lacan Ajami had specified, brightly colored tents 
were pitched and around them a dozen figures darted, setting out two gilded 
chairs and a laden victuals table under a red-and-black-striped awning.
A string of horses, groomed and black of hoof, stamped their feet off to one 
side. None of these were saddled; like the hard-steel weapons on display upon a 
propped-up board and the bubbly-pipes of gold and silver scattered around on 
little legged trays, they were there to sweeten the pot, to be traded or given 
up for this or that advantage, or to show good faith, or seal a bargain.
This made Crit think that the negotiation might be a real one, and not a 
wizard-sponsored trap, as Cirne maintained that it was. There had been a row 
last evening between the Riddler and his sister, something about a coin which 
had once belonged to Randal. Because of it, Cime had come to Crit and he'd had 
no choice but to accommodate her: she was one woman he didn't want for an enemy.
Because Crit felt so strongly about Kama, he'd all but ignored her ever since 
Cime had shown up. Thus Kama was in the peace mission's traveling party; to have 
forbidden her, Crit would have had to tell the Riddler she was pregnant, or make 
up some reason which wouldn't ring false to his commander, or to Cime, or to 
Sync. Crit hadn't been able to think of one.
Niko, too, was there… sort of: mounted on his Aškelonian, helmet on, visor down, 
gloved and armored with his mantle flapping behind, he hadn't said a word to 
anyone.
Nor had Randal, on a sorrel from Grit's string, sneezed even once, though the 
horse's thick winter coat was coming in and Crit hadn't had time to curry the 
fat, battle-seasoned gelding, only to saddle it and leave it before the private 
tent Niko's injuries had gotten the pair. He'd called out but no one had 
answered; he'd ground-tied the horse and left.
This silent, almost eerie pair rode right behind Strat and Crit, who headed up 
the delegation. Behind them were Sync and Kama, both in 3rd Commando 
dress-blacks and flashing "ceremonial" weaponry that no one was sure wouldn't 
see real, unceremonious use this day.
Then came Gayle and Ari, experts, if such existed, on Nisibisi trickery. Crit 
could hear Gayle's profane carping: the ex-special was telling Ari to "pork 'em 
if we porking-well see those porkers make one porking move that don't look 
right. Otherwise, we're porked," and enjoining Ari to keep his crossbow on his 
hip in euphemistic language that made even Kama turn her head and stare. Gayle 
had never talked that way in her presence when he'd thought of her as a woman; 
these days, with her unit around her, the Stepsons treated Kama just like any 
other fighter. Crit wished he could do the same.
In the middle of the procession were Tempus, Jihan, Shamshi, and Cime; close 
together, side by side, even. Crit couldn't imagine what Tempus was thinking of, 
offering such a tempting target to the Nisibisi wizard-caste: if he were leading 
the opposition, Crit would gladly have sacrificed the boy to take out the other 
three. Without Tempus, Jihan, and the sorcerer-slayer who'd done away with the 
archmage of black Nisibis, Mygdonia could camp here until spring and then march 
through Wizardwall's passes with no fear of significant resistance.
No commando worth the title could resist that coup.
So Crit's neck was getting sore from twisting in his saddle and craning his head 
around at the piney slopes and wondering whether the hundred fighters he'd 
deployed plus the twenty in their party could stand against a mixed offensive of 
ten times their number when some were warlocks. If it was just Mygdonians, ten 
to one were odds Crit was comfortable with, given that his men were all 
Stepsons, 3rd Commando veterans, Nisibisi free men who hated sorcery more than 
they loved their own lives, and specials… well, perhaps, if truth be known, he 
didn't rate the specials as highly as the rest. But there were none of them in 
this party: just Gayle and Ari, who were now Stepsons, and proud of it.
Crit heard something rattling like a diamond-back and shifted, one hand on his 
horse's rump, to detect its source.
Randal's kris, it must have been. The mage's gloved hand was tight upon its 
hilt. Like Niko, the Hazard was accoutered so that no square inch of skin or 
strand of hair could be seen. As for the kris, Crit had heard stories of what 
the charmed blades could do and of where Randal had acquired this one.
Crit faced front again. Someone had to look Ajami in the face and smile and get 
things off to a good start. That's what he was doing up front: Tempus wanted 
things to proceed to whatever conclusion without any provocation from their 
side. If Ajami was serious about negotiating, Tempus had instructed Crit, then 
negotiate they would. It was the honorable thing to do.
