"I, ah," he said, looking down at the child. "I thought it would be good if she got some rest, so - - - She's very like my own daughter, you know."

"Wish I had more talent for what she needs," said the caravan master quietly, staring at the child also. "Wish I knew what she needs, what any kid needs. But you do what you can."

He grimaced again. "Bring 'er along, will you? I need you at the side to hand me this jack when I'm ready for it"-he fluffed his cloak open to display the tool-"and I don't want her in plain sight on the street, even though it means getting her up again."

The sky had closed in above the passage between the two buildings. It was as dark as a narrow cave, and for the time being the air was as motionless as that of a cavern miles below the ground. Samlor found his location by subconscious memory of the six cautious paces which had brought him beneath the window when he could see it.

Samlor climbed to the window by bracing his hands and feet against the closely adjacent buildings. That wasn't hard, but he almost fell when he bent to take the jack which Khamwas raised to him. He was tired, and it was affecting him.

Already.

The window grate might have withstood a battering ram. The screw jack, butted against the stone sash, exerted its pressure sideways across the bars and their frame. The grating crumbled as the Cirdonian inexora- bly levered the jack through it, ignoring what the effort was doing to his fatigued muscles.

With the last of his strength, Samlor lurched through the opening he had just torn and sprawled onto the floor of the room beyond.

"Praised be Heqt in whom the world lives," murmured Samlor as his senses returned him to the world beyond his own effort and necessities. The marble floor beneath him was cold and slick with water. The glazed windows had not been closed the last time it rained; and that, from idle chatter overheard at the caravansary, had been more than a week ago.

Khamwas called from the alley, his words blurred but the worry in them clear.

"It's all right," the caravan master said, then realized that he wasn't sure he could understand the croaked words himself. He gripped the window ledge, fragments of the grate chiming around his knees.

"It's all right," he repeated, leaning back through the opening by which he had entered. "Just a minute and I'll find"-his hand brushed a tapestry beside the window-"yeah, just a second and I'll have some- thing for you t' climb by."

He ripped the hangings down and dangled them from the window for his companions. Samlor no longer cared what damage they did to this place-so long as they got out of it soon.

The window was scarcely visible as a rectangle, and the still air smelled of storm.

There was a discussion below. Star came up the tapestry, flailing her legs angrily behind her. There was a pout in her voice as she demanded, "What is this old place? I don't like it."

Maybe she felt something about the house-and maybe she was an overtired sever-year-old and therefore cranky.

There wasn't time to worry about it. The caravan master gripped the child beneath the shoulders with his left arm and lifted her into the room. Star yelped as her head brushed the transom, but she should've had sense enough to duck.

"My staff. Master Samlor," said Khamwas.

The Cirdonian leaned forward and caught the vague motion that proved to be the end of an ordinary wooden staff when his fingers en- closed it. Behind him, the room lighted vaguely with pastel blue.

Star shouldn't have done it without asking; but they needed light, and a child wasn't a responsible adult. Samlor slid the staff behind him with his left hand while supporting the tapestry with his right hand and his full weight to pin the end to the floor.

The Napatan scholar mounted gracefully and used Samlor's arm like the bar of a trapeze to swing himself over the lintel. Only then did the caravan master turn to see where they were and what his niece was doing.

Star had set swimming through the air a trio of miniature octopuses made of light. A blue one drifted beneath the ceiling frescoed with scenes of anthropomorphic deities; a yellow one prowled beneath the legs of a writing table sumptuous with mother-of-pearl inlays.

The third miniature octopus was of an indigo so pale that it barely showed up against the carven door against which it bobbed feebly.

"Where's ..." Samlor said as he looked narrowly at Khamwas. "You know, your little friend?"

Tjainufi reappeared on the Napatan's right shoulder. The manikin moved with the silent suddenness of an image in an angled mirror, now here and now not, as the tilt changes. "The warp does not stray far from the woof," he said in cheerful satisfaction,

"Khamwas," the Cirdonian added as he looked around them, "if you can locate what we're after, then get to it. I really don't want t' spend any

longer here than I need to."

"Look, uncle," Star squealed as she pranced over to the writing desk.

"Mommy's box!"

Samlor's speed and reflexes were in proper form after his exertions, but his judgment was off. He attempted to spring for the desk before Star got there, and his boots skidded out from under him on the wet marble. Because he'd swept the long dagger from his belt as part of the same unthinking maneuver, he had only his left palm to break his fall. The shock made the back of his hand tingle and the palm bum.

