"And what happened to the body?" mused Alec.

They'd already made the rounds of the charnel houses.

"From the sound of it, he didn't just get up and walk away."

Seregil shrugged. "There are plenty strange characters in Rhiminee who'd pay for a corpse."

Alec grimaced. "Like who?"

"Oh, the mad and the curious, mostly. There was one man, a lord, no less, who wanted to determine which organ contained the soul. Artists have been known to use them, too, sculptors in particular. I recall a woman was executed after it was discovered that she'd used human skeletons as armatures for statues she was casting for the Dalnan retreat house.

According to the story, a priest stopped by her shop to see how the work was coming along and inadvertently knocked over one of the life-size clay models. The head struck the floor at his feet and split open to reveal an all too lifelike mouthful of teeth."

"You're joking!"

"It's the Maker's truth. Valerius has told that story a hundred times. "Burn 'em or leave 'em alone!" was generally the moral of the tale. As for Tym, though, it could be necrophiles or just some poor starving sod—"

"Enough, I get the idea," Alec growled. He had no idea what a necrophile was and didn't think he wanted to know; the thought of cannibalism was nauseating enough all by itself.

"What? Oh, sorry. All that aside, I think it's more likely that Rythel or some of his associates caught Tym spying and wisely disposed of the body. We'd better have a look up there ourselves."

They waited until it was full dark, then rode down to Sailmaker Street. The inhabitants of the house were still awake and at their suppers; their own clatter would cover any noise Seregil might make going over the slates.

With Alec on watch below, he climbed the rickety stairs at the back of the house and pulled himself onto the roof. Looping a rope around a chimney pot, he crept cautiously down to the eaves just over

Rythel's window.

He spotted the knife at once, its naked blade gleaming cleanly in the gutter.

Stretched out on his belly, face just inches from the knife, Seregil regarded it for a moment, wondering how Tym—quick, clever, deadly Tym—could have been caught out on the edge of a bare roof and not drawn a drop of blood before he died.

You were good, Tym, but it looks like we all meet our match sooner or later, he mused, reaching for the dead thief's knife. The thought sent a brief chill up his spine as he grasped the scarred hilt. Hurrying on its heels, however, came the still more chilling memory of sending Alec to burgle the room by himself. Was it any more than Illior's luck that whoever Tym had run afoul of had not been on hand for Alec's visit?

Tucking the knife into his belt with a silent prayer of thanks, he worked his way back the way he'd come and found Alec waiting across the street.

"I checked the yard," he told Seregil. "All I found was this." He held up a small, fancy button of carved bone. "Anytime I saw him, his clothes were pretty fancy under the dirt."

Seregil nodded. "True enough. What about bloodstains?"

"Too much rain and foot traffic. Did you have any luck?"

Alec's eyes widened a bit at the sight of the knife. "I'll be—But where does that leave us?"

"Nose deep in the shit heap, I suspect,"

Seregil sighed. "I expect that map is long gone, and it's two more days before we can check. Rythel will be done with his good work in the sewers by then and we still don't have a clue who's behind him on this. Now the bastard's cost me a good thief to boot."

Alec looked up at the place Tym had fallen.

"If Nysander hadn't called us away that night—"

Seregil shook his head. "Then we'd be wiser or dead, too. It's useless to speculate. It's time to grab our man, but we've got to do it quick and proper. And for that, we'll need a wizard's help."

He touched Tym's dagger again. "Maybe Nysander can get something out of this, while we're at it. Let's see if he's home."

Galloping up the Harbor Way, they rode at full tilt through the streets toward the Oreska House. Catching sight of its high spires looming ahead of them at last, they were relieved to see a light burning in the east tower.

They found Nysander and Thero at work over a malodorous collection of bubbling limbics and crucibles. At one end of the worktable a handful of unpolished broad arrow points lay in a little heap on a leather pad.

Seregil saw Alec's eye stray toward these, but they had more pressing matters at hand.

"Can you get any sort of a sighting off this?" he asked, showing Nysander Tym's dagger.

Wiping his hands on a stained rag, Nysander took it and turned it over in his hands for a moment, then grasped it and closed his eyes.

After a moment, however, he shook his head and handed it to Thero. "There is a faint trace of magic about it, but I cannot say what sort or how long it had been there."

"Objects seldom retain much," Thero observed. "His body would have told us more."

"Obviously someone else knew that," Seregil muttered, dropping onto the nearest bench with a disgusted grunt. "We're getting nowhere! Let's just reel Rythel in. Week's end is the night after tomorrow. I say we keep a close eye on him, and hit him then."

"That would appear to be the next logical step," Nysander agreed. "What will you need?"

"A translocation key. Make it something small I can hand him without raising suspicion. A rolled document should do the trick. As Lord Seregil, I can talk it up to be a salable item. I think we can count on our man's greed."

"Excellent. And I shall make arrangements with the warder at Red Tower Prison. We will pop him into a cell before he can wiggle loose."

Seregil turned to Alec, hovering expectantly beside him. "You'll nip in and toss his room as soon as he leaves for his weekly whoring. Even if the map's gone, there may be something else incriminating lying around. We don't want to give anyone else time to clean up after him once we've got him. As soon as you're done there, meet us at the prison."

Alec grinned, ready for the hunt. "This shouldn't take too long."

Seregil grinned back, glad to see an end to this particular job. "Hell, we'll probably be able to catch the second performance at the Tirarie Theater!"

26

Vargul Ashnazai looked resignedly around his latest lodging. The deserted house smelled of damp and mice, but the roof was sound and the hearth was usable. He'd lost count of the inns and taverns they'd stayed at since their arrival in Skala three months before. Winter was harsher here than in his native

Benshal, but not so harsh as those they'd endured for three years as he helped Mardus scout the northlands for the Eyes and the Veil.

No, in Skala the necromancer's greatest hardship so far had been boredom. The Oreska's reach was long; no matter if they were in Rhiminee tracking

Urvay's various spies and dupes, or sequestered at a deserted steading such as the one they now occupied, he could not afford to practice his art without first weaving a tight barrier of shielding spells. Such magicks had worked admirably with the avaricious young sorceress Urvay had netted for them. Ylinestra was altogether too sure of her powers; never once had she divined who, or what, Mardus truly was.

Throwing back the warped shutters, Ashnazai blinked out at the cove below the house. Great slabs of sea ice lay piled at the tide line, but beyond the shingle open water rippled grey-green in the morning light.

Yet another impediment nicely cleared away, he thought, smiling to himself. Urvay's actor dupe, Pelion, had leapt with predictable glee at the offer of a series of special engagement performances in the southern city of Iolus. He would have his triumphs there, no doubt, never knowing his life's thread had been measured to its final length, to be cut two weeks hence by an assassin already paid in full. And the beautiful Ylinestra, too, was living on ransomed time, along with all the others.