—1—

“I do not relish the prospect of having threads woven through my skull—even if they are golden! I do not care to have twenty children—none of whom I’ll be allowed to ever call mine! And I certainly do not want to wind up looking like some painted freak from Teste’s carnival. My skin is not meant to become a testimony to the vanity and the ridiculous superstition of some Thalonican Wearer, with the mind of a wist-bug, and a beard the length of a mooring rope.”

Nerys stamped her foot on the wooden floor, eliciting a satisfying ‘thunk’ from the boards. The impact caused a sharp pain to shoot from her heel and up her right leg. She grimaced—but, ultimately, she welcomed it. It was insignificant compared to the pain they were inflicting on her now. The least she could do was to make her disgust and displeasure known to all. Not that it would do her any good—but if she didn’t let it out she would surely become deranged; if not now, then very soon, when life as she knew it would end forever.

Teufel, her youngest brother—and, she reminded herself, one of the seven reasons why she was in this predicament!—regarded her with quizzical incomprehension. His baby-blue eyes offered nothing but a complete lack of appreciation of her position.

“What do you mean?” he asked, perplexed. “This is as it is. You know this. Just as I must do my stint in the mine-office, so you must do your duty and bear Corran the boy-children he wants you to bear.” Again he shook his head, confused about Nerys’ surprising reluctance. “How can you think this way? Your Index: 629! The highest in Gaskar! Think of it! How can you even begin to question…”

Nerys glared at him. “My Index? It’s got nothing to do with me! Don’t you understand that? Nothing! It’s a stupid number! I don’t even come into this. It is the seven of you that are doing this to me! You make the number. You and your brothers—and our uncles, and our grandparents, and…oh, damn you!”

She was so angry now. Angry that he didn’t understand. Teufel—who should have. The boy she’d always cuddled and comforted when mother was in one of her moods. The gurgling baby that she, herself barely three years older, had taken for endless walks along Gaskar’s expansive parks, when nobody but the nursemaids—all of them drudges who didn’t really care a whit about the boy, but just did what they were ordered—could be bothered with him. The one human being who, even if he didn’t understand, might at least try to be on her side!

Or was he? If so, he hid it well.

But, deep down, she knew that he was hiding nothing.

So there was nobody—nobody who could possibly understand; or help—if there was such a thing as ‘help’ for someone like her.

“Think,” Teufel said, his face animated, “of the servants you will have to cater to your every whim. Think! You may become one of the most revered women in Thalonica.”

A glow of pride suffused his words. Nerys gaped at him, unable to believe what she was hearing. Pride in what? Her future status as a breeder? How could he? He was a Gaskarian! How could he get such stimulation out of Thalonican superstitions? Or—and the thought gave her pause and made her shudder—did he genuinely feel that this was a good thing for her?

She looked at Teufel and it was like looking at a stranger.

“Corran is renown for his impeccable taste,” he assured her. “He will use the most exquisite decorators. I hear that he has a grade five in his permanent employ! You’ll be beautiful!”

Nerys took a deep breath to calm herself.

“What am I now?” she asked. “Ugly?”

“Of course not,” he amended hastily.

“But you think that my appearance could be improved upon!”

Even Teufel, callow youth that he was, noticed the danger signs. She could see him trying to find a way to talk himself out of the mess he’d gotten into. What bothered her was that it was not because he understood the preposterousness of his opinions. He just wanted to get out the room now; preferably without being torn apart in mid-air by her tongue before making his escape.

The world blurred before her eyes when she realized the complete and utter hopelessness of her situation.

“Go away,” she hissed. “Just go away!”

“Ner…” Now he was sorry for her again. She hated that. She always hated it when people were feeling sorry for her.

“Go away!”

“Ner, you just don’t understand. This is as it should be. How could it be otherwise? How could you…”

She took a quick step forward. “How could I what? Want my life?”

He regarded her with a certainty that might have been mistaken for the wisdom of man far in excess of Teufel’s sixteen years. But she knew better now. It wasn’t wisdom. It was just what he knew; what they’d taught him; what he’d accepted unquestioningly. Opinion and custom congealed into certainty; the knowledge that something which was wrong was right.

How could she presume to know better? Merely because she was on the receiving end of the wrongs?

“You have your life,” Teufel said, his voice ringing with that infuriating old-man’s condescension and wisdom. “Is it not preferable to the alternative? Or not having been born at all? Besides, you at least will have something to live for.”

“Meaning?” she snapped.

He shook his head. “Look at me,” he said…

… and what she was going to say died in her throat. Because, with a suddenness that came like a physical blow, she realized that, what she had perceived as condescension and arrogance, was really… what? Resignation?

“You may not have the life you would have chosen,” he said quietly, “but it will still be a better one than I’ll ever know.”

Now, suddenly, he was the sixteen year-old again—and she was ashamed at ever having seen him as anything else but a desperate boy with no future. Security? Yes. A future? Hardly. Before him lay a fate as inevitable as her own.

And Teufel knew it. And he genuinely believed—maybe had to believe—that her future was going to be better than his own. That was his hope. Because he loved her—or maybe because he believed that he did.

And she had no right to take that illusion from him.

She reached out and hugged him: the only brother she had ever been allowed to hug. The elder ones all frowned on such activity. Always had. Though she would bring her father significant commercial advantage, she had always been an embarrassment to them.

Except Teufel—whom she pressed to her now as if that could make everything go away. For the most fleeting of moments it was as if they were young children again, and she was the only one who’d ever truly cared for him. As she did now, when he cried in her arms. And then they cried together, and for the moment it was a release, and the tension ebbed out of her, and her fate became a thing in the far distant future; even though that future would start in a just a few dreadful days.

Later, her tears spent for a while, Nerys walked the streets of Gaskar: her city of a thousand white blocky edifices, draped in willful patterns over the gently sloping port-hills of Toula Bay. Her home. It was a bright day, and Caravella rode high in the sky. In the sharply-drawn shade of the buildings, Gaskarians went about their daily business. The avenues were clogged with vehicles and human bodies. It being Habaday, the markets in the Decagon were in full swing: a teeming mass of stalls and people, pervaded by a cacophony of sound and accompanied by a frontal assault on olfactory sensibilities.

Nerys had ascended Pladys Hill along the meandering alley that was Quiver Track; to arrive at the sweeping arc of Yon Circle. Above her, high atop Pladys Hill, the statue of Yeolus, founder of Gaskar; a giant monument, so ancient that nobody quite knew who had constructed it. The material from which it had been fashioned was harder than the hardest steel, and it stood untarnished by the winds and rain and sandstorms that sometimes blew in across the Wyllic mountains. Yeolus stood there, braving it all, his arm raised to point somewhere into the distance at who-knew-what.

Nerys stopped at her favorite lookout point on Yon Circle. She leaned on the stone balustrade facing the south and Toula Bay. Squinting against Caravella’s glare she looked out over the city and the harbor beyond; the forest of ship-masts at the wharves, their outlines wavering and shifting in the glitter of Caravella’s reflections on the torpid waters.

The view intensified her unease and melancholy. One of those ships would take her away, never to return. She gave an involuntary, irritated twitch and redirected her attention to the people in the streets below her: too far away to resolve their individual characteristics; yet close enough to know them for the people of her city.

What would it be like it Thalonica?

She gave her head an annoyed shake, sending her dark curls flying. It didn’t matter. In the life that was to be hers she would never know the freedom to find out what might be known. Unlike here, where she was at liberty to sneak out from under the noses of her father’s bodyguards—and had always done so, despite everybody’s attempts to stop her. Where she could roam the streets of the city, cloaked in the disguise of an insignificant drudge, paid attention to by nobody.

She took a deep breath; drew in the scents wafting up from below and across the water. The scents of freedom. Inhaling them into her memory; to be carried with her wherever she went. Just as she must drink in the sights, and etch their likeness into her mind, to return here when she needed to—at least in her memories.

Nerys closed her eyes and turned her face into Caravella’s light and the breeze from the south; felt them playing over her skin. For a moment she was alone; the world a distant thing that might or might not have been real—and yet it was more real than it had ever been.

A crunch of the pavement behind her disrupted her reveries.

She glanced around—only to face a threesome of stragglers, drudges all, who had come to a halt a few paces away from her. Mostly her own age, she guessed. Maybe a bit younger. An unsavory lot; even by drudge standards.

