The courtyard in which Garric stood with Tenoctris and Liane was big enough to swallow the Field of Monuments in Carcosa. Sand had swept in from the west, covering whatever walls or buildings had stood on that side.

“Is this a city or all one building?” Liane asked. “It looks as though it's all connected.”

“It's both, really,” Tenoctris said. “A vast building to contain all of mankind. The builders called it Alae, which meant Wings in their language, and it was man's last city.”

Though Tenoctris had claimed she could walk by herself, Garric made sure his left arm was taking most of her weight. He breathed deeply but his lungs didn't seem to fill properly. He certainly wasn't going to let her strain herself physically if he could help it.

“The last?” Liane said. It was hard to hear her voice. The air didn't carry sound well, but Liane was speaking softly besides. The thought must have disturbed her. Garric was too focused on his own problems to worry about those of a city long dead.

“The last of mankind on this world,” Tenoctris said quietly. “There has to be an end some time, you know. What we must do is see to it that it's a natural end, not because chaos triumphed and wiped life away before its time.”

She squeezed Garric's biceps affectionately and reached out to pat Liane's arm with the other hand. “That's what we have to try to do, I mean.”

“Evil won't win while I'm standing,” Garric said, echoing the thought of the king in his mind. He laughed and added, “While any of us are.”

Though hidden, the western structures stabilized the dune and prevented it from devouring the remainder of the plaza with a single sinuous bound. Tendrils of glistening sand had squirmed to the first of the five terraces rising from the central hollow, but the small-leafed bushes rooting in cracks in the pavement were visibly different from the vegetation that grew on the dune itself.

They mounted three steps to the first terrace. Garric had seen fields where the ground was shored up to hold rainwater and to flatten the surface to make cultivating easier. This—changing the contours of the land on an enormous scale merely to create a vista for those beholding it—was new to him.

From Carus' memory cascaded images of the great cities of the Old Kingdom. Carcosa, Valles, and a dozen metropolitan centers had structures built on an impressive scale, but no single unified artifact like this one.

At about every twenty yards around the edge, as though looking down into the pit, were statues of crouching beasts. They'd been heavily worn by blowing sand.

“Are these lions?” Garric asked. There were humps on the backs of the stone creatures.

The moon was well up. Though it seemed larger than the orb which shone on the world to which he'd been born, its light was reddish and not as clear as he expected.

“They're sphinxes, Garric,” Liane said. “Winged sphinxes. They couldn't fly with little wings like that, though.”

She looked at Tenoctris. “Could they?” she added. Garric wasn't sure from Liane's tone whether the question was serious.

“The statues are just a decoration,” Tenoctris said, eyeing them as they climbed past to the next terrace. “Though the men who carved them could fly. At least they could have flown if they'd wanted to. They'd given it up long before the last of them had died.”

Garric missed a step in amazement. “How could anybody give up flying?” he asked.

Often while minding sheep he'd put down whatever book he'd brought and watched instead the gulls gliding above the sea. Land birds didn't impress him. The little ones darted from place to place with no thought but safety or another bite to eat. Vultures wheeled all day above a sunlit field, but their circles were even more obviously empty than the punctuated fluttering of their lesser brethren.

But the whole world belonged to the gulls. Their gray wings coursed from island to island, and they made their home for the night wherever they chose.

“The people who built Alae had other concerns,” Tenoctris said. She looked back at the rank of downward-looking sphinxes. “Perhaps they'd have been better off to remember flight,” she added. “Though I shouldn't judge other people.”

The third terrace was surrounded by a railing. Blowing sand had sculpted its spiral banisters thinner yet; some had been worn to stubs reaching toward one another like pairs of stalactites and stalagmites.

An ornamental gateway, square and massive, framed the steps. Its flat surfaces were carved in low relief. The wind must always come from the northwest, because the figures on the sheltered angles were still sharp. There were willowy humans, nude but sexless, carrying out rituals that involved pouring fluid from basin to basin and over one another. Their faces were almond-shaped and without expression.

Liane carried the collapsible desk that held her writing equipment and whatever documents she felt she'd need for her present endeavors. Though the case was no heavier than a traveler's wallet, she paused to switch the strap from her right shoulder to her left. Garric was tiring fast in the thin air, too.

“Alman is the last of his race, then?” Liane asked.

“Alman bor-Hallimann was a wizard in the time of King Lorcan,” Tenoctris said, smiling faintly. “He was horrified by the upheaval that attended the founding of the kingdom and wanted to go somewhere where he'd have peace for his studies. He came to Alae after other men were gone from the city.”

She looked around at the windswept magnificence. “He has a scrying glass made from the lens of the Behemoth's single eye,” she added. “I want to borrow it to view the other side of the bridge.”

“Will Alman help us?” Liane asked. “If he came here for peace... ?”

“He'll help us because he's human and mankind needs help,” Garric said. “Or if Alman no longer cares about humanity—”

He touched his sword hilt, reassuring himself that it was where he knew it was.

“—then I don't care very much about Alman's willingness.”

The slabs paving the fourth terrace were a material different from the ruddy stone of which the remainder of the city was made. Water! Garric's eyes told him, but a dusting of sand had blown onto even this relatively high surface. Aloud he said, “Is it glass?”

The surface was smooth, dangerously smooth. Garric placed his feet carefully, stepping straight down, because he knew that otherwise he'd fall and take Tenoctris with him. Sand grains scrunched beneath his boots.

“It's too hard for glass, Garric,” Liane said. “The blowing sand hasn't etched it at all.”

She swallowed; the thin air seemed to dry throats abnormally fast. “It could be sapphire, though,” she added quietly.

Garric frowned, trying to see the pavement as a creation rather than an obstacle as dangerous to cross as a narrow ledge. The surface was flat: it reflected the surrounding buildings without distortion, and on it the stars glittered as motionless points in the same relation to one another as they had in the cold heavens.

Garric wasn't sure whether the pavement had color. Perhaps it was blue or blue-black, but he might be seeing the sky echoed deep in a crystal of white purity.

They reached the highest terrace. Garric sighed with relief as he set his boot on the border of pale sandstone. It was hard and originally highly polished to judge from corners which blowing grit hadn't scored, but it was safe to walk on so long as it was dry. “How did they get across that without breaking their necks?” he complained.

“Mostly they didn't leave the building,” Tenoctris explained. “Toward the end, everyone stayed in his room, being fed by the beings they'd created. And finally, of course, the last of them died.”

“How can anyone choose to live here?” Liane asked. “Alman could have gone other places for privacy. Alae isn't just dead—it was never alive.”

“The men who built it didn't think as we do,” Tenoctris said. “For which I'm very thankful. And as for Alman, I can't say; but he has the power to leave at any time, so this is where he wants to be.”

