He jogged along, panting, limping-Ischade's repair work was thorough, but a long run still sent pain jolting through him.

Ghosts passed them, headed where they wished to be. They were polyglot and headed for old haunts, former domiciles, old feuds. Sanctuary might get pragmatic about its haunts, but the ghosts grew bolder and nervier in these declining days of the Empire; and these were not the reasoning kind. These had been walking patrol in Ischade's service, or Roxane's; and a few luckless ones tried to go complain to Roxane about the matter.

Roxane cursed a blue streak (literally) and in a paroxysm of rage conjured a dozen snakes and a demon, an orange-haired, grayskinned being named Snapper Jo which ran rampaging up the riverside till it forgot quite what it was about and got to rampaging through a warehouse full of beer. It was not, all in all, one of Roxane's better nights: the attack was desultory, Ischade was definitely aiming at something else, and Roxane was willing to use the diversion while she took wing crosstown-

"Damn!" Haught yelled. His sight picked that up, a pale blue arc headed across Sanctuary with only one target in mind. He was earthbound. He ran for the river and Ischade with all his might, and came pelting past the wards to find Ischade sitting on the bed wrapped in orange silk and the skirts of her black cloak and laughing like a lunatic.

Uptown the Lady Nuphtantei's door went wide open and the elegant Lady Nuphtantei, Harka Bey and not easily affrighted, went pelting down the street naked as she was born, for the drunken demon that had materialized in her house breaking porcelains and crunching silver underfoot was not a thing the servants or her daughter had stayed to deal with, not for a moment.

She ran straight into a company of Walegrin's guard and kept going, so fast the guard hardly had time to turn and stare.

Then what was behind her showed up, and the troops scattered.

Arrows flew. A barricade was afire over by the Maze edge where Jubal's gangs tried to hold against rooftop archers, mage-illusions, and a handful of paired riders who had the style and manner of the old Stepsons. And the fire spread to buildings, which doubled the chaos. Men threw water and ducked arrows. A frantic family scurried out with possessions and arrows pelted indiscriminate.

The physician Harran wrung his hands (one was a woman's) and paced his upstairs room and took another look out the window, in the little garrett where he had hidden his affliction-fortuitously hidden, considering what had befallen everyone else in the barracks. But he had no practice now, no home, no direction. Mriga gone. There was the little dog, which paced about after him panting and whuffing in mimic concern.

He was (whatever his affliction) still a doctor. The pain he spied on worried at him and gnawed his gut. "Oh, damn," he muttered to himself, when a boy darted from cover, limned red in the firelight, and flung a torch. Tried to fling it. An arrow took him. The boy fell, writhing, skewered through the leg, right near the great artery. "Damn."

Herran slammed the shutter, shut his eyes and suddenly turned and ran down the stairs, thundering down the hollow boards, into the smell of smoke and the glare outside. He heard shouting, wiped his eyes. Heard the boy screaming above the roar of the burning barricade, above the shouts of men in combat. Horses screamed. He heard the thunder of hooves and dashed out to reach the boy as the riders streaked past. "Lie still," he yelled at the screaming, thrashing youth. "Shut up!" He grabbed him about the arm and hauled it over his shoulders, heard a frantic barking and another great shout as he stumbled to his feet, the oncoming thunder of riders on the return, a solid wall of horsemen.

"Goddess-"

Strat met the shockwave of his own forces that had kept the way open: a moment of confusion while they swept about and followed him in a clatter on the pavings. The burning barricade was ahead, a sleet of stones. An uneven pair of figures blocked his path, dark against the light-

Strat swept his sword in an arc that ended in the skull of the taller and took a good part of it away: he rode through. The rider behind him faltered as his horse hit the bodies and recovered; then the rest of the troop went over them, crushing bone under steel-shod hooves, and swords swung as they met Jubal's men at the barricade, on their way back through.

There was a decided interest on the childrens' part. One boy kept climbing up to the window and gazing out, less talkative than his wont. The other never left it, and stared when Niko came and took both in his arms.

He saw the circling of something sorcerous that could not get in. Saw something dark stream up to fight it off, and that something was torn ragged and streamed on the winds. But what it had turned was dimmer fire now. He heard a forlorn cry, like a great hunting bird. Like a damned soul. A lost lover.

The wards about the place glowed blinding bright. And held.

Sanctuary was beset with fires, barricades, looting. The armed priests of the Storm God were no inconsiderable barrier themselves.

But they were ineffectual finally against a torn, bloody thing that haunted the halls and that tried the partnership that had been between them. He knew what had come streaking in to find him; he knew what faithful, vengeful wraith had held the line again. It pleaded with him in his dreams, forgetting that it was dead. He wept at such times, because he could not explain to it and it was not interested in listening.

"Get me out of here," he yelled down the hall, startling the children. A priest showed up in the hallway, spear in hand, eyes wide. "Dammit, get me out of this city!"

The priest kept staring. Niko kicked the door shut and sank down against it, child in either arm.

They crawled into his lap, hugged him round the neck. One wiped his face, and he stared past, longing for the dawn and the boat they promised would come.

A barge went down the White Foal, an uncommonly sturdy one by Sanctuary standards. Ischade watched it, arms about her, the hood of her black cloak back. Her faithful were there: chastened Haught, smug Stilcho. The usual birds sat in the tree. Breath frosted on the wind-a cold morning, but that hardly stopped the looting and the sniping. There was a smoky taint to the air.

"They want war," Ischade said, "let them have war. Let them have it till they're full of it. Till this town's so confounded no force can hold it. Have you heard the fable of Shipri's ring? The goddess was set on by three demons who plainly had rape in mind; she had a golden armlet, and she flung it to the first if he would fight off the other two and let her go. But the second snatched at it and so did the third; the goddess walked away and there they stand to this day. No one devil can get it; and the other two won't let go till the world ends." She turned a dazzling smile on them both, in a merry humor quite unlike herself.

The barge passed beneath the White Foal bridge. A black bird flew after it, sending forlorn cries down the wind.

The bay horse was dead. Strat limped when he walked, and persisted in walking, pacing the floor in the temporary headquarters the Band had set up deep within the mage quarter. A clutter of maps lay on the table. Plans that the ever changing character of the streets changed hourly. He wanted sleep. He wanted a bath. He reeked of smoke and sweat and blood, and he gave orders and drew lines and listened to the reports that began to come in.