Nerys raked a haughty stare across the group and turned back to look at the bay; acutely aware of the youths’ presence, and feeling their regard like a physical prod in her spine. If they would only leave her alone. It wasn’t that she was worried! After all, it was broad daylight, and Yon Circle was a very public place. Not as busy as usual—it being Habaday and everybody and sundry milling around at the markets—but busy enough to keep the dirty louts behind her at bay.

“Feeble? Troy? I don’t think she likes us,” a reedy voice, in the transition from boy to man, said behind her.

“It looks that way,” another one agreed.

“She’s a hoity-toity one,” a third noted reproachfully. His voice was almost like a squeak. Nerys guessed him to be the youngest of the trio.

“Never even giving us a chance,” the first speaker said.

“What with us being such nice folk and all,” the second one supplemented.

A mutter of agreement.

By the sound of their voices and the crunch of stealthy footsteps Nerys deduced that the trio was fanning out to form a half-circle centered on her present position. The pressure in her back was turning into an itch—and an unpleasant one at that. Though the need was almost overwhelming, she didn’t dare to turn her head to sneak a peek at what they were doing, or to see if other passerby might be noticing the developing situation.

“I think people who think bad of other people are bad themselves,” the reedy voice continued. He was still right at the back of her.

“Umpkin, don’t you always say that bad people need to be taught to be good?” the squeaker said.

“I do, Feeble. I do,” the one called Umpkin admitted.

There was a shuffling sound from three pairs of feet. Nerys finally gave up her pretense of indifference. She reached into the folds of her tunic. Her right hand closed on the comforting shape of a small device, barely large enough to fit in the palm of her hand. She extracted it from the garment and, turning around, pointed it at the trio, who were by now standing less than two steps away from her.

She leveled the device at them, used her thumb to pull back the two small levers which cocked the internal springs, and then rested it on the left of the two release buttons.

At the sight of the gadget in her hand the three louts paused, their eyes growing round with surprise. But the effect was short-lived. Umpkin soon lost his astonished expression. It was replaced by a leer of expectation.

“Well, isn’t that a surprise?” he jeered. “So, who are you, to have a fancy little widget like that?” He leaned closer and squinted at her. A broad grin spread over his face. He winked at Feeble and Troy.

“What have we here?” he grinned. “A merchant slut in disguise?”

Nerys looked around desperately, hoping to find some sympathetic passerby, whose attention she might attract. By some perverse circumstance, however, there seemed to be literally nobody. For the first time since the situation deteriorated from one of charmed beauty to one of nuisance, Nerys had an inkling that she might actually be in a danger that she had never conceived of as anything more than a remote possibility; something that happened to other folks—drudges usually—but never to one of her own status. Especially not in the bright light of such a beautiful day.

Umpkin, despite the sluggish processes in his brain, must have divined some of what was going on in her head. His grin broadened and held out his hand.

“Come now, pretty little merchant slut, and give me your toy. I don’t think you have the stomach to use it. You’ll just end up hurting yourself. And then, where would our fun be—when you’ll be screaming and yelling with the itches and the pains?” Again he winked at his companions.

Feeble grinned, exposing a set of corroded teeth. He ran a small pink tongue over his split lower lip.

“We’ve never had a merchant slut,” he squeaked, groping for his nether regions with one hand and adjusting something there. The mere thought of what it was he was adjusting—and why!—made Nerys shudder with a curious mixture of disgust, revulsion, and, she suddenly realized, fear.

Umpkin took another small step forward, his hand now almost able to grasp the flecheur in her fist. Another step and he would be upon her; and that would be the end of that.

Nerys came to a decision. She sized up the three and decided that Umpkin and Troy were the strongest of the lot. These she must eliminate, if she was to get out of this with her hide intact.

She raised the flecheur a trifle and pushed the left release button. There was a sharp ‘click’; a spring released its energy; a bolt snapped forward, impacted on and ejected a thin needle through the left barrel and into Umpkin’s face. The projectile hit his left cheek. He screamed in anger and lunged for her, but she stepped aside and his arms closed on thin air; his momentum almost carrying him across the balustrade. Then, as she and the other two louts watched in horrified fascination, he clawed at his face, leaving bloody marks with his filthy, jagged fingernails, and began jumping around like one possessed. Presently he started screaming and wailing. Then he collapsed on the ground, where he rolled and twitched, and tore off his clothes, exposing a scrawny body, which he proceeded to scratch with maniacal vigor, leaving welts all over himself.

Nerys looked up to see Troy bearing down on her. She snapped off the second needle, which penetrated through Troy’s thin, threadbare tunic and buried itself somewhere in his chest. He stopped as if he’d run into a wall, stared at her, opened his mouth to say something—but it was only a croak, before the effect of the poisoned projectile hit him, and he joined Umpkin on the ground in a frenzy of twitches, screams, and moans, tearing at his garments and clawing at his skin.

Nerys looked at Feeble. Feeble looked at Nerys. The pink tongue was squashed between his lips, which were locked in a broad grin as he realized that this was the end of her defensive arsenal.

Nerys didn’t care to wait to see what he was going to do. She turned and ran. Down, back along Quiver Track. Weaving through the canyons formed by the white facades of the buildings. Running without a thought but to get away. Running until she could run no more, and until she was surrounded by the milling masses in the Decagon. As a rule she hated crowds, but now things were different.

Nerys leaned against a wall, breathing heavily, her chest aching with the unaccustomed strain. A stray thought jolted her. Panic-stricken she looked around. Maybe Feeble had been able to follow her after all! She ducked into a narrow alley beside a food-stall displaying a variety of cakes, dried fruit, and a tall cylindrical copper container with a tap at its bottom, suspended above a small oil flame by a rigid tripod with three hooks which connected to short chains welded to its upper rim. From the cylinder emanated the rich, spicy-sweet scent of Kint Plum tea. Her mouth started to water, but she did not dare to venture forth yet; and instead peered at the passersby with a critical disposition. For the first time it occurred to her that…

She shied back from the thought, which came unbidden, and she wished that she could have banished it back into the dark corner of her mind whence it had come to bother her. But now it was out there and it refused to be coerced into oblivion again. And with the thought, the stream of people around her suddenly became less of a guarantee of safety. Instead she realized that not only was she stuck in the densest possible collection of people in Gaskar, but that most of them…

Would they? Look at her in the same manner as the three louts up on Yon Circle? As a—what had those odious creatures called her?—‘merchant slut’?

She looked at the people streaming past her and, for the second time today it was as if she was looking at the world around her through the eyes of a total stranger. Like she was some visitor from a far away land, suddenly stranded in Gaskar and seeing everything as if it were new and fresh—and ineffably strange and distant. And from this point of view it came to her that those in the crowd were all drudges. Not a high-class merchant was in sight. Even the stall-keepers were mostly drudges; traditionally exempt for Habaday from the Prohibition, and taking the best advantage of it. And those who weren’t drudges were from the lowest layers of the merchant guilds.

She raised her gaze—and up there, some hundred paces above her, she saw the edge of the very place she’d just escaped from. Over the white rim of the balustrade, the figure of Yeolus rearing above him into the sky, leaned a figure. Too small and too distant to be sure, but she knew that it was Feeble; and he was looking for her. She swallowed and glanced down at her cramped right fist, still clutching the, now ineffective, flecheur. She shoved it into a pocket in her tunic and took a deep breath. A shudder ran through her as she realized that, whereas before she’d always felt…

Nerys bit her lower lip to restrain an exclamation of dismay. She found herself staring into the face of something she’d always known—but never really comprehended: the stark and undeniable truth of her total and utter isolation. The thought added itself to the other unpleasant realizations of the last few moments and refused to crawl back into its grubby hiding place. How safe, she asked herself, was she really? Would anybody in this endless, anonymous tide of mindless drudges come to her aid if Umpkin, Troy, and Feeble chose to accost her here and now, in this very place? If they knew that she was a ‘merchant slut’—and not one of them? Why would she even expect them to?

Home! She had to get home. Behind the comparative safety of the walls of Tasselwood Mansion. Now!

With a pounding heart, Nerys took another cautious look around, saw Feeble still hanging over the balustrade high above her—and decided that now was as good a time to leave as there ever would be.

She emerged from her hiding place, found a current of bodies traveling in the direction of her choice, immersed herself in it, and allowed herself to be swept away. Presently, she was out of the Decagon, hurrying down a side-street leading up Dale Mound, at the top of which was Vister Haven, that part of Gaskar where only the upper echelons of the merchant guilds had their residences; among them Tasselwood Mansion. As she forged up the incline the crowds thinned rapidly. Then the densely packed houses of Gaskar gave way to the stately parklands of Vister Haven. Nerys stopped and peered around. Having assured herself that nobody was paying her undue attention, she nimbly ducked through her very own crack in a fence overgrown with Mistral bushes, and thus entered her father’s granate orchard.