“Still, it's beautiful,” Garric said. “I don't think I'd be comfortable here myself, but it's very peaceful.”

“Which you are not, lad,” King Carus said. “There were wise, peaceful folk in my day too—priests, some of them; philosophers; even ordinary people who'd decided that they couldn't live with themselves if they took away the life even of someone bent on their destruction.”

The ancient king saw more through Garric's eyes than Garric himself did: a niche that would conceal an assassin, a parapet from which bowmen could step to rain arrows on those in the courtyard below; a sand-sawn cornice that even a child could lever down on an enemy approaching the wall. With a harshness that Carus rarely showed, he added, “Perhaps the Lady delights in their presence; but by what they were afraid or unwilling to do, the kingdom and the lives of their neighbors all went smash.”

Garric looked at Liane, then Tenoctris. Aloud he said, “The world has room enough for peaceful folk. I think they're as likely to be advancing the cause of good as ever I am when I put my hand to my sword.”

The women looked at him—Tenoctris knowingly, Liane with a quizzical lift of the eyebrows. In Garric's mind, his ancestor laughed approval.

They entered the building through a portal that was perfectly square and high enough for a giant. The doorleaves were of silvery metal that the sand had worn more than the stone in which they were set. One valve hung on its hinges; the other was a tangle of scraps half-in, half-out of the hallway beyond. The metal surfaces were chased, though the patterns might have been those of the skirling wind using sand for burins.

From a distance the building seemed monolithic, unmarred and unchangeable. Closer by, Garric could tell that sand had burnished off the fine detail of the lower carvings, and that many woody-stemmed, spiky plants had found cracks in the stonework in which to grow. The walls would trap dew in the mornings and channel the droplets down to niches at the margins, providing a constant source of water in this barren waste.

A first glimpse of the vaulted hallway showed that time's tendrils of destruction had worked on the interior as well. Even so, Garric touched his sword and Liane gasped to see gigantic faces smiling at them from the walls.

A black beetle the size of Garric's little fingernail scurried out of sight in the joint between the blocks forming the right and left side of the nearest face's lips. It was the first form of animal life that Garric had seen in this place.

“Who are they?” Liane asked. Moonlight filtering from openings high above gave the ten faces—five on either wall—a sinister cast, but their expressions were probably intended to be serene under proper lighting. Their lips were fleshy, their noses broad, and their cheeks heavy in contrast to the epicene grace of the figures on the terrace archway.

Tenoctris looked at the carvings with only the general interest she showed for all that came her way. Each wore a complex headdress of porticos and dancers. Despite the dim light, Garric could tell that the sculptors had distorted the figures to compensate for the foreshortening of seeing them from the floor.

“I suspect they're meant for mankind as a whole,” Tenoctris said. “But I can't be sure.”

She smiled at her companions. “The only one who knew anything of Alae were Alman himself and the student from his own time who helped him as he studied the city,” she explained. “The student—we don't have his name, he's just the Acolyte from Shengy—left an account which others copied in part for their almagests.”

Tenoctris coughed in slight embarrassment at what was for her boastfulness. “I'm not a powerful wizard,” she said, “but there are more ways to learn things than by wizardry. I connected several accounts that didn't mention Alman by name with one that did, but which didn't say anything about him viewing Alae. I realized that it was here that he must have taken refuge from the Wars of Unification, carrying his paraphernalia of art. I was very proud of myself.”

She looked at the towering faces about them, her own expression oddly similar to the stone smiles despite the contrast with her fine-drawn, birdlike features. “But I never thought,” Tenoctris said, “that I'd be able to see Alae with my own eyes. I don't have the power to view this place, let alone visit it in the flesh. The bridge draws the cosmos to a single flat sheet in which all time is one time. That made it possible for us to be here.”

Liane nodded. “And makes it necessary for us to remove the bridge,” she said, “before Alae and Valles and all time mix. I don't know exactly what the result would be, but I suspect—”

She grinned and squeezed Garric's hand, reassurance for both of them.

“—a repeat of the way the Old Kingdom ended would be preferable.”

“Well, that's why we're here,” Garric said carefully.

Tenoctris laughed. “Yes, indeed,” she said. She paused to cough and clear her dry throat. “I'm so used to thinking of myself as a scholar that sometimes I forget the times require me to be a person of action.

“Now, how to find Alman?” she went on. Her eyes darted toward each of the three hallways leading from the anteroom. “The incantation I spoke should have brought us by the principle of congruity to the point where Alman entered this plane: the same action in the same medium will cause the same response. That doesn't tell us where he may have walked after he arrived here, however.”

The sand on the floor was unmarked except for whorls drawn by the moving air itself. Garric looked back. The three of them had left clear prints. The wind would erase them eventually, but the air was too thin to shovel sand grains quickly.

“Will he be growing crops?” Garric asked. “Or does he get his food through wizardry?”

“I can't say for a wizard as powerful as Alman,” Tenoctris said with a wry smile. “But the amount of effort to create or transmute matter by art on the scale that a human needs it to live would take most of the waking hours of most wizards.''

She looked behind her, out the open doorway toward the barren plaza. “It might be equally difficult to grow things here, though. I'm not an expert on farming. Or much else that doesn't involve a book.”

Garric laughed. “I can't tell you much about raising crops in this desert myself,” he said, “but if Alman chose to come here we can assume he had a plan to keep himself fed. Let's walk straight through—”

He stretched out his arm.

“—and see if we come to another courtyard on the other side. I don't see how he could be farming in the building itself.”

“The roof of the right wing may have fallen in,” Liane suggested. “It looked as though it had from where we stood when we arrived.”

Garric stamped his foot. “The floor's still stone,” he said mildly, “even if plants could get light.”

He remembered how confused he'd been the first time he entered a city; how confusing he still found cities. City-dwellers snarled or sneered at people who asked them questions they thought were obvious. Liane simply explained without ever suggesting that Garric was stupid because he was ignorant. That attitude was one of Liane's many virtues that Garric was trying to copy.

They walked down the hallway, their footsteps echoing. Tenoctris' toes dragged audibly; Garric paused to shift his grip, spreading his hand on the old woman's hipbone to lift her without making it harder for her to breathe.

“Tenoctris?” Liane asked. “Why didn't Alman's acolyte come here with him?”

“What?” said the wizard. “I'm not sure, Liane; none of the preserved fragments of his account say anything about that, though...”

She looked toward the younger woman. Garric, glancing over Tenoctris' head, was surprised to see how solemn Liane's expression was.

“I expect, since Alman's purpose was to leave his world completely,” Tenoctris resumed carefully, “that he never intended his acolyte to accompany him.”

“That seemed likely to me too,” Liane said. “I wonder how the acolyte felt about being abandoned.”

It wasn't really a question, so Garric didn't say anything in reply. If Tenoctris hadn't been between them, though, he would have hugged Liane.