Khamwas had retrieved his staff. He stopped muttering to it when the Cirdonian slapped the floor hard enough to make the loose bars roll and jingle among themselves. "Are you ... ?" he began, offering a hand to the sprawling bigger man.

"See, Uncle Samlor?" said the child, returning to the caravan master with an ivory box in her hands. "It's got mommy's mark on it."

"No, go on with your business," said Samlor calmly to the Napatan. He felt the prickly warmth of embarrassment painting his skin, but he wouldn't have survived this long if he lashed out in anger every time he'd made a public fool of himself. "Find the stele you're after, and then we'll see what Star's got here."

He took the box from the child as quickly as he could without letting it slip from his numbed fingers. Even if it were just what it seemed-a casket of Samlane's big enough to hold a pair of armlets-it could be extremely dangerous.

Much of what Samlor's sister had owned, and had known, fell into that category, one way or another.

Khamwas's face showed the concern which any sane man would feel under the circumstances, but he resumed his meditation on-or prayers to-his staff.

Star's palm-sized creatures of light continued their slow patrol of the room. The caravan master seemed to have broken into a large study. There was a couch to one side of the door and on the other the writing desk with matching chair. The chair lay on its back, as if its last occupant had jumped up hastily.

"Open it, uncle'" Star demanded.

Khamwas still murmured over his staff, so the caravan master got up with caution born of experience and walked over to the writing desk. A triple-wicked oil lamp hung from a crane attached to the desk top. It promised real illumination when Samlor lit it with the brass fire-piston in his wallet.

"There's no oil, Uncle Samlor," said Star with the satisfaction of a child who knows more than an adult. She cupped her hand again and turned it up with a saffron glow in the palm. The creatures of light still drifting about the room dimmed by comparison. "See?"

The bowl of the lamp was empty except for a sheen in its center, oil beyond the touch of the wicks. Only one of the three wicks had been lighted at the lamp's last use. When the flame had consumed all the oil, it reduced the twist of cotton to ash. The other wicks were sharply divided into black and white, ready to function if the fuel supply were renewed.

Setios had really left in a hurry.

"Fine, hold the light were it is, darling," Samlor said to his niece as calmly as if he were asking her to pass the bread at table. The casket wasn't anything which the Cirdonian remembered from his youth, but the family crest-the rampant wyvern of the House of Kodrix-was enameled on the lid. Beneath it was carved in Cirdonian script the motto Samlor's parents had never forgiven him for running high-risk, high- profit caravans like a commoner instead of vegetating in noble poverty. But they'd lived well-drunk well, at least-on the flies he snatched for them, and the money Samlor provided had bought his sister a marriage with a Rankan noble.

Which couldn't save Samlane from herself, but was the best effort possible for a brother who didn't claim to be a god.

The lid did not rise under gentle pressure from his left thumb. There was no visible catch or keyhole, but the little object had to be a box-it didn't weigh enough for a block of solid ivory. Samlor put his dagger down on the desk to free his right hand ...

And read the superscription on the piece of parchment there, a letter barely begun:

"To Master Samlor hi! Sami If you are well. it is good. I also am well.

I enclose w.........

The script was Cirdonian, and the final letter trailed off in a sweep of ink across the parchment. Following the curve of that motion, Samlor saw a delicate silver pen on the marble floor a few feet to the side of the desk.

Samlor set down the ivory box, and he very deliberately kept the weapon in his hand. From the look of matters, Setios might have been better off if he'd been holding a blade and not a pen a week or so earlier. Instinctively, the caravan master's left arm encircled Star, locating the child while he turned and said, "Khamwas. This is important. I think I've been doing Setios an injustice, thinking he'd ducked out to avoid me."

The other man was so still that not even his chest moved with the process of breathing. The absolute stillness was camouflaged for a mo- ment by the fact that the octopuses threw slow, vague shadows as they circled the room- The manikin on Khamwas's shoulder was executing some sort of awkward dance with his legs stiff and his arm akimbo.

"Khamwas!" the caravan master repeated sharply. "I think we need to get outta here now."

Tjainufi said, "Do not say, 'I will undertake the matter,' if you will not."

Almost simultaneously, the Napatan shook himself like a diver surfac- ing after a deep plunge and opened his eyes. He stood, wobbling a little and using the staff for support. His face broadened with a smile of bright relief.