She ticked her points off. 'First, as you have indicated, the Hell Hounds' - her nostrils pinched in distaste at the nickname - 'the Imperial elite guard should mount an immediate raid on the temple of Ils and arrest all personnel for interrogation, except the Arch-priest. He's probably innocent, and in any event it would be inept politics. Hazroah's death may have removed the danger, but this should not be taken for granted. Even if it has, his co-conspirators ought to be identified and made examples of.

'Yet, second, wisdom should temper justice. No lasting harm was done, unless we count those persons who are trapped in the parallel universe; and they doubtless deserve to be.'

They seemed entirely males, Cappen recalled. He grimaced in compassion. Of course, the sikkintairs might eat them.

Danlis was talking on: '- humane governance and the art of compromise. A grand temple dedicated to the Rankan gods is certainly required, but it need be no larger than that of Ils. Your counsel will have much weight, dear. Give it wisely. I will advise you.'

'Uh?' Cappen said.

Danlis smiled and laid her hands over his. 'Why, you can have unlimited preferment, after what you did,' she told him. 'I'll show you how to apply for it.'

'But - but I'm no blooming statesman!' Cappen stuttered.

She stepped back and considered him. 'True,' she agreed. 'You're valiant, yes, but you're also flighty and lazy and - Well, don't despair. I will mould you.'

Cappen gulped and shuffled aside. 'Jamie,' he said, 'uh, Jamie, I feel wrung dry, dead on my feet. I'd be worse than no use - I'd be a drogue on things just when they have to move fast. Better I find me a doss, and you take the ladies home. Come over here and I'll tell you how to convey the story in fewest words. Excuse us, ladies. Some of those words you oughtn't to hear.'

*

A week thence, Cappen Varra sat drinking in the Vulgar Unicorn. It was mid afternoon and none else were present but the associate tapster, his wound knitted.

A man filled the doorway and came in, to Cappen's table. 'Been casting about everywhere for you,' the Northerner grumbled. 'Where've you been?'

'Lying low,' Cappen replied. 'I've taken a place here in the Maze which'll do till I've dropped back into obscurity, or decide to drift elsewhere altogether.' He sipped his wine. Sunbeams slanted through windows; dust motes danced golden in their warmth; a cat lay on a sill and purred. 'Trouble is, my purse is flat.'

'We're free of such woes for a goodly while.' Jamie flung his length into a chair and signalled the attendant. 'Beer!' he thundered.

'You collected a reward, then?' the minstrel asked eagerly.

Jamie nodded. 'Aye. In the way you whispered I should, before you left us. I'm baffled why and it went sore against the grain. But I did give Molin the notion that the rescue was my idea and you naught but a hanger-on whom I'd slip a few royals. He filled a box with gold and silver money, and said he wished he could afford ten times that. He offered to get me Rankan citizenship and a title as well, and make a bureaucrat of me, but I said no, thanks. We share, you and I, half and half. But right this now, drinks are on me.'

'What about the plotters?' Cappen inquired.

'Ah, those. The matter's been kept quiet, as you'd await. Still, while the temple of Ils can't be abolished, seemingly it's been tamed.' Jamie's regard sought across the table and sharpened. 'After you disappeared, Danlis agreed to let me claim the whole honour. She knew better - Rosanda never noticed - but Danlis wanted a man of the hour to carry her redes to the prince, and none remained save me. She supposed you were simply worn out. When last I saw her, though, she ... um-m ... she "expressed disappointment".' He cocked his ruddy head. 'Yon's quite a girl. I thought you loved her.'

Cappen Varra took a fresh draught of wine. Old summers glowed along his tongue. 'I did,' he confessed. 'I do. My heart is broken, and in part I drink to numb the pain.'

Jamie raised his brows. 'What? Makes no sense.'

'Oh, it makes very basic sense,' Cappen answered. 'Broken hearts

tend to heal rather soon. Meanwhile, if I may recite from a rondel

I completed before you found me -

'Each sword of sorrow that would maim or slay, My lady of the morning deftly parries. Yet gods forbid I be the one she marries! I rise from bed the latest hour I may. My lady comes to me like break of day; I dream in darkness if it chance she tarries.'

A FEW REMARKS BY FURTWAN COINPINCH, MERCHANT

The first thing I noticed about him, just that first impression you -understand, was that he couldn't be a poor man. Or boy, or youth, or whatever he was then. Not with all those weapons on him. From the shagreen belt he was wearing over a scarlet sash - a violently scarlet sash! - swung a curved dagger on his left hip and on the right one of those Ilbarsi 'knives' long as your arm. Not a proper sword, no. Not a military man, then. That isn't all, though. Some few of us know that his left buskin is equipped with a sheath; the slim thing and knife-hilt appear to be only a decoration. Gift from a woman, I heard him tell Old Thumpfoot one afternoon in the bazaar. I doubt it.

(I've been told he has another sticker strapped less than comfortably to his inner thigh, probably the right. Maybe that's part of the reason he walks the way he does. Cat-supple and yet sort of stiff of leg all at ,once. A tumbler's gait - or a punk's swagger. Don't tell him I said!)

Anyhow, about the weapons and my first impression that he couldn't be poor. There's a throwing knife in that leather and copper armlet, on his right upper arm, and another in the long bracer of black leather on that same arm. Both are short. The stickers I mean, not the bracers or the arms either.

All that armament would be enough to scare anybody on a dark night, or even a moonbright one. Imagine being in the Maze or some place like that and out of the shadows comes this young bravo, swaggering, wearing all that sharp metal! Right at you out of the shadows that spawned him. Enough to chill even one of those Hell Hounds. Even one ofyou-know-who's boys in the blue hawk-masks might step aside.

That was my impression. Shadowspawn. About as pleasant as gout or dropsy.

SHADOWSPAWN by Andrew Offutt

His mop of hair was blacker than black and his eyes nearly so, under brows that just missed meeting above a nose not quite falcate. His walk reminded some of one of those red-and-black gamecocks brought over from Mrsevada. They called him Shadow-spawn. No compliment was intended, and he objected until Cudget told him it was good to have a nickname - although he wished his own weren't Cudget Swearoath. Besides, Shadowspawn had a romantic and rather sinister sound, and that appealed to his ego, which was the largest thing about him. His height was almost average and he was rangy, wiry; swiftly wiry, with those bulgy rocks in his biceps and calves that other males wished they had.

Shadowspawn. It was descriptive enough. No one knew where he'd been spawned, which was shadowy, and he worked among shadows. Perhaps it was down in the shadows of the 'streets' of Downwind and maybe it was over in Syr that he'd been birthed. It didn't matter. He belonged to Sanctuary and wished it belonged to him. He acted as if it did. If he knew or suspected that he'd come out of Downwind, he was sure he had risen above it. He just didn't have time for those street-gangs of which surely he'd have been chieftain.