Doorways—some with their metal panels closed, others standing ajar— were spaced every twenty feet on either side of the passageway. Occasional rents in the outer walls let in light. The rooms were as empty as the hall, though sometimes the vividly carved wall reliefs startled Garric into thinking people were watching him.

For the most part the only illumination was the ghostly haze from above. Garric's eyes adapted to it, but he felt as though he were walking through a cave by the light of glowing fungus.

“Tenoctris?” he said. “There weren't any windows in the rooms originally. How did the people see? By wizardry?”

“They didn't call it that,” Tenoctris said. “They had arts they thought were as natural as you do lighting a candle. Of course, the spell that brought us here was perfectly natural also. I suppose anything's unnatural if you can't do it yourself.”

She laughed. “And I certainly couldn't light these halls the way the builders did,” she added.

When they'd come a quarter mile from the anteroom, Garric saw a rotunda opening ahead. They walked on. The hall and the rooms lying off it had twenty-foot ceilings, making the rooms perfect cubes. The rotunda was over a hundred feet in diameter and as high as it was wide. Another giant doorway gaped on the other side. Some light spilled through it, but more came from the hatch in the ceiling to which a flight of metal steps climbed in a tight helix.

“He's been coming in and out of that door,” Garric said, nodding toward the smudged sand. “I'm going to look closer.”

Without being asked, Liane took Tenoctris' weight. Garric strode quickly across the circular space with both hands free. He didn't expect danger to come at them through the doorway—the beetle was still the only animal he'd seen in this world—but he didn't need Carus' vivid memories of ambush and surprise to remind him that he didn't know anything about this place except that he'd never seen anything similar in the past.

The wind moaned, echoing in the high cylinder. Nothing else moved. Around the walls was a relief of men using the body of an enormous serpent as a capstan bar to turn millstones centered on the doorway. Two-legged creatures with gills and scales were gobbling the parts of men who'd fallen into the mill.

Stuffed into the carvings of the lower register were bulbs the size of a man's head and seedpods like those of the locust tree. What Garric had taken for rubbish was actually a collection of gathered food.

Garric turned. The women had followed him at a pace set by the old wizard's frailty. “I think we've found Alman,” he said. “If his larder's here, he can't be far away.”

All three looked at the silvery spiral rising to the ceiling. It was as delicate as spiderweb, and they'd seen repeated proof that the metal weathered here more quickly than the stone around it. The steps bore fresh scratches from feet grinding sand grains into the treads.

“Then I think we should go see him,” Tenoctris said, starting for the stairs on Liane's arm.

“Let me lead,” Garric said quietly. He slid his sword a finger's breadth up in its sheath and let it drop back.

The wind moaned.

Not that there was any danger...

 

Cashel stretched, first raising his arms and standing on tiptoe, then bending backward with his staff planted behind him as the third leg of a tripod to keep him from falling over. He felt unusually—

Well, he wasn't sure what to call it. Not unusually strong, because strength was something Cashel took for granted the same way he did sunrise. You wouldn't talk about an unusually rising sun, would you?

“Clean” was more like the right word. He'd slept like the dead after Colva fled from him, but there was more to it than a good night's rest. He felt like all the dross had been burned out of him the way a fever would do. He guessed that was Colva's doing.

Cashel grinned. Maybe he ought to thank her, but he guessed that like a fever she was at least as likely to kill as cure.

“What are you smirking about?” Krias demanded. “Have you realized you'd better turn and run the other way?”

Cashel looked down at the ring. Usually the figure was a blur inside the stone, but just now the little demon glittered like a purple spark on the surface.

“No,” Cashel said, “I was just about to start down. Should I close the door behind me?”

“The door won't keep the monsters out,” Krias said. “Only the Guardian could do that, and you've killed him!”

“So I did,” Cashel agreed mildly. He checked his wallet once more, then laced the flap tightly over the bread and cheese he'd brought from Valles— and the little wafer of Landure's life. The disk seemed sturdy enough, but he'd wrapped it in moss nonetheless and tied the bundle with a stem of rye grass.

“I guess I'll close it anyway,” he said as he stepped through the bronze portal. He didn't understand why people—and generally little people, though never before anyone as little as Krias was—tried to get him angry. Mostly it was after they'd had more ale than was good for them.

“Do you drink, Krias?” Cashel asked. “Drink ale and cider, I mean?”

“What?” Krias shrilled. “Of course not, you ninny! I'm a demon, don't you remember?”

Just naturally cantankerous, Cashel decided. Well, a lot of people were. He sighed and looked the portal over.

The door had no latch or bar, just a vertical staple on either side for a handgrip. The lower half of the grip was polished by use. Landure hadn't spent his time outside with his sword drawn. He must have ruled his Underworld the way Cashel tended sheep, always present to keep an eye on them and to take care of things when they got into some foolishness or other.

Cashel stepped into the cavern. For as far as he could see there was just rock with no marking except for a patch of damp just at the edge of the light. That was going to be a problem, now that he thought about it: the light. Still, Landure had gotten along—and Colva too, it seemed like—so Cashel would. Maybe Krias would guide him.

Cashel put his left hand on the inner staple and pulled the door closed. The door swung easily once he got it moving to start with. He wondered what the builders used for hinges to carry so much weight without binding.

Come to think, he wondered who the builders were.

The bronze door closed with a soft thump. The fit between jamb and valve was so close that they trapped air in between for a cushion.

It wasn't a cave anymore. Light as red as rusted iron shone all around him. Everything had changed.

Cashel stood on an outcrop overlooking a pine-covered valley. He could see for, well, as far as he'd ever seen. It was like looking out to sea from the pastures south of Barca's Hamlet, but he was a lot higher up here.

He glanced over his shoulder. Now the door was set into the face of a bluff that pretty much mirrored what he'd seen from the outside. Stunted pines and rhododendrons grew from the rock face, though they didn't look quite right. The limbs were a little too sinuous, and he'd never seen a pine with bark as smooth as the one bobbing just above his head. Well, you had to expect differences when you traveled.

“I suppose you're wondering where the light comes from, aren't you?” Krias said.

Cashel thought about it. “No,” he said, “but I'm glad it's here. I'd been wondering about that.”

He coughed, clearing his throat. The air still had a touch of sulfur to it; it nipped at the back of nose when he breathed. He guessed he'd get used to it. The trees looked healthy enough, even if they were a bit funny.

“Do I just head down there and follow the river?” Cashel asked, pointing his staff toward what looked like a reasonable track into the valley. He didn't see a river, but that was what you got at the bottom of valleys.

Cashel could get around on the rocks, but he wasn't an enthusiastic climber. It wasn't a matter of strength or a head for heights; it was simply weight. He crumbled niches and knobs that supported smaller fellows just fine.