She stopped and heaved a sigh of relief and sadness. Relief at being safe. Sadness, because the magic was broken. The precious memories that were to be hers had been defiled. The image of the sweeping panorama which she’d tried to burn into her memory up on Yon Circle would now forever be tainted by the memory of Umpkin, Troy, and Feeble; by their disgusting presence and their even more despicable intentions; by their screams, and obscene twitchings, and self-mutilations, as they became affected by the poison covering the flecheur’s needles. And the former idyll of the Decagon market had become place where she’d never feel safe from this day on, and where she could never be again without knowing, that, to some at least—and you could never know who!—she was a ‘merchant slut’.

Nerys turned away and slowly dragged her limbs back in the direction of her home.

Taking the usual way through the scullery and the servants’ access ways, she managed to get to her room without being discovered by anybody of importance—though, of course, every drudge in the house knew what she was doing. But it didn’t matter what they knew. They’d never tell. Not anybody but other drudges. And who cared what they knew! As long as nobody in her family found out, all was well. Or her father’s bodyguards. They might suspect, of course! In fact they almost certainly knew. But the guards had good reason not to be too loose-tongued about their inability to keep a mere woman under observation.

Her luck ran out, however, when her mother barged into her room as Nerys was trying to change from the drudge clothes into something more respectable.

“Where have you been?” she exclaimed accusingly. “How can you do this?”

Nerys turned around slowly and considered this stranger.

“Do what?” she inquired.

“It has to stop!” her mother remonstrated. “Now!—You are promised to Duke Corran! So—no more excursions! Don’t you know what would happen if you…” She hesitated, dazed by the enormity of the thought that was on her mind. “If something befell you,” she concluded lamely.

“‘Befell’?” Nerys repeated innocently as she slipped into a house-tunic; a clinging dark-green garment without ornamentation and artifice—but one which she thought not only comfortable, but also resonating with some unknown aspect of her personality.

“Can’t you wear something more…womanly?” her mother complained. “What is Duke Corran to think of such an un-feminine child-bearer?”

“I don’t think he cares,” Nerys snapped testily. “All he requires is a womb to bear boy-children—so that he can rake up more points on his way into Pastor’s paradise…or whatever he calls this stupid deity of his.”

Her mother, a woman who once had been pretty, and even striking, but who now was, at best, matronly, went white as the houses of Gaskar as she gaped at her daughter.

“How can you say that? How can you even think it? What about your studies in Thalonican customs? Were they all for naught? Have you learned nothing at all? Don’t you know that with such thoughts you could endanger everything your father has worked for? Duke Corran would never forgive such an affront to his faith. No matter how many boy-children you happen to bear. He will not decorate you! He will not honor you! He may even decide…” Her hand went to her mouth in a gesture of ineffable horror.

Nerys was about to tell her mother just how much she cared about Duke Corran’s likely reactions to her trespasses—but then bit down on her incipient remarks. It would not do. The only possible result was another few hours in the company of Master Joanson. Nerys decided that she was in no disposition for yet more indoctrination in the intricacies of Thalonican superstitions, rituals, and fragile sensibilities. She knew them all so well that they followed her into her nightmares. She’d rather swallow all the things her mother wanted to say, than have her last days at home wasted with more doctrinal absurdities.

She smiled at her mother, though it felt more like a grimace. “I know what I have to do.”

Though I may not do it.

Her mother may or may not have noted the implied equivocation; but if she did, she chose to ignore it and to be mollified—because she wanted to be, and because she dreaded the alternatives. She came over and pecked Nerys on the cheek. “Good girl. I know you’ll do us proud. Remember how much depends on you.” She sighed. “Such a responsibility for one so young. But this is the way of things, and this is the way it must be.”

Nerys had another rejoinder ready, but swallowed it. Why was she surrounded by people who seemed to be unable or unwilling to understand that nothing ever really was ‘as it must be’?

Nerys’ mother sighed again, and gingerly embraced her daughter. “I must go and attend to the preparations for your dinner. Ludwila is getting old, and she gets things wrong. Very soon we may have to replace her with someone younger and more alert.” She departed from the room, shaking her head in exasperation at the vicissitudes of her existence—such as those inflicted by the irksome fact that her chief cook was getting old and a bit tattered around the edges.

Nerys wished that her own problems were of a similarly trivial nature. She grimaced with annoyance at the thought of the dinner planned in her ‘honor’. Another evening wasted. She’d be expected, of course, to look her best. A hundred pairs of eyes would be watching her, wondering if she was going to be what her father had intended. Some would wish that she failed—to the ultimate advantage of their own families. Others would be glad to see her go—and would probably have difficulty concealing their satisfaction at her departure. Those were the ones whose sons had, at one time or other—and usually on the behest of their parents—attempted to woo her. She had summarily rejected every one of them, much to the chagrin of her parents, who had hoped to derive significant advantage from a marriage between their only daughter and another merchant house.

Nerys reflected ruefully that her stubborn refusal to welcome any of these suitors was responsible for her current predicament. In hindsight, it might have been better to accept the suit of, say, Regis, of the House of Poi. At least it would have kept her in Gaskar, and subject to the laws of this place; laws which, though they condoned that she be traded to Thalonica for mercantile equivalences, paradoxically also would have protected her against any excesses committed by a Gaskarian husband. Her refusal of all suitors had therefore, again in hindsight, been foolish—but then, she’d never truly considered the possibility of her current situation becoming a reality. Just like getting raped by a bunch of drudge louts was a misfortune reserved for others: drudges usually. And yet, it had been so close. Another lesson learned. This last one, not too late—a minor streak of good fortune in an otherwise unpromising chain of events.

Nerys threw herself on her bed and stared at the ornately painted ceiling of her room: episodes from the history of Gaskar, represented by meticulously drawn figures in poses of frozen activity; along a spiral path that wound itself from a diffuse source of yellow light at the center, representing the origin of time, to the edges where ceiling met walls.

‘ Her’ room. Soon to be…whose? Who would lie here and stare up at the figures she knew so well? Would they keep it as it was; in memory of her maybe? It would be nice to think so, but after today she was resolved that she would finally and unequivocally reject anything but the truth. Illusions, comforting though they had been, had no more place in her life. If she was to survive the future—and survive it she would!—she would have to forego the comforts of her cherished illusions. No more daydreaming; no more of the romantic dallying that had made her hope that one day someone might come along whom she could really like; or maybe even love. Someone who, if need be, would lay down his life for her. Not that she’d ever want him to actually do it, of course! After all, if he did, then he would be lost to her forever: thus the very idea was inherently impractical. But he must be prepared for it at least. For her, and for her only. Such must be his devotion!

Those kinds of dreams had cost her grievously; causing her to reject all those who provided less than the perfection she yearned for. And so, with arrogance and futile romantic illusions, she had destroyed her own future.

Nerys jumped up from her bed and took a deep breath. No more! Nobody could be relied upon to do for her what she could not do for herself. A bitter lesson if there ever was one—but she had, she told herself, finally learned it.

The dinner was almost as dreary as she had envisaged it. If anything it exceeded her worst expectation. The conversation was desultory at best, and ineffably trivial at worst. Only her mother appeared to have a good time. Never having to look at these people again might indeed be a disguised blessing. That she would exchange them for even freakier Thalonicans was a notion which she temporarily pushed into the background of her mind. One thing at a time.

The evening passed. The following day was her third last in Gaskar. She would have packed if she’d been allowed to, but her break with Gaskar was to be complete. Only what she wore on her person was to be permitted on to the ship that would take her away; and when she arrived in Thalonica even those things would be taken from her. Before she was allowed to disembark, Corran’s own servants would come aboard. They would coif her hair in the style of a Thalonican duke’s breeder-woman. Probably tint it blue, as was the wont of things. They would take her wardrobe and replace it with the—admittedly glamorous—garments suitable for one of her position. Only when this was done would she be allowed off the ship and into Thalonica—so that nobody there ever knew her as anything different but Corran’s latest breeder.

