He shut the door and hurried to the bedroom.

"Sir? Sir? Are you all right?" he asked, though he knew better the moment helaid eyes on the old man. He was a soldier. He knew death intimately, in allits guises.

The impossibility of it held him for a moment. Then the enormity of thedisaster to the movement bore down on him.

The General gone! That indomitable will, that steadfast genius, lost forever.

Bel-Sidek was a proven field commander, a fine tactician, steady as a mountainin a storm, and the chosen successor, but the man lacked the magnetism, theability to fire the heart and imagination, that had marked the life of Hannobel-Karba.

Even so, bel-Sidek had to be made aware of the disaster immediately. Much hadto be done, and fast, if the movement was not to stumble over this terriblemoment. He forced leaden legs to take him out the door. Unaware that he wasdoing so, he cursed the Fates as he stamped along.

Bel-Sidek felt the recriminations seethe inside him, along with the pain, theloss, the anger, the embarrassment over having been found where he had beenfound with Meryel. He restrained it all. He could not afford to yield at thismost critical hour in the history of the Living. What he did this day woulddetermine whether the struggle continued or the movement collapsed. He had todeal with issues, problems, and people entirely in the light of cold reason.

He paused before the door to the place he had shared for six years with a man who had meant far more to him than ever his own father had. "Send for Carza, then join me here," he told Hadribel. "Tell your messenger he is to accept noexcuses or delays."

"What about the others?"

"After Carza gets here. I want to talk to him first." He pushed inside, leftHadribel to his assignment.

He sniffed. He did not catch the scent Hadribel had detected, but there hadbeen time for it to fade.

In the interim between Hadribel's arrival and Carza's departure could a womanhave come in? Absurd! But why not?

What woman? To what purpose?

He willed himself into the bedroom.

The old man seemed smaller and more frail in death. He looked as though he haddied angry. No. Not angry. Bel-Sidek knew that look. He had died exasperated.

Which suggested that the visitor, if visitor there had been, had been someoneknown to him.

The bedclothes were tousled as though he had wrestled his fate beforesuccumbing. His nightshirt was partly open, revealing sickly yellow skin and ... the edge of something black.

Bel-Sidek eased the dirty cloth back, using one finger.

A black handprint marked the old man's chest, over his heart. It was a daintyprint, too big for a child but too small for a man. Bel-Sidek stared at it along time.

It was a bad, bad omen. Because if it was what it looked like, the mark of akiller, they all had cause to be very, very troubled.

He had not seen this particular mark before, but he had seen its like. Thatrecalled the killing touch of a sorcerer. Marks of that sort had been found oncorpses often before the conquest, but not since. Cado and his henchmen hadforbidden the practice of sorcery.

Bel-Sidek knew of no black magicians being in the city on the sly. He hadheard of no witches but that one the new civil governor had brought along.

Her? Unlikely. Had the Herodians known where to find the General they wouldnot have chosen quiet murder. The end of the chieftain of the Living wouldhave been a public spectacle a match for those of olden times, before the morepeaceful Aram had dispelled the savage Gorloch.

He sat at the writing table while he awaited Carza, reviewing everything thatwould have to be done to ease the transition and keep the movement on itsfeet. His thoughts brushed the General's secret and special agent, passed on, came back again. If the man was half what the General had believed, he mightbecome the Living's instrument of retribution in this.

But later. Vengeance had to await stability.

Carza entered without knocking. He had not slept and was not in a good mood.

As he started to bitch, bel-Sidek pointed him toward the bedroom. "Oh, I'll be damned," Carza said. "When?"

"Between the time you left and the time Hadribel came back. Assuming he was all right when you left." "He was healthy and mean as a boar. Why?"

"Did you arrange the telltales the way Hadribel told you?"

"You know I did."

"I assumed. I had to hear it. They weren't arranged when Hadribel got here." Bel-Sidek pulled the old man's nightshirt open again. "Any ideas?" Carza stared at the print. He shook his head, muttered, "Did he see it coming?"

"What?"

"He had me come over to tell me about this big operation he had going for Qushmarrah. Just in case. So there'd be somebody to keep it going."

"What was it?"

Carza shook his head. "I can't say. He was firm about that. Don't tell bel- Sidek anything. I'm supposed to take over that one thing and you the rest of the organization. He was right about it but the only way I could show you would be to tell you." Bel-Sidek did not argue. No point. Instead, he decided to define the time gap in which the murder had taken place.

It could have been ten minutes or it could have been thirty. Carza could not be exact about when he had departed. Hadribel arrived looking harassed. "I got messages off to the others," he said. "It's going to be light out soon."

They can be grieving relatives," bel-Sidek said. "We've been setting it up that way." Carza said, "You won't be able to get hold of Zenobel."

"Why not?"

"The old man sent him out ... Hell. No need to keep it secret. You have to deal with the consequences."

Bel-Sidek asked, "What?"

"The new civil governor sent men to throw the widow out of her house so he could have it. The old man sent Zenobel to throw them out."

"Aram! Is that what he calls letting them think we're falling apart?"

"It had to be done."

"I realize that. But ..."

Hadribel beckoned bel-Sidek. "Can I talk to you privately?"

Bel-Sidek left Carza scowling. He did not like being shut out, either. Near the hearth bel-Sidek asked, "What?" While he was there he started a fire for breakfast.

"While I was out rounding up messengers I got a few reports from the street.

The Darters left men in the maze overnight last night. And last night, while we had the traitor out on some sort of exercise, his wife left the house. The man on watch lost her in the fog. In this part of Char Street. A man brought her home later, a few minutes before the traitor returned." "What the devil was he doing?" "I don't know. The old man had me blindfold him and take him up to Scars Comer. Somebody else took him over there. I ran off on other errands."

"We'll talk to the woman. Though she wouldn't seem a likely candidate."

The Witch summoned Torgo from his repose. "I have to see Ishabal bel-Shaduk. Do you know how to reach him?"

"Yes, my lady. But why?"

"I have a commission for him."

"I suspect that Ishabal agrees with Azel. He just doesn't want to argue. He hasn't been around."

"Find him. Tell him he can name his price on this one. It'll be the last."

"My lady?"

"I found him, Torgo! I think. I stumbled right over him in Char Street, while I was out. It's almost over with, Torgo. We're almost there."

Torgo did not seem pleased.

"Three, four more days, Torgo. Things will be back to the way they were. Come. Why so glum?"

"I'm afraid we're doing too much to attract attention to ourselves."

"Foo! I'm surrounded by old women. Get your writing instruments. I'll give you the instructions you're to relay to Ishabal. Then we'll examine the boy theLiving want, just to make sure he wasn't Ala-eh-din Beyh in his lastincarnation."

"Why bother, my lady?"

"Azel will come for him. I don't want him or the Living to suspect what I'veaccomplished on my own. It'll take Ishabal a while, anyway, so I won't lose much time. And once we're sure we have what we need, we won't have any more use for Azel or the Living. Will we?"