“You don't care, do you?” Krias said. The demon sounded really amazed instead of just being peevish. “Here you go into what you think is a cave and you don't care where the light comes from! It doesn't come from anywhere! It's a part of the Underworld, like the rocks and everything else except the monsters. It's part of their cage!”

“Oh,” said Cashel. It didn't sound like he was going to get an answer to his question, so he started down the slope. He'd thought carrying the quarterstaff might be a problem, but when he butted it in the roots of trees below him, it braced his body as he climbed down.

“You're going to drive me mad!” Krias said.

Cashel didn't say he was sorry—which would've been a lie—but he tried not to smile too broadly either. That happened a lot, people going into shrieking rages because Cashel wouldn't get mad at them. Krias didn't realize that he was playing an old tune that Cashel had learned long since to counterpoint.

Things chattered in the trees, but they didn't sound much like the woodland creatures Cashel knew from home. They didn't sound like anything he wanted to get to know, either. One sort clicked like rattling bones, and the rest hooted like owls that knew something nasty about you.

Cashel gripped a little dogwood, gave it a firm tug to make sure its roots would stay anchored, and let himself down another long step. Just below was a proper ledge, so big it had grass growing. After that the slope eased enough that he'd be able to walk normally.

He thought about Landure the Guardian, who hadn't been dressed for rock climbing during the brief time he and Cashel knew one another. Of course, he might have changed into a short tunic and taken off those silly boots before he entered the cave, but the long sword was at best going to get in the way.

“What did Landure do, Master Krias?” Cashel asked as he stepped onto the ledge and caught his breath for a moment. “Climbing down into the valley, I mean? Did he have a different route?”

He wriggled his toes. The roots of the plants who'd first colonized the rock trapped grit and windblown dust, creating a more welcoming terrain for later comers. You couldn't call the result sod, but it felt pretty good nonetheless.

“Landure didn't walk like a sheep-boy!” Krias said. “He was a great wizard. He floated through the air with his arms crossed.”

“Ah,” said Cashel, nodding. He should've guessed it'd be something like that.

He stepped off the end of the ledge carefully, thrusting his staff in front of him. It might not be steep enough now that he'd break his neck, but he could still make himself no end of fool if he slipped. Rolling downslope like a round of cheese wouldn't be the way to meet any of the locals either. Colva had been bad enough, and Cashel didn't doubt there could be worse where she came from.

“You could fly too, you know,” Krias piped unexpectedly. “Sail majestically over the treetops.”

“What?” said Cashel. “This is fine. I'm not a wizard.”

He walked on, keeping his staff pointed well out in front of him, but he didn't worry anymore that he was going to fall. He was just being careful, as usual.

“I'm a demon with powers beyond your imagining!” Krias said. “I can make you fly!”

Cashel grinned. He might not have much imagination, but he'd seen things since he left home that he didn't think a puny little fellow like Krias was going to better. Aloud he said, “Oh, I don't mind walking. I just wondered about Landure.”

Krias gabbled to himself. He sounded like a cote full of doves going to sleep, only madder.

If he'd asked, Cashel would've explained that he wanted to have his feet planted if it came to trouble, and from what Krias himself had said it was going to do that sooner or later. Cashel didn't volunteer that because Krias was the sort who'd jeer at whatever reason Cashel gave him; and anyway, Cashel didn't generally volunteer what he was thinking.

He'd gotten down into the forest proper. It was mostly pine like it had seemed from above, but there were red maples and dogwoods where the taller trees let light through. There were outcrops of bare rock, too, as well as places where moss had found a lodging but nothing larger was able to. The moss wriggled under Cashel's toes in a fashion that struck him as more active than a small plant ought to be.

He heard music. It was a fluting sound, very pure and sweet. Usually high notes like those didn't travel far in a forest, but Cashel was pretty sure that this wasn't a usual forest.

“What's that noise, Krias?” Cashel asked. He'd been about to rest the staff over his shoulder as he walked, but the sound made him change his mind. He kept the sturdy length of hickory in both hands, slanted crossways.

“I know and you're going to learn, sheep-boy!” the ring cried gleefully. “Oh! you will! You're going to wish you'd never come down to the Underworld!”

Cashel thought about that. The horn—or was it just a throat, a singer loud enough to sound like a horn?—continued to call. The golden notes seemed to come from several different directions, but that might have been tricks of echoes.

Cashel could imagine he wouldn't like what he found in the Underworld, that was true. But that he'd regret coming? No, that wouldn't happen. This was the direction that took him closer to Sharina. He couldn't imagine going any way but that one.

“Well, aren't you going to ask me what it is?” Krias said, pouting because Cashel hadn't begged or yelled or whatever for the information.

“That's all right,” Cashel said. “I guess I'll learn before long.”

Sure, he'd have liked to know what was calling—that's why he'd asked in the first place. But you didn't get anywhere by playing silly games with folks who wanted to be difficult. Trying to wheedle the ring into telling would be as big a waste of time as chasing a chicken around the house when you wanted dinner. Much better to drop a pinch of oats between your spread feet while you sat on the back step.

And wring the bird's fool neck when she came to peck up the food.

Cashel grinned. He wondered if you could stew a demon. Krias would probably taste worse than a fish crow.

This was an open forest, not much different from the woodland owned in common by the householders of Barca's Hamlet. There dead limbs were gathered—and dead trees felled—for fuel, while hogs rooting for mast kept the undergrowth clear. Maybe the same thing was going on here, but Cashel would've smelled woodsmoke if he'd been anywhere close to Barca's Hamlet.

He didn't smell the sulfur either, but his throat was dry and getting drier or so he knew it hadn't gone away. That was the thing about a really bad stink: it didn't take long before you didn't notice it anymore. Ermand or-Pile didn't mind how his tanyard smelled, but any other villager who came close gagged at the stench of urine, alum, and rotting fat.

Cashel caught movement out of the corners of his eyes. Things were flitting between the trees, though it seemed more like they were flitting within the trees some of the time. Were they women? But then, Colva had looked like a woman when he first met her.

The horns had stopped calling. Now Cashel heard plucked strings and somebody singing to the tune. He couldn't make out the words.

Cashel gave his quarterstaff a practice spin, in front of him and then over his head. The ferrules swept in a graceful figure eight, smooth as butter. Cashel crossed his wrists, swapped hands, and repeated the set of movements to bring the staff back just as it was when he started.

He was glad there wasn't much undergrowth. A quarterstaff takes up a lot of room even at rest, and when seven feet of iron-capped hickory is moving at the speed Cashel's thick wrists could bring it to—Duzi knew, you wouldn't be able to see for ivy leaves and splinters of saplings!

“So, you're going to fight them with your stick, sheep-boy?” Krias said.