The prospect of three more days with nothing to do but to wait left Nerys at loose ends. She would not bring herself to leave the estate again—and even if she had wanted to, it was doubtful that she could have. Her father, leery of such a contingency, had assigned half a dozen guards to her—and possibly additional, more clandestine, observers of her movements. There was no way she would ever be able to wander the streets of Gaskar by herself again—even if she had wanted to; which she didn’t.

Bored with herself and everything else, yet sensing that she was wasting her last few days of comparative freedom, she spent the time wandering the parklands and orchards of Vister Haven. For hours she sat at the foot of her favorite Tassel Tree, pondering the apparent futility of her existence: how it would now forever remain incomplete; how, one day, she would die, and leave behind her nothing but an array of children, none of whom would ever be allowed to call her ‘mother’, and with none of whom she would have any contact until they were adolescents—and so indoctrinated in the ways of the Wearers that they would have no interest in seeing her as anything but a womb on legs.

On the second day her father summoned her to the grandiose room from which he ruled his mercantile empire.

She responded sluggishly. Her tardy appearance before his desk caused him to begin the audience with a reprimand.

“Duke Corran will not appreciate such laxity. You will learn to change your ways, or suffer his disapproval.”

“Duke Corran will have to learn to live with disappointment,” she snapped.

Her father, a thin man of middle age, with a sparse crown of maroon-dyed hair, a long nose, and two pairs of deep lines running from the side of his nose to the corners of his mouth, considered her with frank disapproval.

“I have heard of your reluctance to submit to your duty, but it never occurred to me that you would be so irresponsible.”

“What have I done?”

“Done? Nothing. Nothing at all. Not yet. Indeed, your life has been distinguished by your refusal to ‘do’ anything: such as obliging your family by marrying into a suitable house. But this you have chosen not to do. As such, your existence so far has been singularly useless to us. Considering the effort and time that has gone into your upbringing, it appears therefore that a severe imbalance of obligations still remains. All of which you will discharge by obliging Corran—and thereby myself! Do you understand this?”

Nerys nodded. “It seems like a simple enough concept.”

“Good. Then maybe you can satisfy a certain curiosity of mine—and tell me why you continue to exhibit what appears, even to a casual observer, to be a surprising recalcitrance.”

“You would not understand.”

“Maybe not, but how would you know unless you told me?”

Nerys sighed. “I just want to be able to live a normal life.” The way it came out it sounded lame, even to her own ears.

“‘Normal’?” her father echoed. “What is ‘normality’?”

“Not this,” Nerys snapped.

He nodded sagely. “The arrogance of youth,” he said. “I remember it well.” He smiled thinly. “Did you know that when I was young I wanted to be a sailor? Explore strange lands? Sail around this world of ours, and visit the far ports? Keaen. Sacrael. Fontaine. Brys. Hallaway.” He shook his head at the recollection of his youthful folly. “I was going to go off, muster on with one of the clippers from Fontaine; ignoring my duty here; leaving everything behind, maybe never to return—which I could not have anyway, as I would have become an outcast.”

Nerys was becoming interested despite herself. “What happened? Why didn’t you go?”

“Because one day I understood.”

“Understood what?”

“That my life was not my own. That nobody’s life is their own. Everybody exists within a framework of obligations, needs, and tradition. Whether they get there by birth or chance—which amounts to the same thing, I suppose—does not matter. They exist. They are where they are. If they wish to continue existing they must abide by the rules and strictures imposed upon them by their position. If they do not they will perish. It is as simple as that.”

He considered his one and only daughter with somber attention. “This is even more true for females. For you.”

“But…”

“There is no ‘but’.” His voice turned crisper and more didactic. The brief interlude, where he had almost become human, had passed. “You choose. Conform and survive—or stray and die.” He twitched his head. “What is it to be? Tell me now, because if it is to be the latter, I need to know—for sending you to Thalonica and have you do anything but act in my best interests is unthinkable.”

“What would happen if I said I didn’t want to go.”

Her father shrugged. “You would not have to. But you would not continue to enjoy the privileges of being a merchant’s daughter either. You would be expelled from my house. What you’d do from then on…” He shrugged again. “I wouldn’t want to know. It is your life. It is your choice.”

She would be a drudge. One of the teeming masses in the Decagon market. A ready target for every Umpkin and Feeble, who happened to take a fancy to violating a woman. She’d be without a home; without a family; without anybody who cared a whit whether she lived or died.

Would her father really do this? She glanced at him and saw the truth.

“I will do what I have to,” she said, defeated.

Her father nodded, unsurprised. “You will bear Corran children. You will honor his beliefs and customs. You will obey him until the day you die.”

“Or until the day he dies,” she said darkly.

Her father eyed her sharply. “Until that day you will do whatever is necessary to further the cause of our house by adhering to the contract I signed.”

She nodded.

“Say that you will do this.”

She nodded again; heavily. “I will do what I have to do.” Hoping that he would not notice the equivocation.

“Good.” He nodded, apparently satisfied. “The Aquiel is scheduled to arrive tomorrow at first light. You will embark in the afternoon, by which time your cabin will be ready. You will be on your way before nightfall. Corran expects you on Habaday. Let us hope that the winds are on our side, so that he’s not disappointed.”

He made a gesture indicating that the audience was at an end. Nerys rose from her chair and, after a last look at her father, whose attention had already returned to the documents on his desk, left the room.

—2—

Fliz ducked behind a corner and flattened himself against the wall. He took two deep breaths and detached himself again. He sauntered back into the street, his hands in the pockets of his trousers, looking for all the world like someone at complete ease with himself and everything else. From the corner of his eyes he saw that the stranger had stopped at a cobbler’s stall and was conversing with Marin, the apprentice, who had interrupted the work of repairing a sandal and was gesticulating and pointing.

Had the stranger asked for directions? Who or what was he looking for this time? Fliz had followed him for the better part of an hour, hoping for a good opportunity to get close enough to riffle the man’s pockets. During that time the stranger had criss-crossed Thalonica from one end to the other, visited the harbor to inquire about shipping traffic, and entered the offices of two caravan operators.

At first he had looked like an easy target. Fliz, having identified him as an outsider—and therefore a legitimate target of his attentions—had approached him in the usual manner in which he practiced his art. He fell into the gait which served to make him effectively invisible to most people, sidled closer, and prepared to divest him of whatever he might carry in his pockets and pouches.

In the last instant, however, something had stopped him. He did not know what it was, and he did not care. When knowledge came to him in this way he knew better than to doubt its veracity. Instead he had just brushed against the stranger and then gone on his way—and around the next corner, where he’d waited until the stranger had proceeded down Lufty Circle and was almost out of sight. Then he followed him. Very, very cautiously, because, as he had passed the stranger, he realized that the man had actually been aware of his existence—which he should not have been! Nobody ever was, when Fliz was out to get them. It was what made him the best thief in all of Thalonica; especially since nobody but he was aware of his curious talent. An awareness he did not care to disseminate.

But the stranger had not been duped. Fliz wondered if he had been aware of Fliz's intentions all along. Or if he just had a… talent; like his own. Counteracting it maybe. Fliz suspected the latter. The stranger had given no indication that he’d been aware of anything out of the ordinary.

Fliz hid behind the bodies of two hagglers at another stall and eyed the stranger. A tall man, solidly built, without being overweight. Under the loose tunic, Fliz thought, he detected the ripple of hard, well-trained muscles. Not someone to be trifled with.

The stranger continued on his way. Fliz waited until he was out of sight and approached the cobbler’s stall. Marin looked up and smiled; a smile Fliz returned only reluctantly, and because he needed Marin’s cooperation.

He made a gesture. “Who was that?”

Marin shrugged. “He didn’t tell me. I wished he had,” he said in a soft voice that was too much like that of a woman.

“What did he want to know?”

Marin raised a questioning eyebrow.

“I’m working,” Fliz told him.

Marin smiled. “Always working…”

“I’d really like to know where he’s going.”

Marin sighed. “Keye’s place.”

Another caravaner. A definite pattern was emerging.

“Thank you.” Fliz hastened after the stranger.

“Thank me some other time!” Marin called after him.

Fliz shuddered. He had no intention of thanking Marin in the manner the cobbler would have preferred.

Fliz cut through two alleyways, hoping to overtake the stranger. He was not disappointed. As he emerged from his last shortcut he saw the tall figure come around a corner. He would have to pass by him. Keye’s offices were in a dilapidated, three-storey edifice just behind Fliz.

