Dwyrin stepped through the arch and was brought up short. He reeled back, his body stunned by a stinging blow. A figure now stood beyond the gate.

“This is not for you,” grated a voice like a millstone. “Go back to the land of the living.”

Dwyrin, blinded by the glare seeping from the mountain, shook his head and stepped forward again. The figure raised a huge hand, its fingers curled. The shape of it was indistinct, fuzzed at the edges, but Qwyrin, blinking, made out the head of a wolf and deep burning red eyes. The hand rose, fingers outstretched. There was a slow burring sound and Dwyrin felt himself come apart, limbs dissolving. There was a sharp popping sound.

Dwyrin awoke on the deck of the dhow, the clamor of the sailors harsh in his ears. They had returned from the village, heads thick with wine and fermented corn ale. He rolled aside as their guttering blue flames sprawled around the pale-yellow flow of the decking. Dwyrin shuddered, closing his eyes against the sight. It did no good. No, if anything, his othersight was clearer and stronger. A yellow-blue flame approached him and low musical tones belled from it, hanging in the air like falling rain. Dwyrin groaned and rolled over, his distress spilling to the slow yellow deck in dull purple streams. The yellow-blue flame turned away. Dwyrin lay in the spreading pool of purple.

THE DE’ORELIO RESIDENCE, THE CITY OF ROME

Delicate voices greeted Thyatis as she descended the stairs from the upper chambers of Anastasia’s mansion. Below, in the atrium, a choir of young slaves was singing to welcome the visitors to the party. The hall of the Poseidon was thronged with people, their voices and “the tinkle of glass and plates rising up like a cloud above them. Thankfully, none of the notables of the city^-the bankers, the senators, the Legion officers, their wives, concubines, mistresses, or catamites-paid her the least attention. Anastasia’s handmaidens had labored over her for much of the afternoon. Her hair was a sweeping red-gold cloud around her face, tied back near the end with a deep-violet silk tie that trailed down her back. Careful pigments had been applied, bringing forth her lips, her eyes, and the line of her cheekbones.

She wore a new gown, this one modeled upon the silk masterpiece Anastasia had worn that first day. The finest linen, with a gauze drape of silk above it, in a deep green with subtle gold and blue hues. Tiny gold slippers were carefully tied to her feet, with delicate copper wires ornamenting and outlining the curve of her calves. A lapis and dark-gold necklace lay between her breasts. By dexterous sleight of hand, she had secreted her throwing knife and a garrote upon her person without the notice of the slaves who had dressed her. Their solid presence lent her the calmness of mind to navigate the crowd, which spilled down the steps beyond the sea-green hall, through the inner garden, and out into the great garden at the back of the house. Weaving through the chattering throng, she deftly avoided the servants rushing in and out of the kitchen, bearing great platters of candied figs, iced sherbets, sliced up portions of roast on silver skewers, and sugar-coated wrens in aspic.

The trees of the great garden were ablaze with hanging lanterns, and torches were placed along the walkways. Here the younger set of the party had gathered in a brightly attired throng around the ornamental pools. Wine flowed freely from the amphorae carried by the house slaves. Two young men dressed as gladiators, patrician by the cut of their hair and the softness of their hands, brushed past Thyatis on either side. One wayward hand caressed her right breast. Her hand was lightning quick, trapping his thumb as it trailed away. There was a twist and a pop, and the noble youth stumbled into his friend, speechless in pain. Thyatis glided on, ignoring whispered suggestions from the young men and women loitering in the shadows under the pear trees. Beyond the ornamental pool lay a secluded glen in the garden, surrounded by high hedges and trellises of rose and hyacinth. Settled within the glen, Anastasia’s gardeners had labored for years to build a Pythagorean maze.

Beyond sight of the house and its merry windows, filled with people and lights, Thyatis relaxed. In the gloom under the waxing moonlight she stepped carefully through the passages in the maze. Around her, softly, came cries and groans. More than once she stepped over half-sheltered couples on the walkway. At last she found the center of the geometry, and there, next to a tiny marble pool surmounted by a bronze faun, were two facing benches. In her time in the house of her mistress, Thyatis had come here often to escape the subtle tensions among the household as well as the training that Anastasia had placed her under.

Finding the bench by feel in the darkness, Thyatis sat, sighing in relief. The sandals were very pretty, but her feet were not used to their tight confinement. She unwound the golden cords from her feet and carefully set them aside. She gently rubbed her feet, hissing in pain at the unexpected blisters. In the quiet darkness, her thoughts fluttered about her head like night moths.

Perhaps I should just leave the city and go far away, somewhere without all this…

“I think the same thing, often. Almost every day.” The voice was low and deep.

Thyatis froze, then slowly turned. All but invisible in the darkness, a figure sat at the other end of the bench. The hairs on the nape of her neck prickled up and her nostrils flared. She accounted herself uncommonly aware, yet this man had been sitting no more than three feet from her since she had reached the center of the maze and she had not noticed him at all.

“My apologies,” she said, “I did not think that I had spoken aloud.”

“No matter,” he replied, -his deep voice easy and tinged with weariness. “If my presence ruins the solitude, I will betake myself away.” He moved on the bench, swinging one leg over. Gravel crunched under a boot.

“No,” she said, surprising herself, “you do not… intrude. There are too many people here for me to be comfortable in the house, or on the lawn.”

He laughed-a rich sound like river water. “I hate crowds. Particularly ones like this, filled with all of the people you always see and all of the ones you cannot stand seeing again. The bickering and little games over who has more of this, or more of that. Ah, and the hostess, the dear Lady. A matron of great stature in the… community, and of unquenchable appetite.”

Unseen, Thyatis smiled. “You know her, then,” she said.

“For years! She has always wanted me to be one of her retinue of promising young men. Do your feet hurt?”

Thyatis blinked. “Ah, they’re sore from the sandals., They’re new and… I’m not used’to them.” I

“May I?” came his quiet voice. In the darkness, Thyatis felt two hands, strong and broad, touch her right foot, perched on the edge of the bench. “I have some training in the temple, I can make the pain go away.”

“You sound young for a priest,” she said, but she swung around as well, placing both of her feet on the bench. Gentle fingers brushed over her toes and slid along her instep.

“When I was younger, I showed some talent for the arts of Asklepios,” he said “so I was enrolled by my mother. I think that she wanted me to avoid the fate of government service that had taken my father. That plan was a failure, 1 fear. I spend all of my time now on things relating to the Offices.” The laugh came again, a pleasant burr in the gloom. Thyatis leaned back against the thick leaves of the hedge. His hands rolled and kneaded her tired muscles.

“This feels wonderful,” she said, her voice languid. “Working for the Lady is equally diverting. At first you are told that you will be doing one thing, a thing that you enjoy and show promise and skill at, then the next day another, something that you detest. She is maddening much of the time.”