“I'm not going to fight anybody if I can help it,” Cashel said, slowing his breathing back down to where it ought to be. It wasn't so much the exercise of whirling the quarterstaff that made Cashel's heart race as the chance he was coming to the fight he'd told Krias—truthfully—that he wasn't looking for.

Cashel never had gone looking for a fight. But he'd never turned his back on one that came to him, either.

Ahead of him was the gurgle of water moving over rocks at a good clip. That was the sort of sound that fooled you. It didn't seem loud, but it smothered all the other noises that usually warned you about things you couldn't—

A man stepped out of the forest in front of Cashel. Stepped out of a giant beech tree? But maybe he'd just been in the shade beside it. He carried a bow made of gold instead of ashwood or yew, and the arrows in his quiver had silver shafts. He was tall but not as tall as Cashel, and his build was as slim and supple as a young girl's.

“Greetings, stranger,” he said. “We People don't get many visitors.”

His eyes kept drifting toward the iron ferrules of Cashel's staff and the glint of Krias on his little finger. The fellow had the same expression as old Kifer did, sitting in a corner of Reise's taproom staring at his neighbors drinking jacks of ale that Kifer couldn't afford since he'd drunk away his land and lived by casual labor.

Cashel spread his legs. He turned his head slightly, side to side; nothing furtive, just openly checking to see if he had more company.

He did. There were at least four handsful of them, males and equally willowy females, standing in a wide circle among the trees. Only the first would have been within reach of Cashel's quarterstaff.

“Good day, sir,” Cashel said. “I'm Cashel or-Kenset, and I'm just passing through this region. I don't intend to trouble you.”

The strangers were bare-chested, wearing kilts cut to hang lower on their right leg than the left. Most of them held golden bows like the fellow who'd greeted Cashel. Three had slender horns coiled over one shoulder and about their chests; these had swords thrust beneath their girdles. The blades writhed like snakes.

Only one of the group was unarmed, a lanky boy with a shock of red hair instead of the golden curls of the others. He carried a double-strung lyre, and he glared in disgust at Cashel.

“I am Wella, Cashel,” said the man who'd greeted him first. He stared at the ring with hungry eyes. “We People are honored by your presence. You must stay with us tonight so that we can feast you as you deserve.”

One of the females stepped toward Cashel, her slim-fingered hand reaching out as if to touch something perfect and fragile. He saw the movement and turned quickly. She sprang back immediately, smiling.

“I...” Cashel said. He didn't want to spend any longer with the People than it took his legs to carry him away; but there were a lot of them, and they had bows. He thought of asking Krias what to do, but he couldn't trust the demon to say anything helpful. Besides, the People were already a bit too interested in the ring.

“Come, Cashel,” Wella said, stretching out the hand that didn't hold his bow. “Come to the home of the People.”

Cashel moved slightly; the quarterstaff bobbed its iron cap a hair's breadth closer to Wella. He jerked back, his topaz eyes blazing.

“Elfin, lead our guest,” Wella said.

The youth with the lyre stepped forward and put his hand on Cashel's arm. “Come, heavy person,” Elfin said. His voice was as pure as the sound of ice cracking in a hard winter. “Come and we People will treat you as we should.”

“Well, I guess I need to eat somewhere,” Cashel said. The youth's touch was reassuringly warm. Cashel had expected something smooth and metallic, somehow.

The People turned and started off through the forest. Cashel was in the midst of the party; Elfin's fingers never left his biceps.

“I know and you're going to learn,” chimed the ring's tiny voice.

 

“How old are you, my pretty little miss?” sang Chalcus at one of the mutineers' pair of driftwood fires. “How old are you, sweet marrow?”

Ilna thought of Garric's piping; and turned her thoughts back, because there was no sense and less joy in the direction they were going. Four sailors danced on the sand, their hands on their hips and their legs kicking high. The only accompaniment came from another man with miniature cymbals made from hollowed nutshells on his thumbs and forefingers. He clacked them together, giving the beat with his right hand and a complex rustling counterpoint with the other.

“If I don't die of a broken heart,” Chalcus sang, now in a falsetto, “I'm sixteen come tomorrow.”

Ilna looked down at the child sleeping beside her. Merota had a bit of her cloak's hem in her mouth and was chewing it as she dreamed. Ilna thought of tugging the cloth free, but there wasn't any real harm in what the girl was doing.

Ilna sighed also. She had to remind herself to pass over the many things that might be wrong but didn't do any harm. And some of them weren't wrong, even though Ilna os-Kenset thought they were. Her head accepted that, but her heart would never believe it as long as she lived.

There was nothing wrong with the music, for example. Ilna wasn't in a mood to listen to it, though, and unlike Merota she wasn't so wrung out by the day's events that she could sleep despite it.

The provisions intended for Lord Tadai and his suite had still been aboard when Mastyn sprang his mutiny. Tonight the sailors had eaten food they'd never known existed—eaten some and wasted more, actually. To sailors from the south coast of Ornifal, eggs preserved in a sauce of rotted sheep's entrails were simply rotten eggs, while the tastes of the royal court ran to far more exotic dishes than that.

Ilna smiled faintly. Prince Garric's taste in food wasn't that different from the sailors', actually, though the one was heavier on mutton with porridge and the other on porridge with fish. The courtiers were appalled.

Tadai's wines had found universal acceptance, though. The vintages came from all over the Isles, some of them spiced and many fermented from fruits other than grapes, but that made no matter. The sailors' attitude seemed to be that when you'd drunk enough, it didn't matter if the stuff smelled like worms had died in the vat. The party would be going on till dawn. Vonculo and the other leaders would have their work cut out to get the ships relaunched by midday.

Ilna stood, glanced again to be sure Merota was still quiet, and walked toward the fire at the other end of the long crescent. Behind her a dozen sailors joined Chalcus to chorus, “Ti di diddly di, ti diddle do!”

It didn't disturb Ilna to hear other people having fun. Her lips quirked in an almost-smile. It shouldn't disturb her, at least.

Vonculo and four other sailors sat around the fire at the other end of the islet. They'd knocked the top off the long-necked jug that stood upright in the sand beside them, but the atmosphere here was in dismal contrast to that of the larger grouping.

Ilna had no intention of joining Vonculo. The common sailors were fools and presently drunk besides, but they'd still be better company than the men who planned this nonsense.

For now, all Ilna intended was to put distance between herself and noisy happiness until she mastered her anger enough to go back and sleep beside Merota. She didn't expect to be happy. Some people were, some people weren't. It didn't seem to matter what happened around them—it was how they were made inside.

Cashel was happy. Not all the time, but more of the time than any other person Ilna had met. She supposed that she and her brother had a normal amount of happiness between them; but you weren't going to mistake a garment with black and white stripes for a gray one.

