"Perhaps I will," Randal said winningly, "if you'll help us in return."

"Us? What 'us'?" Lalo eyed him warily. Badly as he needed knowledge, he was even more desperately afraid of being used.

This time it was Randal who hesitated. "Everyone who wants to see some kind of order restored to Sanctuary," he said finally.

"By kicking out the Fish-eyes? My daughter serves one of their ladies at the Palace. They're not all bad-"

Randal shrugged. "Who is?" Then he frowned. "We just don't want them running us, that's all. But the Beysib are hardly the worst of our problems-" His long finger stabbed at the woman's face in the picture, that searingly beautiful face whose eyes were like the eyes of the Black Unicorn.

"She-" hissed the mage. "She's at the bottom of it. If we can destroy her-even contain her-maybe we can set the rest right!"

"You go right ahead," snapped Lalo. "Just drawing her picture was bad enough. Fight your own wars-it's nothing to do with me!"

Randal sighed. "I can't force you, but others may try. You'll wish you had allies then."

Lalo stared sullenly into his wine. "Threats won't move me either, mage!"

There was a short silence. Then Randal fumbled with his collar again.

"I'm not threatening you," he said tiredly. "I don't have to. Take this ..." From the apparently limitless compartment in his dog collar he pulled a wadded cloth. It opened out as it fell and Lalo saw a garish rainbow of red and blue and yellow and black and green. "It'll get you across town when you decide you need help from me. Ask for me at the Palace ..."

He paused, but Lalo would not meet his eyes. Randal got to his feet, and as his movement stirred the drawing, shadows lifted like dark wings in the corners of the room. Like the winged shadows in the picture, thought Lalo, shivering. Very carefully the mage rolled up the drawing. Lalo made no objection. He never wanted to see it, or the mage, again. His vision blurred and images moved just beyond the limits of his perception. He shuddered again.

"Thank you for the loan of your cloak ..." The words trailed off oddly.

Lalo looked up just in time to see his outer garment settle like a deflating balloon across the chair. Something wriggled beneath it, sneezed, and then pushed free. He saw a gaunt, wolfish dog stand up, shake itself, and lift one large ear inquiringly.

Even as a dog his ears are too big for him, thought Lalo. Fascinated in spite of himself, he watched as the animal sneezed again and trotted across the room. The tavern door obligingly opened itself, then snicked shut after him. And then there was only the crackling of the fire and the whisper of rain against the windows to keep him company.

I dreamed it, thought the limner, but the armband still lay before him, striped with all the colors of the lines that sectioned Sanctuary. And what is my color, the color of magic? Lalo wondered then. But there was no one to answer him.

He dropped a few coins onto the table and stuffed the armband into his pouch. Then he jammed his hat on over his thinning hair and wrapped the damp cloak around him. Now it smelled of dog as well as of wet wool.

And as that scent clung to the cloak, the mage's words stuck in Lalo's memory. His step quickened as he headed for the door. He had to warn Gilla-he had to get home.

"You tell me, Wedemir-you see more of the town than I do. Is your father right to be afraid?" Gilla paused in her sweeping and leaned on the broom, staring at her oldest son. Her two younger children were sitting at the kitchen table, drawing on their slates with some of Lalo's broken chalks. Chalk squeaked and Wedemir grimaced.

"Well, you still need a pass to get around," he answered her, "and who's fighting whom and why seems to change from day to day. But having the real Stepsons back in their barracks seems to have calmed the Beysibs down."

Suddenly Latilla screeched and grabbed for her little brother's arm. Alfi's slate crashed to the floor and he began to cry.

"Mama, he took the chalk right out of my hand!" exclaimed Latilla.

"Red chalk!" said Alfi through his tears, as if that explained it. He glared at his sister. "Draw red dragon to eat you up!" He slid down from his chair to retrieve the slate.

Gilla smacked his bottom and pulled him upright. "You're not going to draw anything until you learn some self-control!" She glanced toward the shut door to Lalo's studio. He had said he was going to paint, but she had seen him fast asleep on the couch when she looked in a quarter hour before.

"You're going to your room, both of you!" she told her small son and daughter. "Your father needs his rest, so play quietly!"

When they had gone, she picked up the fallen slate and fragments of chalk and turned back to Wedemir, who had sat through the altercation trying to look as if he had never seen either his brother or his sister before.

"That's not what I meant, and you know it," she said softly. "Lalo is not afraid of the Beysib. He's afraid of magic."

"Name of Ils, Mother-the Stepsons' pet mage is trying to recruit him." Wedemir's black brows nearly met as he frowned. "What do you expect me to do?"

"Stay with him! Protect him!" Gilla said fiercely. She began sweeping again with long, hard strokes, as if she could thrash out all her fears.

"He's not going to like me tagging after him-"

"Neither of you will like it if he runs into danger alone...." There was a sudden heaviness in the air. Gilla heard a faint "pop" and turned, the rest of her words dying in her throat.

Above the kitchen table hovered a sphere of darkness, scintillating with flickers of cobalt blue. As she stared, it quivered and began to drift, still expanding, toward the studio. The floor shook as Gilla started toward it.

"Mother, no!" Wedemir's chair crashed behind him as he tried to get around the table, but Gilla was already standing between the Sphere and the studio door.

"Get out of my kitchen, you demon's fart!" She jabbed at the Darkness with her broom and it recoiled. "Think you'll get my Lalo, do you? I'll show you!" The Sphere stilled as she spoke Lalo's name, then suddenly enlarged. Gilla blinked as colors swirled dizzyingly across its slick surface.

"By Siveni's spear, get you gone!" Gilla recovered herself and struck the Sphere with her broom. The stiff straw faded as if she had shoved it into a murky pool, then the shaft started to disappear too. Her screech of outrage was swallowed as the Darkness engulfed her. She heard the second "pop" of displaced air, and all sense of direction and dimension disappeared.

"Papa, are we going to stay here long?" Latilla looked around the courtyard of the Palace, whose usual splendor was muted by the rain, and pressed closer to Lalo.

"I hope not, sweetheart," he answered, scanning the arches of the cloister anxiously.

"I don' like it," Alfi said decidedly. "I want Mama. I want to go home. Papa, will Mama be back soon?"

"I hope so...." whispered Lalo. His eyes blurred with something more than rain as he knelt to hug both children close against him, finding some deceptive comfort in the warmth of their young bodies. He and Gilla had made these children between them. She couldn't be gone!

"Father, Wedemir told me what happened! What are we going to do?"

Vanda was hurrying toward them with her older brother behind her, her bright hair coming undone from its Beysib coiffure.

"I'm going to get Gilla back," Lalo said harshly. "But you'll have to take care of the little ones."

"Here?" She looked around her dubiously.