Fliz sized up the flow of people, the configuration of the street—and made a decision. The situation would never be quite as favorable as it was now—and, after all, he was a thief and he had to earn a living. He’d been following this stranger for an inordinately long time. If he ever was to have his chance at him, now was the time.

He started walking toward the man, slouching into his special gait. The people flowing past him knew he was there because they avoided him. Still, in some inexplicable way they appeared to be unaware of his existence.

Fliz veered aside, in order not to run straight into the stranger. When he was about level, he selected the instrument of distraction, a hapless passerby, walking in the same direction as the stranger, and about half a pace ahead and to his right. He gave him a gentle shove. His bewildered victim collided with the stranger. He recovered and murmured an apology. For a moment the stranger’s attention was focused on the dupe. Fliz took a quick, fluid step. His right hand slipped deeply into the stranger’s tunic, like an oil-fish into his hole; right to where people’s so-called ‘secure’ pockets were commonly located. A laughable concept. Very little was ‘secure’ when someone like Fliz had it in for you.

Fliz’s fingers touched the hard, oblong shape of an object he could not identify. His fingers spread out, locked around the item. The hand withdrew from the pocket. At that moment the stranger turned around—and looked right into Fliz’s face. Flinty eyes, set deeply in a pointed face, widened in surprise. Then: anger. A tiny hesitation; sufficient for Fliz. He ducked between two men and out of the reach of the stranger’s hand. The man uttered a curse. Fliz ran. Behind him a commotion as the stranger pushed people aside in his eagerness to reach Fliz—who ducked through the flow of bodies with the practice of years and thousands of successful escapes. For an instant he looked back, to see the stranger struggling through the bodies in the street. In his hand he held a small cylindrical instrument which he kept trying to point at Fliz. Fliz redoubled his efforts at escape; driven by an exhilaration such as he had not known for a long time.

The noises accompanying the stranger’s pursuit grew fainter. Fliz ducked into a doorway, found the latch yielding, turned it, and slipped into the building, closing the door behind him. Outside, the sounds of pursuit grew. Fliz willed himself into complete anonymity, a mental equivalent to his special gait. Ceasing the emanations of his being. Drawing a near-magical sheath over his mind and waiting until the storm had passed.

He sensed the stranger stop nearby. Fliz slid even deeper into his cocoon of self-imposed isolation. A few moments passed. Fliz willed himself not to become anxious. People often knew where you were even if they couldn’t see you. Fear, anxiety, and panic often screamed out silently and gave one away. Fliz breathed slower and deeper, and sank even further into himself.

Presently a subtle pressure lifted off him, and he knew that the stranger had moved on. Fliz waited for several more breaths. He cautiously opened the door and peered out. Seeing nothing untoward, he let himself back out into the street. In his pocket he felt the weight of the item he’d sequestered from the stranger. He itched to see what it was. But this was not a good place. Fliz turned south and headed home.

Back in his room at the Oldeman, a decrepit hostel in the lower harbor quarters, Fliz considered the item he’d stolen from the stranger. He turned it around and inspected it from all angles, without being any the wiser. He had never seen anything like it in his life. Couldn’t even begin to fathom what it was. It was about the size of his palm; made of a dull, gray material which resisted the ministrations of his knife, exhibiting not so much as a scratch as he poked and prodded at it. Fliz thought that it might be a kind of container; but if that’s what it was, how did one open it? The edges were rounded and showed no seams. One side of the object had a number of tiny perforations arranged in a regular array, and a small, reflective rectangular patch, almost like very smooth quartz, which was firmly embedded in the surface. Below it, a row of five small rounds buttons with multi-colored symbols. Fliz pressed the buttons in turn, hoping that this might release some internal locking mechanism; but while the buttons yielded minutely to the press of his fingers, this had no noticeable effect.

Fliz stared at the object and slowly set it down on his bed. What had he gotten himself into? Who was this stranger who carried around with him mysterious items such as this? Fliz recalled the device the stranger had leveled at him in the street. What was that? From a distance it had looked not unlike the flecheur he’d removed from a Gaskarian visitor over a year ago, and which he still kept on his person, hidden away in a secret pouch attached to his calf. One never knew when such a device might come in useful. More useful than the few faros he might have received from Lagos for selling him the item. The stranger’s instrument: it might have been a flecheur, or something like it; but Fliz doubted it. He glanced at the device on the bed and shifted uneasily. Maybe he should dispose of this thing. Throw it into the harbor.

On second thought, this seemed like a precipitous action. Whatever it was, it could not be that dangerous. Fliz picked the device up again and turned it over in his hand. He considered the five buttons with the curious symbols. He knew how to read and write—having taught himself, when nobody else had been prepared to do so—but this here was a mystery beyond his ken. The symbols were nothing he’d seen before; certainly not Tergan or Keaenean; or Fontaine, for that matter. All of these were very much alike and Fliz would have identified them easily.

He brought the device closer to his face. His fingers gingerly glided over the buttons. What if they had to be touched in a particular sequence? Or maybe if he touched more than one at the same time…

Intriguing. Fliz decided that he wasn’t going to throw this thing away. It would yield its secrets in due time. Fliz loved puzzles, and this one looked like a challenge such as he had not had for a long time, if ever.

The memory of the stranger’s face was oddly disturbing. It had been ordinary enough, but the eyes, anger in them, had hit him like a physical blow. He had a feeling—no, he knew!—that the stranger was not going to relent so easily. At this very moment he would be scouring Thalonica for the audacious thief who had divested him of what was surely an object of great significance. Of course, this was not unusual, but Fliz had an inkling that in this case maybe things were a little different. Those eyes had bored into his skull, and he knew that, just as the stranger’s face was etched into his memory, so his face was into the stranger’s. In the brief, intense moment of their interaction they had formed a bond of antagonism—and something more subtle as well.

But in Thalonica more than a hundred thousand people provided ample scope to hide. The stranger would have his work cut out for him; and in the end he would give up. Or so Fliz hoped. He didn’t fancy the prospect of having to look over his shoulder for the rest of his days!

Fliz got up. Looking around the room he wondered where to hide this thing. He decided against it. Leaving purloined goods of obvious value in one’s own home was the height of folly. Fliz had made it a routine to turn over such things to Lagos as soon as practicable. But what was he to do with this bit of mystery? Fliz came to a decision. He sequestered the device in a pouch inside his tunic—one secure against all but the most determined attempts to take it from him. Then he took one last look around and left to check up on his mother and sister.

Fliz had been born the son of Janosh, a lower-caste Wearer, who had fallen on hard times when his wife, Felicia—an open-faced and pleasant woman with a Hywel Index of 343, whom he’d imported from Tyssel, a small town at the southern coast—bore him four girls and only one boy. As a result of the birth of the fourth girl—Fliz’s only remaining sister—the father was expelled from the Wearers’ Guild. The birth of the last child had left Felicia with severe internal injuries, and the quacks declared that she would bear no more children. With a girl-to-man-child ratio of four and too penurious to purchase another wife, the Guild disowned Janosh. He was a disgrace. They acted without mercy, declaring him and his whole family to be ‘Willets’.

As a result all their lives took a drastic turn for the worse. His father, stripped of his Wearer rights, his beard cut off, his collection of ‘silks’ confiscated—and thus forever deprived of any chance to achieve an eventual union with Pastor—killed himself within days of the expulsion; leaving Felicia and his offspring to fend for themselves. They were expelled from her husband’s house by a certain Cantinflas, whom Janosh owed a great deal of money, and to whom he had given the deeds to house and grounds as a security. Felicia, after a brief bout of hysterics and hair-tearing, pulled herself together and somehow managed to keep them all alive; at great cost to herself. Fliz's older sisters helped her, but there was only so much they could do.

The despair in due course drove Fliz's eldest sister, a large, round-faced girl of a kind, but melancholy, temperament, to kill herself by slashing open her wrists. Felicia plodded on despite this additional tragedy, working herself to the brink of exhaustion as a cook and cleaner at the Pink Palace, one of the many harborside brothels. There, because of matron Oweena’s kindness, she and her surviving children were allowed a single room in the basement; a place they called ‘home’ from then on. The second eldest sister attempted to help by becoming an employee of the same establishment—only to be murdered at the tender age of fifteen by a Tergan sailor. The third, also in the business of entertaining sailors, died three years later while soliciting custom at a ship berthed the docks. She slipped and fell into the water, where she was crushed as a surge pushed the ship against the side of the wharf.