Just now Ilna was furious at the world; and that in turn made her angry with herself for such a foolish reaction. Clouds didn't care who they rained on, and the world didn't care that Ilna os-Kenset saw life as a tangle of yam greater than any human being could be expected to sort out.

The world didn't expect Ilna to sort things out. That was a duty she put on herself, more fool her.

Ilna seated herself against a hummock of sand cemented roughly by lime in the crushed shells that made up much of the whole. She looked up at the stars, wondering if the people who inhabited the heavenly spheres on which the stars turned were happier than she was.

She smiled again. The people like Cashel were, she supposed. No doubt there was balance in the heavens as well as here.

Vonculo and his fellows carried on a morose conversation without noticing Ilna. She hadn't made any attempt to conceal herself, but she'd been quiet and the dark blue cloak hid her better in the night than true black would have done.

Ilna was too far away to overhear the men's conversation, not that she'd have wanted to. They'd be making a series of despondent observations about the mess they'd put themselves in. At any rate, Ilna would have been doing that if she'd been fool enough to have joined them.

The Ravager’s helmsman stirred up the fire with a salt-crusted pine bough, then tossed his poker on the rekindled flames as fresh fuel. Vonculo inserted the key in the music box and wound it.

Ilna's eyes had been drawn by the flare of sparks, but when she saw Vonculo with the device she continued to watch. She wasn't spying—she was in plain sight, after all, if any of the seamen bothered to look around—but neither was she particularly pleased with herself.

Vonculo released the key. It turned, glittering, and the box began a tuneless chime as if someone were tapping the blade of a good sword. The sound was empty rhythm—

But sparks rising from the fire whirled into images of flesh. Didn't Vonculo and the others see what was happening? Their eyes remained fixed on the music box, ignoring the fiery dance in their midst.

Ilna watched the patterns the sparks drew. Six wizards and a mummy stood in a circle chanting. She could hear the words—meaningless to her, meaningless to anyone but the powers they commanded—in the whorls of light.

Above Ilna the stars wheeled; before her the sparks spun. Together in the tinkle of the music box they made a purposeful unity, like cogs turning Katchin's millstones and grinding grain to flour. She wasn't on an islet of the Inner Sea, though part of her mind remembered that place; and remembered Valles and Barca's Hamlet and all her past.

Inside the circle of wizards knelt a seventh: his right hand raised with a dagger, his left holding a bound child on the floor in front of him. A man taller than anyone of Ilna's acquaintance was tied to a pillar beside the coven of wizards. He screamed, and his muscles were knotted like kinks in an anchor chain.

The wizards chanted, then paused. Their leader in the center shouted the final verse of the incantation and stabbed downward.

Wood cracked in the fire like sudden lightning. Sparks exploded upward, dissolving the scene. Ilna shivered in the warm night as the final note rang from the mechanism of the box.

Vonculo removed the key and wrapped the box again in its silk brocade. He and the others drank and talked and cursed the luck they had made for themselves.

After a time, Ilna got to her feet and walked toward the other fire, where Merota slept and Chalcus sang of a black-haired girl with lips as sweet as honey.

 

Sharina took a deep breath, squared her shoulders, and stepped out of the alley. A trio of women with market baskets on their heads bore down on her, chattering among themselves. She squeezed against the wall. The women swept by, giving her only a cursory glance. The trussed capon in the middle basket craned its neck to glare at Sharina as long as they were in sight of one another.

She grimaced. She didn't know what the bird had against her: it wouldn't be going into her oven.

Sharina wanted to sell the gold pectoral, but she wanted to know more about where she was first. She started walking, east so that the lowering sun would be on the faces and in the eyes of people coming toward her. She listened to talk and street cries, not for the information they contained but rather to be sure that she could understand and be understood here before she tried to do business.

She was getting awfully hungry. She passed a woman carrying a tray of wheat loaves under a piece of worsted cloth. Sharina's stomach cramped with longing at the smell of fresh bread.

The streets meandered. This city had been laid out by sheep walking to market or by men who had as little regard for straight lines as sheep did. The thoroughfare down which Sharina started split into two branches, each so narrow that the women talking to one another across the second-floor balconies could have touched hands if they'd wanted to. She went left.

The shops on the ground floor here sold pottery. It was utilitarian stuff, not even as good as the salt-glazed earthenware manufactured at Dashen's Place, on the road across Haft from Barca's Hamlet to Carcosa. The shapes were clumsy, and the crudely brushed slip decoration added color but no beauty to the beige field.

Sometimes shoppers glanced at Sharina. She was taller than other pedestrians, men as well as women, and her long blond tresses were an exception among swarthy, dark-haired folk.

The same had been true in Barca's Hamlet, of course. The people back home had had eighteen years to get used to Sharina's appearance, though. Still, nobody here screamed when they saw Sharina and she didn't think she'd have any trouble being understood.

She waited till she got to an intersection where three streets met and a fourth split off a few steps down the widest. A doctor had set up at a corner booth. His paraphernalia were displayed on the open counter before him: stoneware medicine jars and a rank of surgical tools. The blades were iron but had gilt and silver chasing on the bronze handles to lure custom by their flash.

At the back of the doctor's booth hung a creature like nothing Sharina had ever seen before. It had the shape and claws of a scorpion, but its many legs were flat paddles and the body was six feet long. She supposed it was for show rather than some part of the doctor's real medicaments. She certainly hoped it was for show, not that she intended to patronize the fellow professionally.

The doctor had just finished weighing the chunk of copper he'd gotten as his fee for putting ointment on the sores of a man with yaws. He wiped his spatula with a wad of straw which he tossed into the street as Sharina approached.

“What can I do for the lovely lady?” the doctor asked. His eyes narrowed slightly. “If it's a matter of a personal nature, we—”

“I need only information,” Sharina said, hoping to avoid a discussion which would embarrass her. “Can you direct me to the street of goldsmiths?”

“Ah,” said the doctor, setting back on his stool. “Where was the lovely lady born, if I may ask?”

Sharina would have liked to walk off, but that might be more dangerous than answering. She didn't know where she was or when she was, though at least the people of this day had iron tools.

“I'm from Ornifal,” Sharina said curtly. Her blood father had been an Ornifal noble, and her looks favored his side of the family. She turned away and called over her shoulder, “I hope you get all the custom your courtesy deserves.”

“My apologies, mistress,” the doctor said. “If you'll follow

Fagot Lane

—”

Sharina looked back; the doctor was pointing up one of the intersecting streets.

“—to the plaza, you'll find the goldsmiths down the street on your left.”

“Thank you,” Sharina said. She smiled, but the expression felt stiff. She hadn't realized how nervous she was until she collided with something as innocent as a busybody's curiosity. And of course she was hungry.

She started down the street. “I wish you luck in your dealings, lovely lady from Ornifal,” the doctor called to her back.

