'Far be it from me to argue with a fellow-artist -' said Cappen Varra, 'but your wife reminds me of a rhinoceros! Remember when you got paid for decorating Master Regli's foyer, and we went to the Green Grape to celebrate? I saw her when she came after you... Now I know why you do your serious drinking here!'

The minstrel was still laughing. Suddenly angry, Lalo glared at him.

'Can you afford to mock me? You are still young. You think it doesn't matter if you tailor your songs to the taste of these fleas in the armpit of the Empire, because you still carry the real poetry in your heart, along with the faces of the beautiful women you wrote it for! Once already you have pawned your harp for bread. When you are my age, will you sell it for the price of a drink, and sit weeping because the dreams still live in your heart but you have no words to describe them anymore?'

Lalo reached blindly for his tankard, drained it, set it down on the scarred table. Cappen Varra was drinking too, the laughter for a moment gone from his blue eyes.

'Lalo - you are no fit companion for a drinking man!' said the minstrel at last. 'I will end up as sodden as you are if I stay here!' He rose, slinging his harp case over his shoulder, adjusting the drape of his cloak to a jauntier flare. 'The Esmeralda's back in port from Ilsig and points north - I'm off to hear what news she brings. Good evening. Master Limner - I wish you joy of your philosophy ...'

Lalo remained where he was. He supposed he should go too, but where? If he went home he would only have to face Gilla again. Idly he began to draw on the table, his paint-stained forefinger daubing from a little pool of spilt wine. But his memory had sought the past, when he and Gilla were painfully saving the gold pieces that would deliver them from Sanctuary. He remembered how they had planned what they would do with the wealth sure to come once the lords of Ranke recognized his talent, the images of transcendent beauty he had dreamed of creating when he no longer had to worry about tomorrow's bread. But instead, they had had their first child.

He looked down, and realized that his finger had been clumsily outlining the pure profile of the girl Gilla had been so long ago. His fist smashed down on the table, obscuring the lines in a splatter of wine, and he groaned and hid his face in his hands.

'Your cup is empty ...' The deep voice made a silence around them.

Lalo sighed and looked up. 'So is my purse.'

Broad shoulders blocked the light of the hanging lamp, but as the newcomer turned to shrug off his cloak his eyes glowed red, like those of a wolf surprised by a peasant's torch at night. Beyond him, Lalo saw the tapster's boy slithering among the crowded tables towards the new customer.

'You're the fellow who did the sign outside, aren't you?' said the man. 'I'm getting transferred, and a picture for my girl to remember me by would be worth the price of a drink to me...'

'Yes. Of course,' answered Lalo. The tapster's boy stopped by their table, and his companion ordered a jug of cheap red wine. The limner reached into his pouch for his roll of drawing paper, weighted it with the tankard to keep it from curling up again. The stopper of his ink bottle had dried stuck, and Lalo swore as he struggled to open it. He picked up his pen.

Swiftly he sketched his first impression of the man's hulking shoulders and tightly curled hair. Then he looked up again. The features blurred and Lalo blinked, wondering if he had already had too much wine. But the hollow in his belly cried out for more, and the tapster's boy was already returning, ducking beneath a thrown knife and detouring around the resulting struggle without spilling a drop.

'Turn towards the lamp - if I'm to draw you I must have some light!' muttered Lalo. The man's eyes burned at him from beneath arched brows. The limner shivered, forced himself to focus on the shape of the head and noted how the lank hair receded across the prominent bones of the skull.

Lalo looked down at his drawing. What trick of the light had made him think the fellow's hair curled? He cross-hatched over the first outline to merge it into a shadowy background and began to sketch the profile again. He felt those glowing eyes burning him. His hand jerked and he looked up quickly.

The nose was misshapen now, as if some drunken potter had pressed too hard into the clay. Lalo stared at his model and threw down his pen. The face before him bore no resemblance to the one he had drawn!

'Go away!' he said hoarsely. 'I can't do what you ask of me -1 can't do anything anymore ...' He began to shake his head and could not stop.

'You need a drink.' Pewter clinked against the tabletop.

Lalo reached for the refilled tankard and drank deeply, not caring anymore whether he would be able to earn it. He felt it bum all the way down to his belly, run tingling along his veins to barrier him from the world.

'Now, try again,' commanded the stranger. 'Turn your paper over, look well at me, then draw what you see as quickly as you can.' •

For a long moment Lalo stared at the oddly attenuated features of the man before him, then bent over his work. For several minutes only the scratching of swift penstrokes competed with the clamour of the room. He must capture the glow of those strange eyes, for he suspected that when he looked at his companion again, nothing but the eyes would be the same.

But what matter? He had his payment now. With his free hand he reached for the mug and drank again, shaded a final line, then pushed the drawing across the table and sat back.

'Well - you wanted it...'

'Yes.' The stranger's lips twitched. 'Everything considered, it's quite good. I understand that you do portraits,' he went on. 'Are you free to take a commission now? Here's an earnest of your fee -' He reached into the folds of his garment, laid a gold piece shining on the table, quickly hid his misshapen fingers once more.

Lalo stared, reached out gingerly as if expecting the coin to vanish at his touch. Fortified by the wine, he could admit to himself how very odd this episode had been. But the gold was hard and cool and weighed heavily in his palm. His fingers closed.

The stranger's smile stiffened. He drew back suddenly, away from the light. 'Now I must go.'

'But the commission!' cried Lalo. 'Who is it for, and when?'

'The commission ...' the man seemed to be having trouble enunciating the words. 'If you have the courage, come now... Do you think that you can find the house of Enas Yorl?'

Lalo cringed from his snarl of laughter, but the sorcerer did not wait for him to reply. He had cast his cloak around him and was lurching towards the door, and this time the shape the cloak covered was hardly human at all.

Lalo the limner stood in Prytanis Street before the house of Enas Yorl, shivering. With the setting of the sun, the wind off the desert had turned cold, although there was still a greenish light in the western sky. Once he had spent two months trying to capture on canvas the translucent quality of that glow.

The rooftops of the city made a deceptively elegant silhouette against the sky, topped by the lacy scaffolding of the tower of the Temple of Savankala and Sabellia nearby. Insulting to local prejudices though the new temple might be, at least it promised to be magnificent. Lalo sighed, wondering who would paint the murals within - probably some eminent artist from the capital. He sighed again. If he had gone to Ranke it might have been himself, returning in triumph to his birthplace.

But that consideration forced his attention back to the edifice that loomed before him, its shadows somehow darker than those of the other buildings, and the job that he had come here to do.