"Who's we?" Niko wanted to know, but two of Molin's cohort already had him by the armpits. They lifted the only mildly protesting fighter up and eased him out the door to where a carriage with ivory screens was waiting and, after some little difficulty, boosted him inside and closed the door.

Niko, who'd been abducted more than once in his life, expected the carriage to jerk and horses to lunge and to be carried off into the night. He also expected to fight being bound hand and foot. And he expected to be alone in there, after that, or at least alone but for the company of guards.

None of his expectations came to pass. Before him, on the other side of the carriage, were two children, one on either side of a harried looking woman who might once have been beautiful and whom Niko, who liked women, vaguely recalled: a temple dancer. The two children were hardly more than babes, but one of them, the fair-haired, sat right up and clapped his little hands.

And the sound of those hands clapping rang in Niko's ears like the thunder of the god Vashanka, like the Storm God's own lightning that seemed to issue from the childish mouth as the boy began to giggle in joy.

Niko sat back, slouched against the opposite corner of the wagon, and said, "What the ... ?"

And though the child was now just a child again, another, deeper voice, rang in the Stepson's head, saying, Look on Me, favorite of the Riddler, and take word back to your leader that I am come again. And that 1 would take advantage of all you have to give before the little world that is thine suffers unto perishing. The boy from whose mouth the words could not have issued was saying, "Sowdier? Hewo? Make fwiends? Fwiends? Take big ride? Water pwace? Soon? Me want go soon!"

Niko, stone sober, sat up, looked at the woman sharply and then nodded politely, as he hadn't before. "You're that one's mother? That temple dancer-Seylalha, the First Consort who bore Vashanka's child." It wasn't really a question; the woman didn't bother to answer.

Niko leaned forward, toward the two children, the darker of whom had his thumb in his mouth and regarded Niko with round black eyes. The fair child smiled beatifi-cally. "Soon?" the boy said, though it was too young a child to be discussing anything as sensitive as Niko knew it was.

He said, "Soon, if you're worthy, boy. Pure in heart. Honorable. Loving of life all life. It won't be easy. I'll have to get permission. And you've got to control-what's inside you. Or they won't have you in Bandara, no matter how they care for me."

"Good," said the fair child, or maybe just "Goo"; Niko wasn't sure.

These were toddlers, the both. Too young and, if Niko's maat was right and a god had chosen one as His repository, too dangerous. Niko said to the woman, "Tell the priests I'll do what I can. But he must be taught restraint. No child can control his temper at that age. Both of them, then, must be prepared."

And he pushed on the wagon's door, which opened and let the sobered fighter out into the blessedly cold and normal Sanctuary night.

Normal, except for the presence of Molin Torchholder and the little scribbler, whom the priest held by the collar. "Nikodemos, look at this," said the priest without preamble as if Niko were now his ally-which, so far as Stealth was concerned, he indubitably was not.

Still, the picture that the scribbler, who was protesting that he had a right to do as he willed, had scribed was odd: It was of Niko, but with Tempus looking over his shoulder and both of them seemed to be enfolded in the wings of a dark angel who looked altogether too much like Roxane.

"Leave the picture, artist, and go your way." It was Niko's order, but Torchholder let go of the bandy-legged limner, who hurried off without asking when or if he'd get his artwork back.

"That's my problem ... that picture. Forget you've seen it. Yours, if you want what the god wants, is to get those children schooled where they can be disciplined-by Bandaran adepts."

"What makes you assume I want any such-"

"Torchholder, don't you know what you've got there? More trouble than Sanctuary can handle. Infants-one infant, anyhow-with a god in him. With the power of a god. A Storm God. Can you reason out the rest?"

Torchholder muttered something about things having gone too far.

Niko retorted, "They're not going any further unless and until my partner Randal-who's being held by Roxane, I hear tell-is returned to me unharmed. Then I'll ride up and ask Tempus what he wants to do-if anything-about the matter of the godchild you so cavalierly visited upon a town that had troubles enough without one. But one way or the other, the resolution isn't going to help you one whit. Get my meaning?"

The architect-priest winced and his face screwed up as if he'd tasted something sour. "We can't help you with the witch, fighter-not unless you want simple manpower."

"Good enough. As long as it's priest-power." And Niko began giving orders that Torchholder had no alternative but to obey.

On the dawn of the shortest day of the year, Niko had still not come back to Roxane.

It was time to make an end to Randal, whom she despised enough-almost-to make the slight dealt her by the mortal whom she'd consented to love less stinging.

Almost, but not quite. If witches could cry, Roxane would have shed tears of humiliation and of unrequited love. But a witch shouldn't be crying over mortals, and Roxane was reconstituted from the weakness that had beset her during the Wizard Wars. If Niko wouldn't come to her, she'd make him notorious in hell for all the lonely souls his faithless, feckless self-interest had sent there.

She was just getting the snakes to put aside the card game and fetch the mage when hoofbeats sounded upon her cart-track drive.

Wroth and no longer hopeful, she snatched aside the curtain, though the day was bright and clear as winter days can be, with a sky of powder blue and horsetail clouds. And there, amazingly, was Niko, on a big sable horse of the sort that only Askelon bred in Meridian, his panoply agleam as it came within orb of all her magic.

So she had to shut down her wards and go outside to greet him, leaving Randal half unbound with only the snakes to guard him.

Still, it was sweeter than she'd thought it could be, when anger had consumed her-ecstasy just to see him.

He'd shaved. His boyish face was smiling. He rode up to her and slipped off his horse, cavalry style, and slapped its rump. "Go home, horse, to your stable," he told it, then told her, "I won't need him here, I'm sure."

Here. Then he was staying. He understood. But he'd not done anything she'd asked.

So she said, "And Janni? What of the soul of your poor partner? How can you leave him with Ischade-that whore of darkness? How can you-"

"How can you torture Randal?" Niko said levelly, taking a step closer to Roxane, hands empty and out stretched. "It makes it so hard for me to do this. Can't you-for my sake, won't you let him go? Unharmed. Unensorceled. Free of even the taint of hostile magic."

As he spoke, he pulled her against him gently until she pushed back, fearful of the burns his armor could inflict. "If you'll get rid of that-gear," she bargained, trying to keep her hackles from rising. He should know better than to come to her armored with protections forged by the entelechy of dream. Stupid boy. He was beautiful but dumb, pure, but too innocent to be as canny as his smile portended.

She waved a hand behind her. "Done." And as she spoke, a howl of rage and triumph issued from inside and something, with a crash, came bursting out the window.