The rain finally stopped. It would be days before the streets dried-if they dried at all before the next storm swept through. Molin tucked the scarf in a pouch and threw a cloak over his shoulder. There wouldn't be a better time to find Tempus. He didn't have to go far, just a sidelong glance out the window. The Riddler, followed closely by an exceptionally grim looking Critias, was coming to pay him a visit.

"That picture," the nearly immortal mercenary snarled, pointing above Molin's head as the heavy wood door slammed against the wall.

Pointedly ignoring the priest, Crit walked around to examine the picture closely. After touching it with his fingers he used his knife to scrape off a bit of the background-and got plaster-shavings for his efforts.

"It's not there, Critias," Molin warned.

"Get it," Crit ordered.

"You don't come in here giving me orders."

"Let him see it," Tempus asked wearily. "/'// make sure no harm comes to it."

Molin tried to concentrate. He'd been childishly pleased with himself when he'd hidden the actuality of the canvas while leaving its semblance plainly visible on the wall. It was hard enough for an apprentice of his experience to tuck something away in magic's shadows but now, with Tempus and Crit watching him impatiently, it was proving impossible to find it again. He had almost located the frayed edges when the door slammed open again and he lost them.

"You can't bum it," Randal said, the words coming between gasps for air. "No one knows what will happen when you do."

"We bum the witch-bitch when we bum it-that's what happens." Critias touched his knife to the facsimile ofRoxane's face as he spoke. "Find it," he added for Molin's benefit.

"We don't know what happens to Niko... or Tempus," Randal continued.

Critias fell silent and Molin, getting desperate, lucky, or both, closed his mind around the canvas and gave it a little tug. The image on the wall shimmered before vanishing and, with an unpleasant sulphurous discharge, the rolled canvas dropped to the floor at Tempus's feet. He reached down and held it in his fist.

"No," the big man said simply.

"We can't destroy the globe," Critias said as Randal shuddered in agreement. "We can't kill the Stormchildren." Molin's knuckles went white. "And now you're telling me we can't bum the picture. Commander, what can we do?"

Molin saw his opportunity open before him. Opening the pouch, he laid the scarf across the worktable and waited for reaction. Randal stared, Crit looked nervous, and Tempus jerked upright.

"Mother of us all," he sighed, laying the canvas on the table, taking the scarf in its place. "Where did you get this?" His fingers read the uneven stitches as he spoke.

"Stormbringer," Molin answered softly enough that only Tempus could see or hear.

"Why?"

"To convince you that you have to sleep; that you have to talk to ASkelon because Askelon's decided he'll only talk to you. And, more important, because Stormbringer thinks Askelon's got a way to reach Roxane."

"Thinks? The god thinks? He doesn't know?" He closed his eyes a moment. "Do you know what this is? Did he tell you?"

Molin shrugged. "He thought it would be sufficient to convince you to go where I'd already told him you had no intention of going."

"Damn her," Tempus said, throwing the scarf on the table and taking the picture again. "Here," he threw it at Critias, who let it drop to the floor, "do what you damned well want with it."

DEATH IN THE MEADOW by C.J. Cherryh

I

The floor creaked to the slightest step, and Stilcho moved quietly as he could across to the old warehouse door, not trying escape, no, only that it was so everlasting cold and he wanted the sun to warm his flesh, the sun that shone bright through a crack in the shutters. He wanted it, and he had thought a long time about getting up from that board floor and venturing outside-

-he had thought about going further too, but the front step would be enough, the front step was all he dared think of, because Haught sleeping back there had ways to know what he planned-

-so he thought, o gods large and small, gods of hell and gods of earth, only of getting out into that light where the sun would warm the stone step and the bricks and warm his dead flesh which right now had that lasting chill of rain and mud and misery. He could not abide the stink and the cold of mud, that made him think all too much of being dead, in the ground, in the river cold-

I'm not running, I'm not going anywhere, just the sun.... That, for Haught's benefit, should he wake-with his hand on the door.

The hair stirred at Stilcho's nape. His flesh crawled. He stopped still and turned and looked, and saw Haught sitting up in the shadows, a bedraggled Haught with a bloody scrape on his face and the whites showing dangerously round his eyes. Stilcho set his back against the door and gestured toward it with a shrug.

"Just going out to get the-"

Do you play games with me? With me, dead man?

No, he thought quickly, made that a torrent of no, letting nothing else through, and felt every hair on his body rise and his heart slow, time slow, the world grow fragile so that for a moment he knew the progress of Haught's mind, the suspicion that his one failure had diminished the fear of him, that a certain piece of walking meat needed a lesson, that this thing Ischade slept with (but not with him) could be dealt with, shredded and sent to the deepest hell if it needed to learn respect-

-Stilcho knew all that the way he suddenly knew Haught was running through his thoughts, knowing his doubt, his dread, his hate, everything that made him vulnerable.

"On your knees," Haught said, and Stilcho found himself going there, helplessly, the way every bone and sinew in him resonated to that voice. He stared at Haught with his living eye while the dead one held vision too, a vision of hell, of a gateway a thing wanted to pass and could not. But if he was sent there now, to that gate, to meet that thing-

"Say you beg my pardon," Haught said.

"I b-beg your pardon." Stilcho did not even hesitate. A fool would hesitate. There was no hope for a fool. Ischade would banish him down to hell to confront that thing if he went back to her now after what Haught had done, and Haught would tear his soul to slow shreds before he let it go to the same fate. Stilcho knelt on the bare boards and mouthed whatever words Haught wanted.

For now. (No, no, Haught, for always.)

Haught gathered himself to his feet and ran a hand through his disordered hair. His pale, elegant face had a gaunt look. The hair fell again to stream about it. The smile on his face was fevered.

He's crazy, Stilcho thought, having seen that look in hospital and in Sanctuary's own street lunatics. And then: 0, no, no, no, not Haught! No!

The prickling of his skin grew painful and ceased. Haught came closer to him, came up to him and squatted down and put his hand on Stilcho's cheek, on the blind side. Chill followed that touch, and a deep pain in his missing eye, but Stilcho dared not move, dared not look anywhere but into Haught's face.

"You're still useful," Haught said. "You mustn't think of leaving."

"I don't."

"Don't lie to me." Silken-soft. And the pain stabbed deep. "What can I give you to make you stay?"

"L-life. F-for that."

"No gold. No money. No woman. None of that."

"To b-be alive-"

"That's still our bargain. Isn't it? They know about us. They took care enough to set a trap for us. You think then that She doesn't know? You think then that we have infinite time? I've covered us thus far. They might not know who we are. But careful as 1 am, dead man, Stralon came close to us. He probably knew us. He probably passed that on. And that damnable priest and that damnable mage may know who they're looking for now. They might have thought it was Her. Now they may go to Her and tell Her our business. And that won't be good for us at all, will it, dead man?"