A well with a low curb and a stone trough for watering animals sat in the center of the plaza. Entertainers had set up where each of the streets entered the circular open space.

One man sang and played a monochord while a child of six or younger sang a descant beside him. Either the words were unintelligible or the pair were using their voices as instruments to make sound rather than convey meaning. Across the plaza a man juggled knives, occasionally snatching one from the air with his teeth.

Sharina turned to the left. Here a bird the size of a human being danced. Beside him was a strip of blanket on which spectators had dropped a few finger-length iron wedges.

Sharina looked around to find the owner of the performing animal. A balding fellow wearing a leather apron over his tunic was the only person who didn't glance and walk on, or simply walk on. He reached into his belt purse, fingered the money within, and then strode away quickly without dropping anything on the blanket.

The bird was its own master.

Despite the complaints of her stomach, Sharina stayed to watch. The creature moved with the same smooth grace as a gull flying along a shoreline. It had arms, not wings, though the short limbs bent the way a bird's did rather than those of a man or a dog. It was covered with fine down like a baby chick—though this was a gray, not yellowish—and it wore a harness of coarse fibers knotted in the fashion of macramé.

The bird's head was slightly smaller than that of a human so tall: this wasn't a man wearing a clever costume. Besides, no human could possibly execute the creature's dance. Repeatedly it leaped high, aiming one blunt-clawed foot heavenward while the other pointed to the ground.

Unwillingly, Sharina walked past the dancer and down

Fagot Lane

. The bird paid her no attention. It continued its dance, rotating its body slowly and punctuating each sequence of mini-steps with another vertical kick.

In a line on the left side of the narrow street were five goldsmiths, each in his separate booth. They faced the blank back wall of a stone building, a temple judging from the corner of a pediment that Sharina had glimpsed over the roofs of buildings fronting the plaza.

The booths were open-fronted, but a husky guard with a bare sword or a broad-bladed axe stood at the street side of each. The smiths sat on their strongboxes behind a table, across from an ivory stool for the client. At the right front of each booth was a tiny shrine.

A chest-high curtain drawn across the front of one booth gave privacy for what was probably a pawn rather than a purchase. A personal maid waited in the street beside the guard, alternately wringing her hands and trying to look nonchalant.

Sharina looked over the smiths who were free for the moment. Three of them met her glance with stone-faced professionalism. The last raised an eyebrow in query. His guard was neatly dressed though not as ornately as those of his neighbors, and his shrine was a simple ivory plaque of the Shepherd in contrast to gilt and jeweled images of the Lady of Fortune.

Sharina generally prayed to the Lady, but it was more than thought of Cashel that sent her into the booth of the man with the Shepherd on his wall. His guard nodded politely to her, but his eyes hardened as they lighted on the vague outline of the Pewle knife under her cape. Instead of drawing the curtain behind Sharina, he stepped into the booth with her.

The goldsmith rose from his seat, looking quizzically at his guard. Sharina said, “Your man is concerned that I'm carrying a knife. If this concerns you as well, sir, I'll go elsewhere with my affairs.”

The goldsmith smiled slightly. “Thank you, Tilar,” he said to the guard, “but I think the lady and I can be left to ourselves. It's understandable that someone with valuables would take steps to protect herself.”

To Sharina he went on, “I am Milco of Rasoc, milady.” He extended a hand toward the stool.

The guard stepped away and slid the curtain across. Plenty of light still came through the wooden grate in the ceiling.

Sharina sat, carefully picking her words as she did so. The folk here didn't use the patronymic form of address that was general in the Isles of her own time.

“My name is Sharina,” she said. Milco was thin, old, and very precise, with eyes that didn't miss anything. “I have an heirloom that I need to turn into money.”

The goldsmith's mouth smiled; his eyes did not. “Since you're a stranger, milady”—either the accent or Sharina's appearance alone would have told him that—”I'll mention to you, without offense, I hope, that if you've innocently come into possession of a stolen object, I don't even want to see it. None of the dealers here would. I'll further mention that the chances of myself or my colleagues not knowing what's been stolen in Valhocca or the surrounding region isn't worth the risk a thief would run by displaying such an object to us.”

Sharina smiled. Very smart. “I appreciate your candor,” she said. “The object involved was given me by its owner for me to sell. Before we get deeper into details, though, may I ask about your attitude toward religion?”

She'd heard of Valhocca in epics of the Silver Age, the epoch following the thousand-year reign of the Yellow King; the city didn't figure in the geographical writings of Old Kingdom authors. Valhocca was the capital of the Sea Lords of Cordin.

Everything told about the Sea Lords was mythical. This city was real enough, though, and there was nothing impossible about an ancient kingdom uniting the southern isles millennia before King Lorcan welded together the whole archipelago.

If Valhocca was real, then Sharina had to wonder how real were the stories of the city's destruction. Supposedly the last and greatest Sea Lord, Mantys, put to death a wizard and threw his body into the sea. The wizard had returned with an army of sea demons which floated through the streets like airborne jellyfish. They'd stung to death everyone they met and tore down buildings with their tentacles.

That was all fancy, of course. The philosopher Brancome claimed to have found the story in ancient Serian records, but many thought he'd invented it to make a point in his essay on divine retribution.

Well, Sharina didn't expect to be in Valhocca long. With luck she'd never have to learn how much truth there was in Brancome's tale.

Milco nodded toward the ivory tableau of the Shepherd with two goats. “I worship the Shepherd,” he said. “Most of us in Rasoc do, though worship of the Lady is more general in the city proper.”

“I myself worship the Lady first,” Sharina said, “but my concern is how you feel about artifacts of other faiths of former times.”

The settlers who'd chased her into the Dragon's ruined palace had been reacting to a supernatural event. Sharina didn't want to learn that their descendants, the folk of Valhocca, felt the same way about to the Dragon. If that was the case, she'd have to batter the pectoral shapeless with rocks before she tried to sell it.

“Ah,” said Milco, nodding with understanding. “If perhaps you've been digging in ancient tombs, well... there are a differing attitudes on the subject, but my own is that when men return an object to the earth, then the one who rediscovers it is no more to be censured than the one who dug the ore in the first place. But you're right to discuss the possibilities beforehand.”

Sharina threw back her cape. She pulled loose the neck of her tunic with one hand and fished out the pectoral with the other. She placed it, warm from her body, on the empty table between them.

Milco's eyes widened very slightly when he saw the size of the Pewle knife. “I did Tilar an injustice,” he said mildly. “I couldn't imagine why he was concerned that a lady carried a dagger for protection. Not that I regret admitting you, milady.”

“It was a friend's,” Sharina said curtly. It still hurt to remember Nonnus. She set the thin gold stamping in the center of the table. “I carry it in remembrance of him.”

And to use, if the need arose. As she had used it in the past.

