What he and his PFLS accomplished was a great deal of mischief and murder and discomfort among his fellow Ilsigs. The fish-folk nourished.

"Ilsigi," Strick corrected Fulcris. "It's plural and possessive both. No s."

Next came still another group, this one with the unlikely name of the Rankan 3rd Commando, whatever that meant. By then the staggering town was divided some four ways and none of the rival groups could claim to be in charge.

All did.

Meanwhile gods wrangled and rassled, people murdered each other indiscriminately, and consumption of alcoholic spirits increased dramatically. An apparently brutish fellow named Tempus and his herd of nomadic womanless warriors-for-hire stayed just long enough to make things worse for the people they despised as "Wrigglies." Then they decamped, to leave behind a vacuum that led to more struggling and more murder of guilty, guiltless, and innocent alike. Decent, normal citizens cowered about their daily business. As a matter of fact so did indecent and abnormal citizens. Daily business had come to mean a striving to continue living.

To what purpose, none could be sure.

Speaking of the abnormal and indecent, the next advent was of a vampire witch and a necromant-or maybe it was a necromant and a vampire witch; everyone was confused because it was all too much-along with acres of walking dead. The two witches juggled people and Balls of Power and did everything but dice for poor pitiful Thieves' World. The rule of females in Sanctuary became absolute. The founder-god seemed to have abdicated. Tale-tellers tried using female names for their characters, even when they were transparently male. That did not work; the storytellers bogged down and received fewer coins because reality was beyond their imaginative abilities.

Dead men wandered about and acted and a dead horse clop-clopped the streets of a city surely forsaken by all gods. Meanwhile intelligent natives, smart people such as Shafra-lain, got the hell out.

Fifteen or so minutes ago Fulcris had learned why the ruler -the youthful Rankan governor-wasn't ruling; he was busy playing house with the fish-eyed snake-lady with the naked turrets. Even his fellow Rankans sneered at this Kadakithis, calling him by a contemptuous nickname.

All right, so she wore her turrets partially covered these days. Because of the invasion of her striding dykish females, decolletage was very much in vogue. Sanctuarite breasts were bared just short of the nipples-while skirts were long and flounced and saddlebagged.

"I've no-tisssed," Strick said, and Fulcris chuckled.

"Me too. The skirts are stupid and ugly but I do love all the jiggle above!"

A demonic monoceros had run rampant, goring people and wrecking real estate.

"They have a low inn or dive called the Obscene Monoceros," Strick said, shaking his head.

Fulcris stared for a moment, then fell back laughing. "Vulgar Unicorn!" he corrected.

Strick shrugged. "Blackest magic," he muttered, staring into his cup. "This city is damned and abhorred by all gods, surely."

"Yet why do gods or people allow it," Fulcris said, and drank. "You heard about the dead (?) warrior-god-female, of course-some fool revived to terrorize streets and citizenry?"

Strick countered with the fact that another someone had broken into the palace, impossibly, and (impossibly) made off with the head snake-lady's wand or something, and she had done not a bloody thing about it. Incredible!

A nasty adolescent boy in a female body was going about in the garb of a Rankan arena-fighter, insulting and threatening everyone in sight, including the ones she whorishly lay with. Five well-trained soldier-bodyguards from Ranke were reduced to guarding cattle or goats or orchards, while a street tale-teller was in the palace, wearing silk robes. The Rankan highest priest was apparently giving more time to personal romance-despite his being married-than priesting.

And King Chaos waved his scepter over Sanctuary.

Street skirmishes erupted into street war. Blood flowed in the gutters and someone started a fire that burned a good bit of real estate-mostly the homes of the poor, of course. After that Sanctuary was assaulted by a few years' worth of rain, all in a few days. Every creek, river, and sewer decided to back up.

"Sorcery," Strick muttered. "Abhorrent black magic. Ashes and embers, what poor pitiful people in need of help!"

A burned town was washed off and hoisted off its foundations on swirling flood waters. Somewhere in there the high-civilization bisexual meres of Tempus had come back and barbarously massacred a band of men in "their" barracks. More innocents had of course perished in that private war. Meanwhile in Ranke someone did away with the emperor and the new one-up from field general, hurrah!-dropped over to Sanctuary to say hello. Apparently he did naught else.

Yet perhaps it was he who pushed it along: the war against the witches/vampires/Things had grown, and a whole fine estate-mansion had burned in a towering pillar of fire for days or maybe it was weeks. When the fire went out the place was still there but no one dared go near it.

"Still is," Fulcris said. "Furthermore, one of the witch-women-Things is still about, living peacefully just outside town, and none of these poor excuses for humanity is doing a bloody thing about it."

"Black magic," Strick muttered, staring into his cup. "All black magic, on and on. By the Flame, but these people need relief, help, an advocate! A little surcease from agony and blackness in their lives!"

While Fulcris was still blinking at that strange utterance, their attention was drawn to the door. It had opened to admit a good-sized fellow in a light tan tunic whose skin- and sleeve-hems were decorated with maroon bands, and with a maroon bar running over each shoulder and down his torse. His high buskins were dark red. He bore a sword and long dagger in maroon sheaths, and he looked competent. Just inside, he swept the common room with a bleak gaze. It lingered for a moment on Strick and Fulcris before passing on. He backed a pace, nodded to someone outside, and stepped in to stand to the door's left. Rather stiffly, in the manner of a sentry.

Through the doorway, all bright and summery in white and yellow, bustled a beaming Shafralaina Esaria. Smiling and dimpled, she came straight to the two men. Strick continued looking past her long enough to note the other man outside, also in her family's livery.

"Strick! Fulcris! Well met!"

"What a coincidence," Strick said drily, as both men rose.

"Don't be silly! I came here to see you! I'd have been here earlier, but first I had to convince father that I needed to shop, and then I had to wait while he gave detailed instructions to no less than two 'escorts' to accompany me. What's in those cups?"

She had a breathless, girlish way of talking that Strick could not despise. The tallish, lean girl with the pale hair was too fresh, too charming. Soon she was seated with them, also with a cup of water-weakened wine. Well met indeed, Strick soon learned, when he mentioned that he wanted information as to where he might "open a place of business." Flashing those bemazing dimples, Esaria was delightedly able to help. A cousin of her father's, it seemed, was a civil servant whose customs job had remained secure through the various administrations. That was partially because of his sideline: he remembered everything and conducted scrupulously private investigations.

An hour later Fulcris was on his way back to the remnant of the caravan and Esaria was introducing Strick to her second cousin. Then she took her leave to buy something or other to prove to her father that shopping had indeed been her goal.