The hand was adorned with a single ring. Hanse recognized it. He had seen it yesterday, in the sky-aspiring temple of Ilshipri.

"Don't be fearful, Hanse of the Shadows, Chosen of Ilsig, Son of Shadows." It was a very nice voice, and unconditionally female.

"Of one who has no face on her? Oh, of course not!"

Her laughter was a stream of bright quicksilver in sunshine. "Choose a face then," she bade him, and proceeded to give him a choice.

The air shimmered above her shoulders and a head formed, and a face. It was not comforting. Hanse was looking at Lirain. Lirain, who had conspired with another against Kadakithis, and sought to use Hanse (and succeeded), and who was dead for her crime, and her pretty face gone with her. It disappeared now, to become the piquant features of the royal concubine who had been unlucky enough to be present the night he stole the Savankh from the Prince-Governor's own bedchamber. When last Hanse had seen this one she was bound as he'd left her. He could not even remember her na-oh. Taya. No matter. She was becoming someone else.

"Uh!"

That gasp was elicited by Taya's vanishing to be replaced by ... Moonflower! Aye, Moonflower, earrings, chins and all!

"No thank you," Hanse was able to say, and felt better for it.

Far more shocking was the next visage, one he recognized after a few moments of gaping. The woman he had seen murdered for her terror rod out by Fanner's Market, less than two months ago! Before he could protest, she had flickered away after the others, and Hanse swallowed. Now he gazed close upon a face he knew and had always wished could be closer. She was the smiling and truly beautiful daughter of Venerable Shafralain. Esaria her name, a girl of seventeen or eighteen-the Lady Esaria! A beauty he had watched and about whom he had entertained phantasies rather more than once or thrice.

"You know," Hanse blurted, with more breath than voice. "You bring out these faces from my own memory!"

Already Esaria was becoming Mignureal, sweet-faced Mignureal, who gazed serenely at him-and spoke.

"You are invited to dinner tomorrow night. You will be in no danger. Wear this clothing. The place is known to you. It is long unpeopled, and its water is a silver pool. The silver is your own, Son of the Shadow, Chosen of Ilsig."

And of course now he knew who his greeter was. It was not possible, but then none of it was.

"Whom shall I be to your eyes tonight, Son of Shadow?"

Hanse replied with surely a great stroke of genius, and made the most brilliantly diplomatic utterance of his life.

"The thrice-beauteous face of the Lady Eshi from the statue in the temple of Eshi Radiant," he said-

And She was, smiling delightedly, ever so pleased. She embraced him with warmth and Hanse nearly collapsed.

Her hand clasping his with warmth, she led him into that ruined and murkily shadowed once-luxury manse ... and it was again! Everywhere candles sprang into lambence, with constant flashes and continuing unnatural brightness. Bright, bright light, revealing perfect inlaid floors that were works of art and walls all alive and acolor with mosaic-work. Along a high-soaring hall he was led, and into a palatial dining hall, and here too all came alight with the brightness of day.

At the far-far!-end of a genuinely long table of fine inlaid wood sat ... a shadow. And a man ...

Hanse tore loose his hand from the warm grasp of a god and backed a pace with a hissing whisper of soft-soled buskins.

"Cudget!" he all but shouted. "Oh no, no, Cudget-they killed you, Cudget!" And his voice broke. _

The voice that replied was not Cudget's, but was male, and warmth itself. Somehow it made Hanse feel good; all warm.

"It is in the nature of gods to be self-directed, what you call selfish. Sometimes we forget your mortal attachments, unbroken by death. I thought you would like the face of your mentor and late best friend and foster father, my beloved friend and servant Hanse. My own visage is only Light; Lambence; Candence. For I have not a thousand eyes you know, not really."

"You... cannot be ..."

"Hanse-take the crossed brown pot with you," Cudget said in Mignureal's voice, and only she and Hanse knew that she had said those words to him one night of evil. (Or did she?) And then Cudget was speaking on, in another voice that Hanse did not at first recognize. Then he did-it was his own! He remembered the words, from the night he had gone to Kurd's and nearly died-no! He had not uttered those words! He had but thought them, and only he could know them: "0 Ils, god of my people and father of Shaipo my patron? It is true that Tempus Thaies serves Vashanka Tenslayer. But help us, help us both, lord Ils, and I swear to do all I can to destroy Vashanka Sister-wrfer or drive him hence, if only You will show me the way!"

On hearing those words issue in his voice from the Being at the far end of the long table, Hanse could only stare.

"Only two could know that prayer of yours, Hanse. Only two not just in all the world, but in all the universe. You are one; the other is He who hears all words directed to him, whether they are uttered by tongue or mind only."

Pale, Hanse could only gasp forth shaky words: "Lord... God."

"Yes," the warm voice spoke from that lam-bence.

Hanse had elected not to genuflect on meeting a prince of Ranke. Now, upon meeting that god Who was god of gods, he was far too shaken to think of falling to his knees.

Lord Ils proved that he was no mere king or emperor or religious leader, to insist upon such displays. Neither egoism nor egotism marked gods. They had no need of either. They were gods. Cudget's face vanished and again Hanse was forced to squint. Someone still sat at table's end in that big dining hall, but there was no face at all now. There was only light.

Eyes almost closed, Hanse was forced to look away from it-and discovered that now he looked upon a goddess, all in deep warm pink bordered with silver and sashed with scarlet. With jewels flashing in the deep indigo silk of her hair; or perhaps they were stars.

The voice of warmth spoke.

"Yes," it said again. "Cheated of strength in my own lands, but not drained, Hanse Son of Shadow. The intensity of belief of one who had sneered at gods, and his loyalty that is not automatic but learned, volunteered-it is you I speak of, Hanse-these aided Me. For gods and mortals are mutually dependent, Hanse.

"My cousin Savankala's son Vashanka has waxed here by the power of belief of one variously called the Riddler, and Thales, and Tem-pus, as well as the Engineer, and Sea-born. We need not concern you with who he really is. Vashanka wished his freedom one night; wished it enough to bargain with Me. It required only the efforts of Shalpa my son to cloud the skies that night. Because the climate of your land is what it is, both Vashanka's power and Mine were required to send rain that night, when you needed water to survive the plant-that-kills. Naturally I made bargain with Vashanka ere I helped him-because I knew Vashanka would bargain to help you save Tempus!

"Having agreed, Vashanka himself made a concession: Vashanka himself struck his name from the palace of My people. Nor will Vashanka use such power displays here again. It were not wise of Me to raise my murdered temple, which Vashanka struck down; that is the business of you humans. Such edifices please you humans; gods have no need of such aggrandizement for there is no aggrandizement beyond godhead."

Hanse's brain was awhirl and he wished he were sitting down. He said, "And... and Mig-nureal?"