"Not right out in front now, boys!" Ahdio called after them.

Looking a little nervous, teeth worrying his lip, Throde watched both men all the way out the door.

Ahdiovizun stared at the veiled lady. Throde looked at her, at Ahdio. Who knew where she was looking, under hood and behind veil?

"My lady ..." Ahdio began, and broke off as she rose to her feet.

He and Throde stared as she tossed back her hood, then unclasped the cloak, and with one hand pulled her veil straight out until it dropped free. Her hand fell to her side, carrying the veil. She said nothing. Neither did Ahdio. He stared, mouth open. He dropped one big hand to the back of a chair as if he needed support.

"Not," he said in a very low voice, "possible!"

"Oh," Throde said, with feeling, as he looked upon the most beautiful woman he had ever beheld.

The unveiled lady gazed at him while he and Throde stared at her. She said nothing.

"Throde," Ahdio said, and his voice sounded funny to his helper, "let's leave the tables and sweeping up till tomorrow. Go ahead home, and don't forget to be careful out there tonight."

Swallowing hard, looking at him, Throde stood blinking. He had never seen Ahdio look this way before. The big man looked ... stupid.

Also impatient. "Throde!"

Throde jerked as if awakening, and headed for the back room with his unused broom. The whole night had been truly unique, a succession of new experiences adding new knowledge to Throde's store. It had not ceased. No woman had ever stayed behind this way, not both sober and clothed. And saying absolutely nothing; she was merely ... being here. Nor had Ahdio ever behaved in such a way. Throde had often thought that his huge, tough and yet kind employer should have a woman; even women, in the plural. Yet he had never envisioned such a woman as this; never dreamed that she might be such a beauty as this veiled-as this now unveiled lady.

He set the broom in its place and made sure the back door was locked as well as barred. Then he swung his big hairy cloak about himself, pausing only long enough to lift the hood and close the clasp. Taking his staff, he headed for the front door. He walked between the man and the woman without looking at either, but noticed nevertheless that they remained as if frozen in place, gazing at each other in silence. As he reached the hanging before the door, a new thought struck him and he turned back.

"Ahdio? You're ... all right?"

"Of course. And you be careful, Throde." Ahdio spoke without looking at him. He stood as if in shock, thunder-struck.

"Uh." And, still nervous and going motherly, the youth said, "uh, don't-don't, uh, forget to lock the door after me, Ahdio."

"Good night, Throde."

Throde departed, pulling the door securely shut behind him.

The moment he was gone, the unveiled lady spoke. "I'm sorry I called that warning-you handled everything so well, and purely physically, too, without a sign of your Ability."

Her voice was soft and she seemed to lean toward him, but he stood stiffly, a dozen paces away. Glaring at her. Still he appeared to be in shock, and she saw pain in his face.

"What in four hells are you doing here, Jo?" He could not have made his displeasure more obvious, but the catch in his voice bespoke pain, too.

"I'm sorry I felt I had to come here, in disguise. It's all right, Ahdio, it's all right now. Ezucar died over four weeks ago. I left just days later. I had no care for what 'looked right,' Ahdio. I am a widow. I am free. I may even be able to smile again. I came straight here, with a caravan. I came looking for Ahdiomer Viz ... and I find one Ahdiovizun, wearing mail in a rough, low place peopled by rough, low patrons; tending bar and handling trouble with-with hands and strength alone?!"

He glanced away. "Yes, well ... this isn't Suma, and I had to leave. You know that." He took up a wet cloth and began rubbing the bar's counter-top.

"I know that you are a superlative wizard among wizards, and were surely on your way to being Chief Wizard and Advisor," she said, with a note almost of pleading in her voice. "And then you simply vanished." She looked around, gestured. "And I find you ... in this."

"I didn't vanish, Jodeera. I left because of a woman- she was the wife of a mighty well-off and powerful noble, and I loved her. I couldn't stand being so close to her; couldn't stand being in Suma anymore."

Perhaps he noticed her sudden pained look when he put the word "love" in the past tense; perhaps he did not. She was worse than uncomfortable; she felt positively wretched. Knowing that he was uncomfortable and worse did not help.

"I gave up my magickal practice," he said, staring at the bar, rubbing and rubbing it with his wet cloth. "Completely. I came here and became who and what I am. This is my life. And now-gods, Jo, gods ... why have you come here?"

She straightened up, lifted her chin, put back her shoulders. "Why don't you look at me, Ahdio, and I will tell you." She waited until he did so. She saw the torture in his large dark eyes and knew it showed in hers. First she swallowed hard, and then she told him: "Because that woman you loved; she loved you too and still does, and shamefully soon after Ezucar died, I came after you. Now I am not going to leave, my love; you might try throwing me out but I will not go back to Suma ... or anyplace else, except where you are."

With one huge hand on the bar as if he needed its support to keep his knees from buckling, he stared at her. The look of pain had not left his face. She could not imagine why until he said, "I am not about to take up Practice again, Jo. That is behind me. The wizard Ahdiomer Viz is no more."

"Oh?" she said, putting her head a little to one side. "What about the cats? And that assistant of yours- Throde?"

Again he looked away from her stricken eyes and her beauty. He heard the rustle and the quiet footsteps as she moved toward him, but would not look; could not. Could this be? Didn't she love what he had been, that brilliant and prospering Sumese wizard-on-the-rise? She was a woman of beauty and she had been married to wealth and power; Ezucar of Suma. This was ... this was Sly's Place.

And I am Ahdiovizun, not Ahdiomer Viz. Not anymore.

"That's different. That's all there is, and all there will be of my power and my Practice, Jodeera. I'm so out of practice that one of the cats left me and I can't even locate him. That's all buried. Ahdiovizun is the man who runs Sly's Place in the Maze in Sanctuary, and serves drinks wearing a coat of chain."

He partly turned and bent then, to wriggle his shoulders and let the mailcoat rustle clinkingly down over his head and arms. It became a smallish package, which he placed on the bar as if it were not at all heavy.

"Let it be buried with Ezucar then," she said softly, right beside him behind the bar, "and the rest of the past. The present is that I love you, Ahdio. What about the future? Can't we start it right now?"

He looked at her, and the tears he saw on her cheeks caused those in his eyes to well over. Then he was embracing her and being embraced, both of them striving to meld their bodies into one. The embrace lasted a long, long while, and surely no one who knew or thought he knew Ahdiovizun could imagine him weeping, as he wept now. Some of their murmuring was incoherent but most of it was the repeating of the other's name, over and over.

"Home is where Ahdio is," she murmured, in a moment of coherence, "and the rest of his name doesn't matter. I've come home."

At last she reminded him that he hadn't locked the front door. He did that, and they went upstairs.