Straton, privately, had asked Crit if he believed the Riddler would actually 
give up the boy and revenge upon the Nisibisi black artists who had sicced the 
homunculus on him, tortured and murdered Stepsons, possessed Niko and most 
recently Grillo, just for an uneasy peace which could extend no farther than the 
northern border of Free Nisibis and the southern reaches of Tyse: Tempus had no 
mandate from Ranke to make a treaty more far-reaching. "And I don't think," 
Strat had said, "that the Nisibisi warlocks and that yum-yum, Roxane, are going 
to let Ajami give up until they've got back their ancestral haunt—or they're all 
dead and comfy in their witchy graves."
As usual, Straton seemed to be reading Crit's mind. In allaying Strat's doubts, 
Crit had circum-locuted his own, but failed to convince either one of them. They 
had too much combined experience to expect a final resolution, a fair 
settlement, or anything but treachery and deception which, Crit well knew, only 
led to one thing: war.
But it was the kind of war he liked, not street-fighting or police actions 
against civilian populations. Crit had put it to Strat this way: "Wouldn't you 
rather fight in Mygdon, where the pillage is easy?"
"And the women sultry?" Strat had added. They were curious about the north; only 
Niko had spent any time there. Not even the Riddler had sojourned among the 
peoples of the Mygdonian Alliance. When Tempus was warring this far north, there 
hadn't been any Mygdonian Alliance; in fact, there'd been no Mygdonia 
whatsoever, just tribal troops and farmers with regional councils and vigilante 
groups —no league of city-states.
When they reached the valley floor, and brightly clad Mygdonians in their best 
brocade surcoats and pantaloons came out to take their horses by the bridles, 
Crit gave all his worries to the gods: he was going to have to dismount and 
pretend he believed in all this pomp and ceremony, take seriously what was 
likely going to be a bad and possibly expensive joke. It was his job to make 
sure that this joke, when it came to light, was not on him and his, but on Lacan 
Ajami's army of turbaned fighters and Nisibisi dark lords.
He was just noticing that not a witch was to be seen among the Mygdonian 
negotiating team and absently calculating the visible odds—five to one in favor 
of the Mygdonian Alliance—when the sky above turned a seamless, dirty yellow and 
the air became very still.
Then everything—the Mygdonian coming toward Crit to take his horse by the 
bridle, the tent-flaps opening to reveal Lacan Ajami with a witch on his arm 
whose hand was extended in the direction of Crit's party, even a hawk wheeling 
high overhead in the motionless air—seemed to stop.

* * *

Cime had been expecting something like this— some underhanded trick from the 
Nisibisi witch-bitch. Cime was prepared and all her allies were at her beck and 
call.
But no one else of Tempus's party was ready for fielded sorcery, except perhaps 
Randal, the Tysian Hazard, and the boy-wizard, Shamshi.
Tempus was still moving, if slowly—a testament to his strength of character, his 
inveterate stubbornness, nothing more. The Froth Daughter was frozen as still as 
a statue, but for roving eyes which made her better off than the soldiers of 
their party, asleep between blinks, arrested in mid-movement, all twenty 
fighters and their horses as inanimate as garden statuary.
Cime kept still: she wanted Roxane to come closer.
But even with so great an advantage, the Nisibisi Death Queen was cautious: she 
held back, only her laughter coming toward the spellbound group of victims, as 
she pointed out to Ajami Tempus's languid, slow-motion struggle to dismount. 
Lacan Ajami didn't look as happy as the witch beside him: he was an honorable 
man in his own eyes. Wanton slaughter of helpless victims was not his style.
Yet, at Roxane's urging, Ajami gave the order and his Mygdonians rushed into 
"battle" against a helpless enemy.
Still Cime held her own forces in abeyance, until the witch herself stepped 
forward, out of the shadow of her magical tent. Until three Mygdonians had 
almost reached her brother, who was drawing his sword slowly and from whose 
mouth issued a war cry distorted beyond recognition into a low, meaningless 
growl.
Then Cime took her diamond rods in hand, raised one up to heaven and pointed the 
other straight ahead, calling in a bold, commanding voice upon her consort and 
upon the powers concerned to render aid unto their constituents: "Now!"