With only his mother and one sister, Audile, left alive, Fliz, by that time a slender youth and apprentice thief, resolved that no more tragedies should befall the remaining members of his family. He was fiercely protective of Felicia and Audile. The latter had not committed herself to prostitution and instead helped her mother in the brothel. She was a plain, sweet girl, and inevitably there were attempts on her by the visitors. One man, a sailor from Fontaine, did not heed the warnings issued to him by the brothel’s matron, took Audile aside, and raped her in the alleyway behind the brothel. He met with such vicious retaliation by Fliz that he eventually died of his wounds. His trousers with the blood-encrusted crotch were displayed in a nook of the Pink Palace’s lobby, as a grim reminder to the clientele that there were some rules. Fliz’s actions, though they might have reflected badly on the establishment, instead made him into the darling of the Pink Palace’s whores. He became their talisman and friend. In due course this affection for the growing youth inevitably lead to a more concrete expression of their appreciation; and, though Fliz, as a male Willet, was strictly prohibited from engaging in sexual congress—or be it with males—what happened behind the closed doors of the Pink Palace was a different matter. Had the whores not been as discreet as they were, the results for Fliz would have been dire. But their loyalty to each other, Oweena, Felicia, Audile, and Fliz, was fierce.

As he grew into manhood, Fliz was forced to leave the premises of the Pink Palace, for fear of coming under the scrutiny of the local astunologia. Already he had been phenomenally lucky. Two other Willet thieves, about his own age, had been badmouthed by malevolent competitors. The astunos picked them up and insured that they were neutered. Fliz avoided a similar fate through a fortuitous confluence of events, when he saved the life and limb of a certain Ploack, a sergeant in the astunologia. The man had just finished a vigorous session of sexual exercises with two Pink Palace employees. He sneaked out the back door, hoping to keep his activities hidden; especially from his spouse, who was known as a harridan. As he felt his way along the wall of the darkened alley, a bunch of four thugs beset him. He fought bravely, but the session with the whores—who had delivered value for his hard-earned cash—had left him with sluggish reactions. Fortunately, Fliz, on his way home after a successful day on the prowl, happened upon the scene, and together the two gave the thugs a hiding they would never forget. Thereafter, for reasons of gratitude, as much as concern for Fliz's discretion, Ploack became his champion in the ranks of the astunos. When he was promoted to lieutenant he maintained this association; though, of course, he could not be seen to consort with a mere Willet anymore. Especially not a thief! Still, the two shared an occasional drink in the back rooms of the Pink Palace, after Ploack had his fill of the Palace’s activities. Occasionally, Fliz provided Ploack with information, which the astuno invariably found useful and helpful to his career. In this manner, both of them were well satisfied with their association.

Fliz was a very successful thief, by reason of a lively intelligence and a most unusual set of talents, which he discovered only slowly as the years went on. He had been arrested twice, but in each instance, through the agency of Ploack, managed to evade being thrown in gaol. Twice, in a larcenous career spanning almost fifteen years, was next to ‘never’, and a testimony to his skill and versatility. On the occasion of his second arrest, Ploack suggested to him, not unreasonably, that he might confine his activities to visitors; which were aplenty, and many of whom expected to be robbed. After all, this was the way of port cities. Why not fulfill their expectations, keep the locals happy by keeping his hands off them, and so be allowed to ply his trade without much interference from the astunos? Fliz saw the wisdom of the suggestion and thenceforth focused his attention on visitors, whom he found to be a rich mine of wealth. Few pursued matters beyond vocal complaints; and even that was rare. The episode today was therefore completely outside the range of Fliz’s previous experience. He decided that he had no intention of repeating it again soon. Even though, as he had to admit, there had been an element of exhilaration such as he couldn’t recall having felt for many years.

Rutger stood in an attitude of stillness and concentration, apparently oblivious of the people moving around him. But he filtered them out and listened just for the one: the audacious thief who had made off with his locator, and thus left him effectively stranded here.

There! Was it he? It was hard to tell in the babble of impressions flowing past his mind. The thief, whoever he was, either had an unusually quiet mind, or else could lower his emanations until he became, for all purposes, undetectable. It was a troublesome notion. Ordinary people, like a petty thief in a city far away from the influence of the Myrmidic Woods, should not be able to do such things; it required ‘talent’ and the discipline of magice training. Still, Rutger found himself compelled to at least consider the possibility that he was dealing with more than just an ordinary pickpocket. In which case he’d better think very hard—because the locator was essential to his mission. Of course, nobody knew where it led, or even what lay at the end of the path—but there could be no doubt that it was something immensely significant. It might well be the magices’ last hope to recover what they had lost.

It all depended on him; and no petty thief, no matter how clever, was going to get in the way of it. And this one was a cunning specimen! When he had looked him in the face, Rutger remembered having seen him before; earlier that day. Rutger re-played the event. Trained as he was to overlook nothing, it came back to him with clarity. The man had brushed against him and gone on his way. Rutger had had a fleeting inkling of something impending. Then: nothing. A stray notion which did not materialize into anything substantial. The kind of thing a magice was subject to: fleeting notions of what might be; though sometimes it never was. Strands of possibility, touching his mind like gossamer, only to be blown away again by the wind, never to return. Except that, in this instance…

Rutger ‘listened’ for another few moments, then admitted to himself that he’d lost his quarry. A new plan was needed. Rutger stood, bethought himself, and began to retrace his steps. The thief must have been following him like a shadow. Rutger shook his head. It wasn’t possible. He should have noticed such sustained attention! On the other hand, if the man was… different…

Who knew? Maybe even here—though there’d never been any suggestion that it might—Tethys had been transforming at least some of its inhabitants. Maybe there were other influences than the Myrmidic Woods? A novel and unsettling thought, but he could not dismiss it out of hand if he was to retrieve the locator!

An—untrained!—thief who could hide from a magice! What else might he do? The notion made Rutger pause in his stride. Then he hurried on. He would retrace his every step. Somewhere along the line, the thief had decided that it would be useful not to follow him anymore, but appeared to have anticipated his, Rutger’s, movements. How could this be? Unless one postulated talents hitherto not even thought of! Rutger dismissed the notion. Mundane explanations were the most likely, and these he would find.

He suppressed his anger. Delays! Nothing but delays! It seemed that everything was conspiring against him! When he’d left the Isle he had hoped to reach his goal in no more than two weeks. The need for secrecy and a series of nautical mishaps, holdups in ports, and an ineffective captain, had severely disrupted those plans. Twenty days and he was still in Thalonica! And now this!

He turned a corner, to enter the street where he had made an earlier inquiry with the young cobbler.

Indeed…

Felicia greeted her son with affection. Life and tragedy had worn her down; aged her beyond her years; left her face lined and tired, her posture stooped slightly forward, her walk sluggish and slow. Still, one could not help but note a stubborn persistence of the beauty she had once had. She hugged Fliz and asked him how he was. Fliz, who had learned that mothers should be told only the minimum necessary, dissimulated. Not that it mattered, of course. Fliz’s experience had also taught him that his mother knew things she had no right to know. Things that were and things that would be. On more than one occasion she had warned him: Don’t do this; avoid that; try not to go there. Motherly admonitions, which coming from anyone else might have been considered motherly nagging. Except that Felicia’s warnings were often quite specific, and related to matters she should have known nothing about; particularly if such matters lay in the future. After ignoring her advice a few times, and suffering mishaps as a consequence, Fliz had learned to listen—and to listen carefully; because sometimes even Felicia did not seem to know what she was talking about, the words coming out of her apparently unbidden, as if forced out by some other agency, for whom Felicia was a mere mouthpiece.

His mother hugged him. “You shouldn’t have done that,” she said when she stood back. Her face clouded over. Her eyes narrowed as if she was trying to trace an elusive idea.

“Done what?” Fliz asked.

“I don’t know,” his mother said darkly, “but I know you’ve done something!”

Fliz laughed. “It was close,” he admitted. “But I got away with it.”

Felicia muttered something and turned away to attend to a pot on the stove.

“Mother?”

Felicia turned around. “You got away for now,” she said. She shook her head. “Please,” she said softly, “can you not do something else?”

Fliz went over to her and put his arms around her stooped figure. “I don’t know how to do anything else,” he said. “You know that.”

Felicia pulled away and looked up into his face. “Yes, you do. And you will.”

Fliz nodded agreeably. It was of no use to contradict her. He was certain that this time Felicia’s pronouncements weren’t prompted by her uncanny insight into the working of the universe, but by wishful motherly thinking. She wanted the best for him. Safety. A good life. All the things he’d never have. The things that she’d had for a time, but which were taken from her when she gave birth to too many girl-children. As if it had been her fault!