Milco nodded absently, but he'd transferred his whole attention to the pectoral. “May I?” he asked. Sharina flicked her fingers toward him and he picked up the plaque.

“Quite a perfect example,” Milco said judiciously, holding the piece by the edges and rotating it under the light. “Gold doesn't tarnish, of course, but I would still have expected discoloration from debris deposited on the piece.”

Sharina shrugged, then smiled to soften her refusal to give any more information than the pectoral itself provided.

Milco took a steelyard from the shelf of implements behind him and hung it from a ceiling hook on a long copper chain. Next he took gold weights cast in the image of demons from the strongbox and set three of them against the plaque. To bring the two pans into perfect balance he adjusted the beam by one notch.

Sharina waited quietly while Milco carried out the operation. The goldsmith worked without haste but quickly nonetheless; he never wasted a motion. When he'd finished, he took a small knife from his sleeve and with it notched a talk/stick of willow.

“I hope you'll not feel insulted if I test the piece for alloys, milady?” he said. He raised an eyebrow. “Sometimes the luster can be deceptive.”

“Go ahead,” Sharina said. “I have no idea how pure the gold is myself.”

Milco took what Sharina had thought was a mixing bowl for wine from the shelf where the steelyard was kept. It was of much higher quality than the pottery Sharina had passed on her way to his booth. It was already about half-full of clear water.

The vessel's interior glaze was decorated with a harpy drawn in remarkable detail. The tips of her spread wings touched the rim so that the trailing edges of the feathers formed a series of minute notches up the sides.

Milco slid the pectoral into the water with great care. Sharina stood so that she could look into the vessel with him, though she didn't have the faintest notion of what she should be looking for.

Milco shook his head in pleased amazement. He pointed to where the water rose against the harpy's wings—precisely on the tip of one feather, while halfway between a pair on the other wing.

“Absolutely pure,” he said. “I guessed as much from the greasy feel. I harden my weights with copper. Metal as soft as yours can't be touched without being diminished.”

He set the vessel to one side of the table and sat down, gesturing Sharina onto the stool. “This leaves the question of how you choose to proceed,” Milco said. “As you clearly surmised, there are elements in our society which would be offended by the object you've brought me. Offended enough to do violence against the owner.”

With minute grin, Milco added, “At least to attempt violence. I wouldn't choose to be the person who attacked you, milady. But that's only one side of the matter. There are others who might very well pay a considerable sum to gain an object of this sort, regardless of the material of which it was made.”

“Collectors?” Sharina asked. She didn't think Milco meant collectors.

“Of a sort,” Milco replied. “As you noted, the item has religious significance. I could make discreet inquiries if you like; some of them would be within the palace itself. The amount you could realize on the sale would be potentially much greater than the object's bullion value.”

Sharina shrugged in turn. “No thank you,” she said. “I'll sell it to you as a weight of metal.”

Milco nodded. He unhooked the first steelyard and replaced it with another whose counterweight arm was much longer than that for the pan holding the objects being weighed.

The goldsmith would probably advance her something for food, but Sharina didn't have time to wait for him to make cautious inquiries to those with secret interest in demon worship. At least she didn't think she had time. Conceivably she'd have to stay in Valhocca for months or years before the Dragon sent her on the next stage of her journey—or until her friends rescued her. She thought of Cashel, striding toward her through whatever happened to be in his way.

As she waited, Sharina smiled to imagine Valhoccans secretly worshipping the Dragon. He wasn't a God or even a demon—though she wouldn't be surprised to learn that the Dragon had demonic powers. Sharina doubted prayer would be a very good way to get him to help, though.

“Because you're a stranger,” Milco said as he set the three gold demons in the pan of his counterweight, “I'll mention that we exchange twenty weights of silver for one gold, and twelve copper for one weight of silver. Iron is ten to one against copper.”

“What sort of coins do you use here?” Sharina said. She'd seen the little iron wedges tossed to the street entertainers and once she'd noticed a lump of copper being offered in exchange in a shop she'd passed, but she hadn't seen real money.

“Coins?” Milco said, repeating a word that obviously had no meaning for him.

Sharina realized her mistake. Well, the goldsmith already knew that she'd come from far away—though he probably thought the distance was in space rather than time and space both.

“In my country,” Sharina said, “the ruler stamps his face on metal of a given weight and purity so that it doesn't have to be weighed for every transaction.”

Milco smiled thinly. “You're a very trusting people,” he said as he began counting small ingots of silver into the pan of the steelyard. “If I were offered silver by one of my colleagues here, I would be certain that their weight was correct—but I'd reweigh the piece nonetheless. And if Lord Mutums were to offer the ingot, I'd first nick it to be sure that it wasn't lead under a silver wash.”

Sharina laughed. “The custom of the country,” she said. “Though you should recall that the ruler's face tells a merchant what the metal is; what value the merchant puts on that is another matter. Historians say that the coinage of some rulers has passed at the value of lead.”

Milco displayed the steelyard; the counterweight hung slightly lower than the pan of silver. The goldsmith took down a third, much smaller, balance and set it on the table. He put the tiny silver image of a pig in the counterweight and set copper strips in the pan to be weighed.

Sharina frowned. The silver weighed at least four pounds and was of considerable bulk besides. The sturdy leather wallet that had come with the Pewle knife's harness would hold that amount, but it was going to be an unpleasant burden to walk around with.

Not as unpleasant as going hungry, though. She grinned, wondering what the price of a meal in Valhocca was.

Milco took the silver from the hanging steelyard, added three strips of copper, and laid four iron wedges on top. The silver and copper had been stamped, sometimes scores of times, with the hallmark of each goldsmith through whose hands it had passed and—each time—a series of circles and dots to indicate the weight.

Milco reached into his strongbox again and came out with two more silver ingots, a large one and a piece of about a fifth the size of the first. He added them to the end of the pile.

“I'm giving you a premium over the bullion value,” the goldsmith said. His mouth and eyes both smiled—minutely. “If I can sell the artifact in its present form, my profit will still be considerable.”

Instead of taking the metal at once, Sharina said, “You don't have to do that. We made a bargain.”

“So we did,” Milco agreed. “Perhaps the Gods will favor me in the future because I didn't take advantage of a stranger, do you think?”

He laughed. With something more than humor in his voice, though, he added, “And there's also the fact that I believe you when you say that the owner of the object—”

The pectoral had vanished into his strongbox as soon as he removed it from the steelyard.

“—gave it to you to sell. I worship the Shepherd, as I said. But I wouldn't willingly offend the personage whose object that was.”

“I see,” said Sharina. She began placing the silver in the leather wallet. The copper and iron would fit in the brocade purse she kept in her left sleeve.

She remembered the Dragon's tone when he spoke of those who were using his body for purposes of their own wizardry. She gave Milco a tight smile and said, “Yes, I think that shows good judgment on your part.”