And as she did, the boy-wizard Shamshi slipped from his horse, crying, "Roxane, 
Roxane!" and Randal's armored form vaulted from its horse, kris drawn, with 
throwing stars and poisoned blossoms streaming from the mage's person like a 
swarm of bees, downing the ten closest Mygdonians in an instant.
Meanwhile, Niko's armor gleamed and then glowed with antimagical heat and the 
Aškelonian stallion who bore that weight suddenly blared a challenge, rearing 
up. Walking on its hind feet, it interposed itself between young Shamshi and the 
Nisibisi witch across the battlefield who called to the boy while the troops of 
Mygdonia attacked the sleeping cadre in a multitude, pouring from the pitched 
tents which could never have held a fraction of their number.
As yet, only Randal's armored form, Niko's—on the ground, dismounted, grabbing 
up the boy—and the Riddler, in slow motion, moved among the defenders.
Where was the help she'd summoned?
Cime, then, decided not to wait, but dismounted, running as soon as her feet 
touched the ground first to her brother, to tap him on the shoulder and return 
to him his twice-human fighting speed, then toward the Nisibisi witch to whom 
young Shamshi was calling out "Roxane! Roxane! No!" as he struggled, held by the 
waist like a flour-sack, his fists pounding in vain upon Niko's glowing armor.
Tempus dashed at speed, now, toward the armored figure who held the writhing boy 
with one hand. Six Mygdonians, howling "Lacan is great," were closing fast upon 
them with only Niko's sword to worry about.
But even Tempus was not fast enough: the six closed in and with war axes 
swinging, hacked away the arm that held the child and, from behind, severed 
Niko's helmet, cleaving it in twain.
The Aškelonian screamed in rage and, riderless, stalked upon its hind feet among 
the enemy, cracking skulls and pummeling flesh.
All was chaos, by then. Cime glimpsed Tempus fighting a horde and Randal's 
crested helm barely visible amid taller adversaries.
Cime hadn't time to do more than wonder what was delaying Aškelon, whom she'd 
called upon for aid, and Jihan's father, who'd surely come to save his daughter 
from humiliation at the hands of the seven Mygdonians who, with one warlock 
directing them, were now pulling her from her horse to "have her now!"
Cime only looked back long enough to see young Shamshi run, not to Roxane, but 
to Jihan's side, before she turned away again to use her rods to clear a path 
toward her immortal enemy, Roxane, when from the sky above a rumbling, 
whistling, then whining sound began and escalated, and she looked up.
A tornado was forming above the combatants. The sound of it was deafening. 
Horses and men broke and ran or threw themselves to the dirt. The tents from 
which Mygdonians still came were gone in an instant. The tornado, Cime saw as 
she sprinted full speed toward Roxane, who must not get away, was moving slowly 
through the press as if it searched for someone: its little tail had not yet 
touched the ground.
In the distance, galloping horses could be heard approaching: Tempus's main 
contingent. They'd never get here in time, but Cime wasn't counting on the havoc 
mere men could wreak.
She'd called upon her consort and now, just before she would have her way and 
confront the Nisibisi witch, Aškelon appeared, pallid in the yellow light: 
Aškelon, shadow lord, lord of dreams, in black, with an ethereal nimbus about 
him, so that even the Mygdonians gave ground.
Walking calmly forward as if in Meridian, not on a battlefield where bolts 
whizzed by and horses neighed their pain and fury, he waved his hand and every 
spellbound fighter of the negotiating party woke and looked about, drawing 
weapons— swords and crossbows, javelins and flying wings— and launched 
themselves at the Mygdonians.
Still Aškelon came toward Cime, his arms outstretched to her, his eyes shadowed 
with all the death lurking here, so that she could not see Roxane any longer, so 
that even the whirlwind picking up fighters, lifting them high and throwing them 
to earth, seemed remote.
Only Aškelon's voice and Aškelon's presence existed for her.
"Come, my dear," he said to her. "You've done your part. Murder is denied you. 
You must return with me or forfeit all the time you've spent already."
"Murder is denied me? What about the witch? Shall she go free? This war's not 
over—it's just begun."
"Come, before Jihan sees me and you have a co-wife to share our bed in sweet 
Meridian." And those compassionate eyes hypnotized her.
Cime's strength left her. Her resolve dissolved.
"Ash," she promised him, "when this is over and I'm free from my vow to spend a 
year with you, you'll regret this day."
