Lighting flared, a sheet sky-wide that banished darkness even on Shadow Street, so that Tempus saw backlit figures skulking from garbage heap to doorway in his wake.

This was PFLS territory all right.

The rain that accompanied a peal of thunder so loud it made the Tros horse flatten its ears and lower its head cared nothing for whom it wet or whom it unmasked: Both Tempus and his horse were only desultorily disguised-the horse with berry juice and trail mud and its "rider with dyes no better.

The rain bounced fetlock high on cobbles and ran down the Riddler's oilskin mantle to his sharkskin-hiked sword, where it formed rivulets like spilled blood and just as red from the dye it washed.

The specter of the man and horse (both too large and too well muscled for Sanctuary's own, both streaming water red as blood and splashing it behind, as the man called the Riddler loped his horse, oblivious to the torrent and the spray the horse's hooves kicked up, down the center of Red Clay Street) was one to stop a superstitious heart and make a criminal seek cover.

Yet at the comer of West Gate Street, where the sudden downpour swept seaward to the wharves down the slope so deep and fast that rats and cats and pieces of less recognizable flesh were carried along in its currents as if the White Foal River had changed its course, three men stepped out from cover, barring his path, knee deep in water, crossbows drawn and blades unsheathed.

A crossbow, in this wind so fierce it blotted out the Tros's snorts of warning, and in a rain so dense no cat-gut or woman's-hair bowstring could be dry, would shoot awry.

Tempus knew it, and so did the three who stood there, daring him to ride them down.

He considered it, though he'd sought a confrontation, annoyed by the boys with sweatbands around their foreheads and weapons better than street toughs ought to have.

The Tros, having more sense and being a larger target, stopped still and craned its neck, imploring him with liquid eyes to remember why he'd come here, not just take an opportunity luck offered and waste it to vent some spleen and make his presence known.

Still, this sort should have enough sense to fear him.

That none did, that one stepped forward and said in a thick voice with a trace of gutter accent, "Looking for me, big fella? All your bugger boys are," gave the Riddler time enough to realize that, while he'd been looking for the rebel called Zip, Zip had also been looking for him.

A noise behind, and then more sounds of moving men, gave the mounted soldier and his horse a good estimate of the odds without either turning to see the dozen rebels climbing down from rooftops and up from tunnels and out of cellar windows.

Tempus's skin crawled: Pain wasn't something he sought, and with no death at the end of it, he could suffer infinitely more than other men. But it was his pride that leant him pause: The last thing he needed was to be taken hostage by the PFLS and held to ransom. Crit would never let him forget it.

And the result for the PFLS would then be eradication- total and complete, not the minor harrassment Crit had time to field while busy with a hundred other tasks as he got two fighting units ready to depart a town that had precious little else between it and total anarchy.

So Tempus said to the foremost fighter, "If you're Zip, I am," and slid off his horse, making fast its reins on its pommel: Whatever Tempus was worth, the Tros was irreplaceable, and would make for the Stepsons' barracks on a whistled command.

But once the Tros, with teeth and hooves and blood lust spewing carnage in its wake, made for the barracks beyond the Swamp of Night Secrets, then the die for each and every rebel child was cast.

And children these were, the Riddler realized as he stepped closer: The boy out in front of his compatriots was well under thirty.

The youth held his ground, nickering a hand-signal that brought his troops in closer and made Tempus reassess the discipline and training of the rabble closing on him.

Then the Riddler remembered that this boy had had some little congress with Kama, Tempus's daughter, a woman who was as good a covert actor as Critias and as good a soldier as Sync.

The boy nodded a crisp assent, then added, "That's me, old man. What's this about? You didn't 'accidentally' cross our lines. We won't make peace with Jubal's bluemasks-or with that Bey-licking Kadakithis, who's sold the Ilsigs out twice over." The youth widened his stance and Tempus remembered what Sync had said of him: "The boy's got nearly enough balls, but they override his brains."

So Tempus responded, "No, not accidentally. I want to talk to you ... alone."

"This is as 'alone' as I'm likely to get with you-you're not half so fetching as your daughter."

Tempus locked his fingers firmly on his swordbelt, lest they cause trouble on their own, seeking a neck to wring. Then he said, "Zip... as in zero, nothing, zilch... right? Well, despite that, I'll give you a piece of wisdom, and a chance-because my daughter thinks you're worth it." That wasn't true-or at least he didn't think so; he'd never spoken to Kama about Zip: She'd earned the right to choose her own bed-partners, and more.

The flat-faced youth, standing in the rain, barked a laugh. "Your daughter lies in with Nisibisi wizards-or at least with Molin Torchholder, who's tainted with Nisi blood. Her idea of who's worth what ain't mine."

The rabble behind and around laughed, but uneasily. The Tros at Tempus's side pawed the ground and pulled upon its reins to loose them. He put out a hand to soothe the horse and a dozen blades or more cleared their scabbards with a snick audible even through the pelting rain, while the three crossbows he could see were centered on his chest.

"The wisdom is; Sanctuary is for lovers, not fighters, this season. Make peace among you, or the Empire will grind the lot into dust, and bury your flesh with corn to make it grow tall."

"Crap, old man. I'd heard you were tough-not like the rest," Zip spat. "But it's the same garbage I hear from them. Tell it to your troops-the Whoresons and the Turd Commando: They're the ones causing all the grief."

Tempus's patience was near an end. "Boy, mark me: I'll call them off you for a week-seven days. In it, you meet with the other factions and hammer out some agreement, or by New Year's Day, the PFLS won't be even a memory. Nor will you live even that long, to verify it."

There was a silence, and in it someone muttered, "Let's kill the bastard," and someone else whispered back, "We can't-don't you know who that is?"

Tempus peered through the downpour and watched the flat face before him, emotionless and cold with rain streaking down it. There was strength in the youth, like the Enlibar steel some had thought would make a difference here-but, like the steel, Zip's strength was too little and too late.

Ageless eyes shocked against mortal eyes too sure of their doom and unwilling to seek favor. But another thing passed between them: The weariness of the young fighter, hunted by too many and willing to die against sheer numbers and superior force of arms, had turned to hopelessness; that despair met its echo in the gaze of the fabled immortal who went from war to war and empire to empire, taking life and teaching the wisest something about the spirit's triumph over death.

Tempus, who had created, trained, and fielded the Stepsons, was offering a moratorium, some forgotten hope, where an ultimatum had been expected.

There was something in Zip's tone when the boy answered, "Yeah, a week. All right. All I can say is the PFLS will try-I can't speak for the others. It's got to be enough. Or-"