Maybe he shouldn’t brush off her predictions quite as readily as he usually did. Sometimes she just knew—like he sometimes knew; like he could sometimes look at someone and tell exactly what their future would hold. Or so he thought. He had never had the opportunity to actually check if his visions had come true.

Felicia sighed and turned away again. Fliz had the uncomfortable feeling that she knew that he was just humoring her. It was difficult to tell whether this upset her, or whether she was prepared for his response and merely wanted to end the discussion.

Fliz smiled affectionately.

Mothers…

He excused himself and departed to find Audile, whose duties included general housekeeping, cooking, and some ledger work for the matron. He went upstairs, to Oweena’s office. As he climbed the stairs he was stopped by Y’liaan, a pretty, blonde girl in the final stages of her transition into womanhood; and one who had never made any secret out of her attraction to, a considerably older, Fliz.

She batted her eyes at him. “I’m off-duty tonight,” she suggested artlessly.

Fliz bent down and kissed her forehead. “I’m not, unfortunately.”

She gave him a sideways look. “Maybe you could postpone it.”

“I would love to.”

She brightened. “So, then…”

Fliz sighed. Y’liaan’s offer was tempting. Very much so.

Y’liaan took the pause as an encouraging sign. “I’ll see you at my place?” she suggested.

He smiled at her. Fliz liked Y’liaan. She was a nice girl. A bit sad maybe; weighed down with the certainty of a life without hope for ever being more than what she was today. He would have liked to make it different, but he was after all only a thief; and a Willet, who could never have a family. All of which meant that his little romances had to remain fleeting, for fear of actual attachments. They also had to remain excessively clandestine. Fliz considered Y’liaan and wondered if she could be trusted. After all, if she ever decided to get angry with him, maybe jealous, maybe overly possessive without reciprocity from his side… There were things even Ploack might find himself unable to deal with.

But such thoughts, though valid and befitting a cautious man, were unworthy of him. The whores at Pink Palace were his friends—and never had any of them given him any cause to doubt it.

If you don’t trust your friends, how can you expect them to trust you?

Fliz kissed the girl again; more lingeringly this time. He had not been with a woman for some time, and the contact aroused him more than he found comfortable. He pulled back and excused himself. Y’liaan laughed at his fastidiousness and bounced down the stairs, blowing him a kiss before she disappeared from sight. Fliz grinned sheepishly. He waited until his arousal was not obvious anymore, and proceeded along the corridor to see his sister.

Rutger stopped before the stall. The young cobbler looked up; his face twisted into a smile of recognition; hope maybe, thought Rutger, who divined the young man’s predilections. He allowed the full force of his personality to impact on the cobbler, drawing him into a temporary mesh of dependency. It was easy. The mind was weak and put up no resistance. Rutger, satisfied that he was in control, projected a subtle promise of fulfillment of the cobbler’s sexual fantasies. The face before him assumed a beatific, near-ecstatic expression.

“When I was here before,” Rutger asked softly, “after I left… did anybody ask you about me?”

Marin, totally enthralled in Rutger’s spell, his critical faculties laid to waste, saw nothing unusual in the question. His mind was focused on other things, and the matter under question appeared insignificant and trivial. He nodded. “Fliz came along. I told him that I’d directed you to Keye’s office.”

“Who is Fliz?”

“A thief.” Marin grinned foolishly. “Everybody knows that.”

“Where does Fliz live?” Rutger asked softly, keeping up the pressure on Marin’s mind.

“In the Oldeman, of course!”

“The Oldeman?”

“Everybody knows that,” Marin said, perplexed despite his befuddlement.

“Of course,” Rutger agreed. “I merely forgot. Just like I forgot where the Oldeman is!”

“In Unwin Way. It’s been there forever!”

“Of course,” Rutger said soothingly.

“Of course,” Marin agreed, his eyes glazed over.

Rutger decided to depart. He would ask some passerby for Unwin Way. Better to let this weakling get back to reality. It appeared that he was only too willing to be led astray. People like that sometimes never came back from the places where a more powerful mind had sent them. They turned into imbeciles; drooling idiots, unable to perform even the most rudimentary tasks. Not that Rutger cared, of course. At another time he would have wrung this young man dry and left him behind an empty husk. But he felt people watching—and there were only so many minds he could control at one time. If he was to remain anonymous, now was the time to withdraw. Releasing his hold on the cobbler, he muttered a politeness for the benefit of the listeners and casually walked away. By the time he was gone, everybody involved had already forgotten all about him.

Rutger found the Oldeman in Unwin Way, a winding alley in an old, squalid quarter of the town, near the wharves, where the air reeked of dead sea-creatures, rotten weeds, and the sharp smell of the paint on the ships. The Oldeman was a three-storey hotel. The paint had flaked off its dilapidated, slightly leaning facade a long time ago, exposing a weathered wall of crumbling mortar, supported by a wooden framework. The shutters on most of the windows had long ago fallen into decay, and those that remained would follow soon after.

So, thought Rutger, here lives Fliz, the thief who would rob a magice. Who had robbed a magice, if the truth be told.

He backed around a corner and studied the Oldeman. It appeared deserted. Maybe it was. Maybe Fliz was the only person inhabiting it.

But, no. Someone emerged from the front entrance. An old man, bowed and leaning on a crude cane. He looked around this way and that and presently shuffled off, the cane scraping and making little ‘click-clack’ sounds on the pavement. Rutger emerged from his observation point and, assuming the Gait of Stealth, crossed the alley. He slipped in the door and paused in what once had been a reception area. Now it was a store-room, filled to the ceiling with junk. Boxes, pieces of discarded furniture, cooking utensils, broken tools. Rutger went to the stairs and, heedful of their rickety condition, ascended them to the second floor. He saw three doors in various states of disrepair. He went to the first one and stood before it. Nobody home. Rutger tried the latch. The door opened. He peered into a dingy den, devoid of furniture, reeking of sweat, stale intoxicants, and other objectionable substances.

Rutger pulled back and closed the door. The thief who’d robbed him would not live in such conditions. His clothes had been poor, but clean and well maintained; his hair washed and combed; he did not stink, and his eyes had been clear and alert.

Rutger moved to the next door, paused again to listen for human emanations, then tried this latch. It twisted but the door did not budge. Rutger inspected the frame and found no other latches or bolts. He bent down and located a key-hole a short distance below the latch. He bent down and inspected it. The locking mechanism, he noted, was probably of greater monetary value than this entire building. Rutger straightened. This was the place.

He considered his options. Picking locks was not among his talents, and neither did he have the tools. He could force the door and thereby leave a clear indication to the thief that someone was on his trail. On the other hand, the lock suggested that Fliz might use his room for the storage of the prizes of his larceny; in which case the locator might just be somewhere behind that door.

Rutger came to a decision. He extracted a small tube from an inside pocket and held it against the lock. He pressed the three buttons near its end in a complicated sequence. He pressed a fourth button closer to the tip. There was a brief hiss. Where the lock was, a curl of smoke arose. The wood around it blackened with the heat. Rutger release the button and pocketed the device. He gave the door a sharp push. After a brief resistance it flew open. Rutger inspected the room beyond.

He was in the right place. The room was an oasis of tidiness in the squalor of its setting. A single bed in one corner; on the other side a tiny stove, which had not been used for a long time, but appeared to serve as a… desk?

Here. In a thief’s den? Beside the stove stood a chair. Against the wall leaned a small rack with… books? Rutger stopped still. Books? What kind of a man was this? A petty thief who collected books?

Rutger went over to the rack and inspected the books. An eclectic mix, without apparent system or order. Volumes on such subjects as navigation and plant-lore. It was highly improbable that the thief had purchased them. There were only two places in Thalonica where books could be procured, and these were frequented exclusively by Wearers.

Rutger froze. He pulled out a book and held it with shaking hands. It was a copy of a philosophical text, written almost a century ago by Trill Hagar, a Fontaine nobleman, who believed that men could not possibly have originated on Tethys; a speculation so close to the truth, and so dangerous, that Hagar had met with a premature death, and his work had been destroyed in the conflagration that consumed his house, and killed him and his family.

