He laid his hand on her arm, seeing the size of her body, but feeling the strength in it, and the flow of energy between them which had bound him to her, even more than her beauty, so many years ago. She sat still, accepting his touch, although he thought she would have been well-justified in turning away.

Do I know you?

Gilla's eyes were closed, her head tipped back to rest against the wall in a rare moment of peace. The deepening light upon her face seemed now to come from within. Lalo's eyes blurred. / have been blind, he thought, blind, and a fool...

'Yes ...' he fought to steady his voice, knowing how he would paint her, where he would look for others to be his models now. His breath caught, and he reached out to her. She looked at him then, smiling questioningly, and received him into her embrace.

A hundred candles blazed in Molin Torchholder's Hall, set in silver candelabra wrought in the shape of torches upraised in clenched fists. Light shimmered in the gauzy silks of the ladies of Sanctuary, gleamed from the heavy brocades worn by their lords, flashed from each golden link of chain or faceted jewel as they moved across the floor, nearly eclipsing the splendour of the room.

Lalo observed the scene from a vantage point of relative quiet beside a pillar, tolerated for his role in creating the murals whose completion the party was intended to celebrate. Everyone of wealth or status who craved the favour of the Empire was there, which these days amounted to most of the upper crust of Sanctuary, everyone wearing the same mask of complacent gaiety. But Lalo could not help wondering how, if he had painted this scene, those faces would have appeared..

Several merchants for whom Lalo had worked in the past had wangled invitations, although most of his former clients would have felt as out of place in this gathering as he did. He recognized a few friends, among them Cappen Varra, who having just finished a song, was now warily watching Lady Danlis, who was far too busy being charming to a banker from Ranke to notice him.

Several other acquaintances from the Vulgar Unicorn had somehow managed to get hired as extra waiters and footmen. Lalo suspected that not all of the jewels that winked so brightly .tonight would leave the house in the hands of those who had brought them, but he did not feel compelled to point this out to anyone. He braced himself as he recognized Jordis the stonemason shouldering his way towards him through the glittering crowd.

'Well, Master Limner, now that you've finished serving the gods, you'll have a bit more time for men, eh?' Jordis smiled broadly. 'The space on my wall that's waiting for my picture is still bare...'

Lalo coughed deprecatingly. 'I'm afraid that in my concentration on heavenly things I've lost my touch for earthly excellence ...' The stonemason's expression told him how pompous that sounded, but it would be far better for everyone to think his head had been turned by his new prosperity than for them to guess the truth. The solution to his dilemma that had enabled him to complete the job for Lord Molin had forever barred him from Society portraiture.

'Heavenly things ... ah, yes...' Jordis's eyes had moved to one of the nymphs painted on the wall, whose limbs were supple and rounded, whose eyes shone with youth and merriment. 'If I could make a living gazing at such lovelies, I suppose I'd refuse to paint old men too!' He laughed suggestively. 'Where do you find them in this town, eh?'

Selling their bodies on the docks ...or their souls in the Bazaar ... slaving in your kitchen or scrubbing your floors... thought Lalo bitterly. This was not the first time this evening that he had been asked who his models were. The nymph at whom Jordis was now leering so eagerly was a crippled beggar girl whom he had probably passed in the street a dozen times. On another wall the whore Valira proudly presented a sheaf of grain to the Goddess, while her child tumbled like a cherub about her feet. And the Goddess they worshipped, who dominated all of the facile splendour in this room, was his Gilla, the rhinoceros who had been revealed as something greater than any unicorn.

You have hearts but you do not feel... Lalo's eyes moved over the dazzle of apparel and ornament in which Lord Molin's guests had disguised themselves. You have eyes, but you do not see. He murmured something about an artist's perspective.

'If you want a room decorated, I'll be happy to serve you, but I do not think that I will be doing portraits any more.' Ever since he had learned to see Gilla, his sight had been changing. Now, when he was not painting, he could often see the truth behind the faces men showed the world. He added politely, 'I trust that your work is going well?'

'Eh? My work - oh yes, but there's not much left for a stonemason now! What remains will require a different sort of craft...' His chuckle held a hint of complicity.

Lalo felt himself flushing, realizing that Jordis assumed he had been fishing for information about the new temple - the greatest decoration job that Sanctuary had ever known. Wasn't I? he wondered. Is it unworthy to want my goddess to adorn something more worthy than this jumped-up engineer's/easting hall?

His mouth dried as he saw Molin Torchholder himself approaching him. Jordis bowed, smirked, and melted back into the crowd. Lalo forced himself to stand up and meet his patron's eye. for Lord Molin's excess flesh covered a powerful frame, and there was something uncomfortably piercing about his gaze.

'I have to thank you,' said Lord Molin. 'Your work appears to be a success.' His eyes roved ceaselessly from the crowd to Lalo's face and back again. 'Perhaps too successful!' he went on. 'Next to your goddess, my guests appear to be the decorations here!'

Lalo found himself trying to apologize and froze, terrified that he would blurt out the truth.

Molin Torchholder laughed. 'I am trying to compliment you, my good man -1 would like to commission you to do the paintings on my new temple's walls...'

'Master Limner, you appear to be in good spirits today!'

Lalo, who had just turned from the Path of Money into the Avenue of Temples, on his way to make an initial survey of the spaces he was to decorate in the new temple to the Rankan gods, missed a step as the soft voice spoke in his ear. He heard a dry chuckle, felt the hairs rise on his neck and bent to peer more closely at the other man. All he could see beneath the hooded caravaneer's cloak was the gleam of crimson eyes.

'Enas Yorl!'

'More or less...' his companion agreed. 'And you? Are you the same? You have been in my thoughts a great deal. Would you like me to change the gift I gave to you?'

Lalo shivered, remembering those moments when he would have given his soul to lose the power the sorcerer had bestowed upon him. But instead, his soul had been given back to him.

'No. I don't think so,' he answered quietly, and sensed the sorcerer's surprise. 'The debt is mine. Shall I paint you another picture to repay it?' He added, 'Shall I paint a portrait of you, Enas Yorl?'

The sorcerer halted then, and for a moment the painter met fully the red gaze of those unearthly eyes, and he trembled at the immortal weariness he saw there.

Yet it was not Lalo, but Enas Yorl, who was the first to close his eyes and look away.