One-Thumb continued. 'After he sold it to her, it disappeared. He brought it to me last night. This evening, it disappeared from my own strongbox.'

'Marype couldn't do that,' Mizraith said.

The conjuring part, I know he couldn't - which is why I say that you must have been behind it. Why? A joke?'

Mizraith sipped. 'Would you like tea?'

'No. Why?'

He handed the half-empty cup to the girl. 'More tea.' He watched her go to the samovar. 'I bought her for the walk. Isn't that fine? From behind, she could be a boy.'

'Please, Mizraith. This is financial ruin for Amoli and a gross insult to me.'

'A joke, eh? You think I make stupid jokes?'

'I know that you do things for reasons I cannot comprehend,' he said tactfully. 'But this is serious -'

'I know that!' He took the tea and fished a flower petal from it; rubbed it away. 'More serious than you think, if my son is involved. Did it all disappear? Is there any tiny bit of it left?'

'The pinch you gave to my eunuch,' Amoli said. 'He may still have it.'

'Fetch it,' Mizraith said. He stared slack-jawed into his tea for a minute. 'I didn't do it, Lastel. Some other did.'

'With Marype's help.'

'Perhaps unwilling. We shall see ... Marype is adept enough to have sensed the worth of the cheese, and I think he is worldly enough to recognize a block of rare krrf, and know where to sell it. By himself, he would not be able to charm it away.'

'You fear he's betrayed you?'

Mizraith caressed the girl's long hair. 'We have had some argument lately. About his progress... he thinks I am teaching him too slowly, withholding ... mysteries. The truth is, spells are complicated. Being able to generate one is not the same as being able to control it; that takes practice, and maturity. He sees what his brothers can do and is jealous, I think.'

'You can't know his mind directly?'

'No. That's a powerful spell against strangers, but the closer you are to a person, the harder it is. Against your own blood ... no. His mind is closed to me.'

Amoli returned with the square of parchment. She held it out apologetically. 'He shared it with the other bodyguard and your son. Is this enough?' There was a dark patch in the centre of the square.

He took it between thumb and forefinger and grimaced. 'Mark-mor!' The second most powerful magician in Sanctuary - an upstart not even a century old.

'He's in league with your strongest competitor?' One-Thumb said.

'In league or in thrall.' Mizraith stood up and crossed his arms. The bodyguard disappeared; the cushions became a stack of gold bricks. He mumbled some gibberish and opened his arms wide.

Marype appeared in front of him. He was a handsome lad: flowing silver hair, striking features. He was also furious, naked, and rampant.

'Father\I am busy\' He made a flinging gesture and disappeared.

Mizraith made the same gesture and the boy came back. 'We can do this all night. Or you can talk to me.'

Noticeably less rampant. 'This is unforgiveable.' He raised his arm to make the pass again; then checked it as Mizraith did the same. 'Clothe me.' A brick disappeared, and Marype was wearing a tunic of woven gold.

'Tell me you are not in the thrall of Markmor.'

The boy's fists were clenched. 'I am not.'

'Are you quite certain?'

'We are friends, partners. He is teaching me things.'

'You know I will teach you everything, eventually. But -'

Marype made a pass and the stack of gold turned to a heap of stinking dung. 'Cheap,' Mizraith said, wrinkling his nose. He held his elbow a certain way and the gold came back. 'Don't you see he wants to take advantage of you?'

'I can see that he wants access to you. He was quite open about that.'

'Stefab,' Mizraith whispered. 'Nesteph.'

'You need the help of my brothers?'

The two older brothers appeared, flanking Mizraith. 'What I need is some sense out of you.' To the others: 'Stay him!'

Heavy golden chains bound his wrists and ankles to sudden rings in the floor. He strained and one broke; a block of blue ice encased him. The ice began to melt.

Mizraith turned to One-Thumb and Amoli. 'You weaken us with your presence.' A bar of gold floated over to the woman. 'That will compensate you. Lastel, you will have the krrf, once I take care of this. Be careful for the next few hours. Go.'

As they backed out, other figures began to gather in the room. One-Thumb recognized the outline of Markmor flickering.

In the foyer, Amoli handed the gold to her eunuch. 'Let's get back to the Maze,' she said. 'This place is dangerous.'

One-Thumb sent the pirate cook home and spent the rest of the night in the familiar business of dispensing drink and krrf and haggling over rates of exchange. He took a judicious amount of krrf himself - the domestic kind - to keep alert. But nothing supernatural happened, and nothing more exciting than a routine eye-gouging over a dice dispute. He did have to step over a deceased ex patron when he went to lock up at dawn. At least he'd had the decency to die outside, so no report had to be made.

One reason he liked to take the death-shift was the interesting ambience of Sanctuary in the early morning. The sunlight was hard, revealing rather than cleansing. Litter and excrement in the gutters. A few exhausted revellers, staggering in small groups or sitting half-awake, blade out, waiting for a bunk to clear at first bell. Dogs nosing the evening's remains. Decadent, stale, worn, mortal. He took dark pleasure in it. Double pleasure this morning, a slight krrf overdose singing death-song in his brain.

He almost went east, to check on Mizraith. 'Be careful the next few hours' that must have meant his bond to Mizraith made him somehow vulnerable in the weird struggle with Markmor over Marype. But he had to go back to the estate and dispose of the bones in the dogs' troughs, and then be Lastel for a noon meeting.

*

There was one drab whore in the waiting-room of the Lily Garden, who gave him a thick smile and then recognized him and slumped back to doze. He went through the velvet curtain to where the eunuch sat with his back against the wall, glaive across his lap.

He didn't stand. 'Any trouble, One-Thumb?'

'No trouble. No krrf, either.' He heaved aside the bolt on the massive door to the tunnel. 'For all I know, it's still going on. If Mizraith had lost, I'd know by now, I think.'

'Or if he'd won,' the eunuch said.

'Possibly. I'll be in touch with your mistress if I have anything for her.' One Thumb lit the waiting lamp and swung the door closed behind him.

Before he'd reached the bottom of the stairs, he knew something was wrong. Too much light. He turned the wick all the way down; the air was slightly glowing. At the foot of the stairs, he set down the lamp, drew his rapier, and waited.

The glow coalesced into a fuzzy image of Mizraith. It whispered, 'You are finally in dark, Lastel. One-Thumb. Listen: I may die soon. Your charm, I've transferred to Stefab, and it holds. Pay him as you've paid me ...' He wavered, disappeared, came back. 'Your krrf is in this tunnel. It cost more than you can know.' Darkness again.

One-Thumb waited a few minutes more in the darkness and silence (fifty steps from the light above) before re-lighting the lamp. The block of krrf was at his feet. He tucked it under his left arm and proceeded down the tunnel, rapier in hand. Not that steel would be much use against sorcery, if that was to be the end of this. But an empty hand was less.

The tunnel kinked every fifty steps or so, to restrict line-of-sight. One-Thumb went through three corners and thought he saw light at the fourth. He stopped, doused the lamp again, and listened. No footfalls. He set down the krrf and lamp and filled his left hand with a dagger, then headed for the light. It didn't have to be magic; three times he had surprised interlopers in the tunnel. Their husks were secreted here and there, adding to the musty odour.