But even as she spoke, the battlefield bled away and Meridian, with all its 
pacific beauty and its happy, dreamlike folk, appeared around her. She hadn't 
even had a chance to bid her brother farewell or slay a single wizard.
There would be, she promised herself, another day. She still had Randal's coin.

* * *

The whirlwind, dark and moist with the breath of Stormbringer from whose anger 
it was sprung, chose its targets carefully among the warring press of men.
And when it reached the Mygdonian boy whom Jihan loved, it sought to lift him 
up. Jihan saw what her father had in mind and dove for Shamshi, catching the 
youth by both his legs.
The child was wailing, "Help me, help me, Roxane! Jihan! Someone! Please!" And 
thus Tern-pus, dispatching three mortal enemies with one swing of his sword, 
caught sight of the boy, his body being sucked toward heaven and Jihan's whole 
weight trying to anchor him to earth, as the Froth Daughter too was lifted, her 
feet dangling clear of the ground.
Tempus rushed toward Jihan, calling out her name. By the time he'd closed the 
distance between them, he had to leap to catch hold of her ankles. Then, like a 
human rope, all three swayed, suspended in midair.
Higher and higher the three were drawn until Tempus called, "Let go, Jihan! Save 
yourself, as I must!" and dropped down through the roiling air twice his own 
height to land heavily upon the ground.
When he'd regained his feet, he saw Jihan, holding Shamshi, disappearing into 
the funnel in the air. He caught a glimpse of Randal's armor, chasing a witchy 
woman-form, his kris outstretched before him.
Tempus's Aškelonian mare, sighting him, trumpeted a greeting and galloped toward 
him.
He saw Roxane, Death's Queen, the Nisibisi witch, one last time before his horse 
obscured his view: Randal's kris had wrenched itself from its owner's grip and 
was flying through the air toward Roxane's unprotected back, weaving and dodging 
as did she, homing in on her.
At that moment his reinforcements, mortal troops, arrived, and though they were 
nonplussed to see such things as Niko's armor—headless, minus an arm—fighting 
Mygdonians on its own and Randal's, too, doing battle, cleft down the middle, 
they joined right in.
So much for negotiating with Mygdonia, Tempus had time to think as he caught 
sight of Lacan Ajami, trying to rally and direct his army while the whirlwind 
chased them and from its midst, red-glowing eyes glowered down, unforgiving.
Vaulting up on his Aškelonian's back to force through the thick of battle and 
engage his enemy in person, Tempus saw many of his most beloved fighters: Crit, 
unhorsed and standing over Kama, who was on her hands and knees with her elbows 
pressed to her belly as if she'd taken a mortal wound; Straton, not far away, 
slashing about him with berserk abandon, bloody sword in one hand and a 
Mygdonian war ax in the other; Gayle, profanity streaming from his open mouth as 
he and Ari, back to back, held off ten Mygdonians and one wounded Nisibisi 
warlock whose flesh was beginning to steam and char, a sure sign that death was 
near.
Tempus took a moment to stroke his steed's sweating, blood-flecked neck. "Ready, 
horse? That's our man there," he told it, pointing out Lacan Ajami, who was 
trying to reach a group of wizards standing away from the fight as if they were 
preparing to call up their tiresome, stupid fiends and a platoon of demons. He 
reined his horse around and unsheathed his sharkskin-hilted sword. "Let's get 
him."
The Aškelonian leaped forward, snorting.
Lacan Ajami, as if a warlock had warned him, looked straight at Tempus and shook 
his fist. Then all the wizards joined hands around the Mygdonian warlord and the 
whole circle of enemies disappeared.

* * *

Kama hardly felt it when some soldiers dragged her from the field. By then she 
didn't care whose troops they were; she'd lost her child, miscarried on the 
battlefield. She was in pain she couldn't justify, out of action for a reason 
she hoped none of these would guess.
Crit had been there, she remembered, protecting her. Now that it didn't matter, 
she was sure he loved her, and that she loved him.
She'd seen Niko's armor strewn about and Randal's cracked helmet lying on the 
ground.
She wept in the dark in a low black tent filled with other wounded, none of them 
silent in their pain. That her wounds were not exactly the sort of battle scars 
she'd like to sing about at the Festival of Man was all her own fault, and 
nobody else's.
Eventually, she slept.