How had this volume, which should not even exist, made its way across the ocean and into the hands of a Thalonican thief? Rutger turned the pages. The book gave the impression of having been handled many times. Rutger considered the elaborate script on the yellowing pages. He wondered if the thief knew how to read. An unsettling thought. This book was a dangerous abomination; its very existence just another sign that the magices, despite all their efforts, had not been able to fulfil their intended task. All the more important that he succeeded with his mission—which might well be their last hope to set things right.

Rutger shoved the book into his tunic. He continued to search the room but found nothing to interest him. Especially not his locator. Which implied that Fliz still had it—and that he had to find him. And when he had the locator back he would have to kill the thief; because nobody who knew about Hagar’s work should be allowed to live. Not even a petty, probably illiterate, thief.

The thought gave Rutger pause. He did not want to kill unless there was no alternative. What if the man was illiterate? Rutger returned to the rack and retrieved another volume: a taxonomy of Finisterian flora. He opened it up and leafed through it. This book was printed; using a recently-invented technique, which had suddenly appeared in too many places at once to allow the magices to choke off this new, dangerous social development. The illustrations were done from woodcuts. The pages were printed on one side only. The vacant sides exhibited occasional scribbled annotations, elaborating on, and occasionally providing corrections for, the original contents. The comments were done in ink; in a tentative script, which betrayed a lack of practice, but also exhibited certain distinct characteristics. By this and other indications, including the discovery of a quill and an inkwell on another shelf, Rutger knew that Fliz could not only read but also write. Which meant that he had to die.

In the door, Rutger paused. He extracted the tube from his pocket and applied his fingers to the buttons. A lance of fire shot forth from one end. It seared across the rack with the books and set them alight. Rutger turned away and left the Oldeman to find Fliz. Nobody saw him leave.

Fliz paused at the door of Y’liaan’s house; a small dwelling in the outskirts of Thalonica. Heins, Y’liaan’s father, was neither Wearer nor Willet—capable of entering either category, and yet probably stuck where he was. He had a daughter and a son, and that placed his HI into the ‘neutral’ category. People like Heins often decided not to have any more children. Fortunes could go either way, and the risk of becoming a Willet was greater than the probability of advancing to Wearer status; especially if one married a woman from Thalonica. People of Heins’ social rung—he was a laborer in the ship yards—usually could not afford to import a woman from far away; and so had to contend themselves with whatever spouse luck—or a lack thereof—happened to toss their way. Heins’ fate hung in the balance. Fliz knew him slightly and guessed that the man would not risk descent into Willet-dom.

Fliz considered the small house. It was getting dark and the lights of oil-lamps shone from the kitchen. Y’liaan’s room lay out the back. She shared it with her older brother, who was probably out with his friends. Fliz took a breath and, assuming the concealing gait, made his way to the back of the house, where he softly knocked on the closed shutter of Y’liaan’s window. The shutter was opened and Y’liaan’s pale face appeared.

“I’ll be out in a moment,” she said and closed the shutter again.

Fliz returned to the front of the house where he was presently joined by Y’liaan. The two went off arm in arm. In this part of town Fliz wasn’t worried about being seen thus. His own haunts were far away from here. Besides, the descending darkness provided a convenient anonymity.

They walked along the alleys, until they emerged at the sea where Endless Beach stretched for further than the eye could see. They stepped out onto the sand and started walking, away from the city. Darkness fell and Janus rose above the horizon, to cast a pale light upon the white sand. They had to walk quite a distance until they arrived at their favorite spot. They entered the thicket lining the beach and crawled until they came to their love nest. They tumbled to the ground. Y’liaan giggled and slipped her hand under his tunic. He slipped off her simple shift and she positioned herself on top of him. He pulled her down, and presently they lost themselves in passion.

Rutger stood across the alley from the Pink Palace, contemplating his next move. He could not be certain that Fliz was inside. Indeed, he could sense nothing at all. The mental noise accompanying the activities in the brothel’s rooms effectively masked out everything else. He would have to investigate. Planning was impossible; there were just too many possibilities to map out.

Rutger bestirred himself and started toward the Pink Palace. It would be difficult even to make himself unseen. The raw animal noises from the minds of the men—sailors, most of them—heaving away upon the bodies of the, mostly unenthusiastic, whores also served to decrease his own effectiveness. He approached the front door. A couple of sailors, reeking of ship and whore, emerged as he tried to enter. They pushed him aside roughly. Rutger constrained his reactions with difficulty. How dare these louts assault him?

He entered the lobby, a small room, decorated, fittingly, in pink, and illuminated by two rows of dozens of candles placed in holders along the walls. In the far corner, in a nook, Rutger thought he saw the garments of a man affixed to a wall. A middle-aged matron approached him. Her face look garish in the flickering light. Her small mouth was painted an intense red. The shading under her narrowly set eyes was far too intense.

“My dear sir,” she began, the mouth creasing into a grotesque cavity, rimmed by the circle of red lips.

He focused his attention on her, and her alone. His mind pressed on hers, overwhelming it within an instant. He kept it focused, lest the mental noise in this place allowed her to slip from his grasp.

“Fliz,” he said.

“He is not here,” she said dully.

“Where is he?”

“I do not know.”

“Who might know?”

The briefest of hesitations. Rutger pushed harder.

“Felicia,” the matron told him.

“Where is she?”

“In the kitchen.”

“Where is the kitchen?” The problem with this degree of mental control was that the subjects seldom volunteered information. They simply weren’t capable of it.

The woman made as if to turn but his eyes held her. She pointed. “Through there.”

“Good.”

Rutger imposed on her mind a total vacancy that should last for long enough to allow him to do what needed to be done. The woman shuffled to the closest chair and slumped into it. Rutger crossed the lobby and entered a corridor beyond it. The smells wafting to him told him the rest. He took a few more steps and arrived at a door, which he opened.

An old, used-up woman bent over a chopping board, cutting up onions with a long, sharp knife. She looked up as he entered. Her face froze. The knife stopped moving. She stared at him from shocked, bright-blue eyes. Rutger, who had thought to take control over the situation as soon as he entered the kitchen, knew with preternatural clarity that he had no control at all. It was as if she looked right through him; as if she knew him. Knew everything there was to know—in that very instant when she looked up and into his eyes.

Rutger himself remained immobile for a fatal moment. He had never experienced anything like this before. Because with the knowledge in those eyes something else roared into a sudden, unexpected flame: a fury such as he had never faced before; a mental onslaught that made him stagger back against the wall.

The woman moved. Too fast. Impossibly fast for one of her age; her decrepitude. She wielded the knife like a sword as she slid around the table and was upon him before he had time to react. The knife bore down on him and slashed him in the side. The woman screeched something, the voice projecting an implacable hatred that seared across his soul. Somehow he understood the words.

“You shall not have my son!”

The knife drew back. She slashed a second time. Rutger finally shook himself out of his paralysis. He dodged aside and grabbed her wrists. She wrenched them out of his hand with a force that stunned him. Rutger leaped back. With the knife raised above her head she lunged after him. Rutger ducked around the table. The woman followed, her screeches growing even more intense. The sight of her bearing down on him with the inevitability of death made him snap. He backed off, trying to keep the table between them. At the same time he withdrew a small, hand-held weapon from an inside pocket of his tunic. The woman took a grotesquely agile leap and scrambled across the table. She lunged at him again. Rutger stepped back, aimed and pushed a button. A jagged lance of lightning jumped from the mouth of weapon to the woman. It was attracted by the knife, and from there surged along her arm and enveloped her body like a live cocoon of death. She twitched uncontrollably; screamed again; a last gurgling imprecation. Then she fell, slipped, and stumbled. She slid off the table. Her head hit the stone floor with a sickening crunch. Rutger released the trigger. The crackling lightning ceased.

Behind him a sound. He whirled around to face a young woman. Her eyes were riveted on the corpse of Fliz’s mother. She opened her mouth and emitted a horrid wail that climbed up the scale and grated on his senses. Rutger, without conscious thought, pressed the trigger again; just to silence that terrible scream. Lightning enveloped the young woman. Her shrieks choked to a gurgle and died. She collapsed on the floor, beside the old woman, jerked with uncontrollable spasms, then lay still.

More noises. Running footsteps. Rutger did not await further developments. He bolted for the door on the far end of the kitchen. As he opened it, he heard a angry cry behind him. He did not turn around because he didn’t want them to see his face, but opened the door and fled through the corridor beyond, until he reached the back door and the alleyway behind the Pink Palace. Then, fighting down a panic such as he’d never known before, he forced himself to discipline and assumed the Gait of Stealth; getting himself away from this insane place and to safety.