Hanse had sucked in his breath. He forced a grin then, struck a lighter pose, hand on hip. 'So, well, paid in gold, you said?'

'After.'

'Now.'

'Darous, give the man sufficient as earnest. And give him the amulet.'

Hanse turned from the wizard, whose voice had acquired a hissing quality: and the hand - had vanished into one of those blinks of the eye that deceived the mind and memory that anything had - a moment earlier - been there. Hanse took the chain and put it over his head. The amulet itself hit his bare throat and it was bitter and burning cold. The servant held out a purse. Hanse took that, felt the weight in his hand, opened the neck of it and looked at the gold and silver abundance inside. His heart beat wildly, while against his neck the metal failed to be warmed as metal ought, stayed there like a lump of ice. It sent a vague malaise through him, which changed character from moment to moment like -'So what am I supposed to do?' he asked. 'And where do I look?'

'A house,' a woman's voice said to his right, and he looked, blinked, found only the hooded form in the chair. 'Seventh in the alley called Snake. On the right as you go from the Serpentine at Acban's Passage. She lodges there. Mark what she does and where she goes. Don't attempt to prevent her. I only want to know the business that brought her to Sanctuary.'

Hanse let go a sigh, relief, for all that the robes shifted again -felt a wild confidence in himself (it might have been the money) that he could get out of this easily, and with still more money, and an employer satisfied, who was powerful and rich. Hanse Shadowspawn, Hanse the thief, small Hanse the knife ... had friends in high places, a condition unexpected. He expanded in this knowledge and stood loose, dropped the purse into his shirt, ignoring the chill at his neck. 'So, then, and I come here from time to time and report to you.'

'Darous will find you from time to time,' the same voice said. The changing seemed to have settled for the moment. 'Depend on that contact. Good-day to you. Darous will show you out.'

Hanse made a nourish of a bow, turned to the servant and indicated they should go.

'The blindfold,' the blind servant said. 'Use it, master thief. My master would regret an accident, especially now.'

Hanse put his hand on the metal droplet that hung like ice at his throat, turned to glower at the wizard. 'I thought this was supposed to take care of things like that.'

'Did I say so? No, I didn't say. I wouldn't be rash in relying on it. Against some things it has no protection at all. My guardians in the hall, for instance, would never notice it.'

'Then what good is it?'

'Much ... in its right place. Afraid, thief?'

'Huh,' Hanse said critically. Laughed and swung on his heel, caught the blind servant by the arm and started out with him. But remembering the movements in the outer hall, the thing which had brushed at his leg - 'All right, all right,' he said suddenly, and let go the man's arm to put the blindfold back in place. 'All right, rot you, wait.'

The thief went, and Enas Yorl rose from his chair. His shape had settled again into a form far more pleasant than most. He walked to a hall more interior to his house, examined hands delicate and fine, that were purest pleasure to touch - and all the worse when they would begin ... next moment or next day ... to change.

It was a revenge, a none too subtle revenge, but then the wizard who had cursed him had never been much on subtleties, which was why his young wife had had Enas Yorl in her bed in the first place - a younger Enas Yorl in those days, but age meant nothing now. The forms his affliction cast on him might be old or young, male or female, human or - not. And the years frightened him. All the time he had had, to become master of his arts, and his arts had no power to undo another's spell. No one could. And some of his forms, still, were young, which suggested that he did not age, that there was no end to this torment - for ever.

Yet wizards died, lately, in Sanctuary. Tell the thief that was the name of the game, and even threats might not persuade him. But in these deaths, Enas Yorl was desperately, passionately interested. Ischade ... Ischade: the name tasted of vile rumour; a wizardous thief, a preyer upon wizards, a conniver in shadows and dark secrets, this Ischade, with reason to hate the prey she chose.

And all her lovers died, softly, gently for the most part; but Enas Yorl was not particular in that regard.

He paused a moment, hearing the great outer doors boom shut. The thief was on his way, thief to take a thief. And Enas Yorl felt a sudden cold. Wizards died, in Sanctuary, and this possibility fascinated him, taunted him with hope and fear: with fear -because shapes like this he wore turned him coward, reminding him there were pleasures to be had. He feared death at such times ... while the thief he had sent out went to find it for him.

Darous came back, softly stopped on the marble paving. 'Well done,' Enas Yorl said.

'Follow him, master?'

'No,' Enas Yorl said. 'No need. None at all.' He looked distractedly about again, with the queasiness of impending change upon him. He fled suddenly, his steps quicker and quicker on the pavings. Darous could see nothing - Darous sensed, but that was another matter. There was, however, pride.

And within the hour, in a dark recess of the house with the basilisks prowling the halls unchecked, something gibbered within a pile of midnight robes, and with keen sense of beauty imprisoned in that moaning heap, longed towards oblivion.

Darous, who saw nothing, sensed the essence of this change and kept himself to other halls.

The basilisks, whose cold eyes saw very well, writhed scaly-lithe away in haste, outstared and overwhelmed.

5

Not many women came to the Unicorn, not many at least of the elevated sort, and this one took a table to herself and held it. One of the Unicorn's muddled regulars brushed by, and leaned close, and offered to sit down ... but a long hand from beneath those black robes waved an idle and disinterested dismissal. A ring glinted there, a silver serpent, and the bully's bleared eyes stared at that, at immaculate long nails, into dark almond eyes beneath the shadowy hood. And a fog of alcohol seemed to grow thicker then, so that he forgot all the wittiness he had meant to say, forgot for a moment to close his mouth. A second wave of the thin, olive-skinned hand and he forgot everything and stumbled away in confusion.

'Acolyte,' Cappen Varra thought in his own counsel, slouched on a bench in the nook nearest the back door. There was somewhat of chaos in the Unicorn of late, a certain lack of the authority which had held the peace, and that sort moved in, cheap muscle. But the woman - that was something extraordinary, like the Unicorn before; a woman, a stranger in the neighbourhood... He was intrigued by the dark robes and the fineness of them, and his fingers moved restlessly on the moisture-ringed tabletop, thinking of a song, fingering imaginary strings of the harp he had pawned (again) and thinking - oddly - on Hanse Shadowspawn, in another and quite irrelevant train of thought, as Hanse had ridden his mind all day. Sjekso gone, Hanse vanished utterly, and night falling outside ... Hanse was up to no good, it was certain. There had been neither sight nor sound of him all day long and certain whispers passed in the Unicorn, with more and more credibility: of revenge, of Hanse, about the likelihood of survival of one Mradhon Vis - or Hanse, should the two meet. And about a certain blind man who had found his way without aid into the Unicorn and out again, with Hanse in tow... a blind man and no beggar, for all his looks - but a man of darker rumour.