When she woke, she began to wonder if she'd die of her wounds. Even on her 
deathbed, she would never tell and shame both Critias and herself.
A light appeared, small and far away in the dark.
She watched it coming closer, thinking it might be her patron deity come to take 
her to heaven (if she still deserved it) or to hell (if lying and cheating and 
playing at war and womanhood without committing to either was a sin).
But it was not a shade or even Death that came. It was her father, an oil lamp 
in his hand.
He'd never gone out of his way before on her account; when she'd been doing 
well, he hadn't noticed. If not for her lust for Crit, the forbidden officer, 
she'd have won this engagement on her own terms: she had put Grillo out of 
action, sowing suspicions in Critias's mind; she'd brought the 3rd together with 
their founder and seen to it that all moved north of Wizardwall to carry the 
battle to Ajami.
None of it mattered, with her belly ravaged and her thighs sticky from her own 
blood.
At least she hadn't thought it would until Tempus was standing over her, looking 
frightful with his scabbed and stubbled face underlit by the lamp's flame.
"Life to you, Kama. May I sit with you?" Tern-pus said.
She tried to see in his face whether he'd penetrated the deception, whether he 
was here to disavow her formally. The loss of Niko and of Randal would surely 
have touched him; Tempus's love for his fighters was legend, and Niko was as 
close to an inheritor of the Riddler's mantle as any offspring of his own loins 
might have been.
In Tempus's face was only a map of the war ongoing, nothing more. His hooded 
eyes stared calmly down at her, awaiting her response.
She said, "And to you, Riddler—" she still dared not call him Father; "life and 
everlasting glory. Sit, if it's your pleasure."
"Hardly that." He sighed and hunkered down beside her bed, placing the lamp on a 
barrel strewn with bloody cloths. "Why didn't you or Crit tell me you were with 
child?"
"I tell you? And miss the battle? Be confirmed a worthless woman in your 
eyes—you, who think of women just for raping or bedwarming or as an excuse to 
pick a fight? As for Crit," she tried to shrug, then winced at the pain racing 
up from her belly, then continued: "What he does is up to him."
"Stupid."
It seemed that this indictment hung for hours in the air between them.
"Yes," she agreed at last. "You're right." She was weak. His face swam in 
granular, colored light that made her queasy. "Am I going to die?"
"You? I don't think so—neither of us will be quit of the other so easily as 
that. Randal has agreed to see to you—"
"Randal? But he's dead… I saw his armor, his helmet—empty pieces strewn upon the 
ground."
Tempus chuckled. "Randal and Niko sent their clothes into battle with us. 
Expecting treachery, a last attempt on Roxane's part to gain control of the 
contested globe, if nothing more, they stayed with the hidden contingent as 
field commanders."
"They? Then Niko isn't dead?" Kama felt better, suddenly: she'd thought for 
certain that the blame for losing them would fall on her.
"Niko? No, not dead. Cranky and still weak, despite all magic and even Cime's 
healing—he pushed too hard this afternoon. Randal was supposed to keep Stealth 
out of the thick of things, but he can't be kept from his calling, any more than 
you or me."
You? He meant her. For the first time she took a deep breath and thought that 
perhaps her father didn't hate her, or devalue her because she was a woman. She 
tried to sit up.
Tempus put a horny hand in the middle of her chest and pushed her back onto her 
cot. "Rest. We're riding tomorrow. Randal will be along to see you—with your 
permission. We'll have a wag-onload of wounded anyway—one more won't crowd it. 
But I have a feeling that you'd rather ride than be carted behind the troops. 
One would want to sortie into Mygdon on one's own."
Into Mygdon? "One would. One does."
"Then you'll agree to let our Hazard treat you, with magic if need be? The 
sortie party will be chasing what's left of Ajami's army. If that's too much for 
you, you can ride with the main contingent."
"Where will the 3rd be? Sync? Cri—Critias?" She hadn't meant to stutter. But she 
had to know.
"Where they'll do the most good." Tempus rose then, picking up the oil lamp. 
"I'm pleased you're with us. Now that we've lost Jihan to her father and Cime to 
the entelechy of dreams, we need a representative of the fair sex to help us 
guess what Roxane's next move might be. Think on it. You have the advantage of 
being similar in bent of mind."
Advantage? She would have asked him to expand on that, but her father was gone, 
just a light bobbing as it disappeared in the distance and the dark.