Today's Brothe stood on ground ten to twenty feet higher than it had been in antiquity. In places the old low ground lay buried even deeper.

In Brothe the past was as omnipresent and intrusive as the Instrumentalities of the Night in the Holy Lands. It meant more here than elsewhere. Brothe's yesterdays defined its todays.

Sublime enjoyed local popular support because people thought he might resurrect the ancient glories.

In Brothe even the poorest of the native poor worshipped the city's past glories. And seemed indifferent to its present.

Yesterday's toppled memorials loomed large in the lives of squatters and drifters.

Poverty was ubiquitous, too. But that did not touch Else. Poverty and misery were the natural state of humanity wherever he went.

ELSE STROLLED AROUND IN WHAT HE HOPED LOOKED LIKE random rambles. He noticed no obvious tail. Which might mean that someone with superb skills had been assigned to track him. Or someone with a supernatural assist.

He did not count on his new employer not to spy on him. He would never allow a stranger deep into his world as easily as he had gotten into that of the Bruglioni.

Else drew dark looks wherever he went. He did not understand. He did note that other foreigners drew equally malignant attention, though.

He had been on his own a long time. Had he forgotten a critical detail of his contact regime? Could life's vicissitudes have claimed Gordimer's local agents? He knew no names, just places to visit. The embassy of the Kaif of al-Minphet was to be approached only in extreme circumstance. A sailor's tavern on the riverfront, as far downstream as you could go and still be inside the wall, was just too far away. The only convenient contact resided inside the Devedian quarter.

Brothe was a vast sprawl south of the Teragi. It seemed to go on forever.

"Hey, Pipe! Piper Hecht! How the hell you doing, asshole?"

Pinkus Ghort jogged across the street, dodging between donkeys and camels, oxcarts, dog carts, and goat carts. Brothe's streets were busier than those of al-Qarn. And twice as ripe. Little effort was made to clean up after the animals. Else had seen some amazing shit drifts.

"Ghort! You been following me?"

"No. Shit Man. It's pure coincidence. I was just heading over to the … How the hell are you doing?"

"As good as could be hoped, I guess."

"They get you in over there yet?"

"In?"

"The Bruglioni thing."

Curious. "They don't keep you in the know?"

"I've been out of town. There was a problem up the road that Doneto needed handled. I got back last night. So are you in?"

"I think. I'm worried about how easy it was, though. I can't believe anybody is as dimwitted as those people let on."

"Believe it. This is the town where dumb comes to stay. Two-thirds of them still think they rule the world. Basically, the whole damn town has their heads up their asses.”

"I'll take your word for that."

"We need to work out a way to communicate."

"I know where the Principatй lives."

"How do we get a message to you?"

Else considered briefly. "I can't imagine an instance where you'd need to. Can you?"

"Uh … Maybe you're right. But you'll have to make contact sometime. Just so we can keep each other posted."

Ghort had a point. Ghort was supposed to be his eyes inside Doneto's establishment. "That shouldn't be hard. I don't suffer from excessive supervision. My job hasn't been defined yet. Paludan wants to hurt the Brotherhood because he thinks they killed his sons. Gervase is afraid the Brotherhood might come after the Bruglioni because of what happened to their men."

Ghort eyed Else's head. "You going to do something about your hair?"

"What? Why? Like what?"

"Half the nasty folks in Brothe are looking for big foreigners with long blond hair. Two were involved in the debacle you just mentioned. If they get close and bother to think, they'll know you aren't who they're looking for. But suppose you run into idiots?"

"Well. Now I know why I keep getting those evil looks."

"Those are probably just because you're you."

"No doubt. I have work to do. I'll see you sometime."

For a moment Ghort looked hurt. "Yeah. Later."

"Say hi to Bo and Joe. And Pig Iron."

"Yeah."

Else got away before Ghort could delay him. Principatй Doneto was not going to be pleased. He had given Ghort very little about the Bruglioni and nothing about the Arniena.

Let the man stew.

Else wandered aimlessly. Just in case. No point leading Ghort to one of his contacts. He listened to people. He heard little but everyday arguments, whining, complaints and indifference to squabbles on high. The politics that mattered at street level involved next meals. And Colors.

There was a great deal of anticipation of something called the Summer Invitational Games, when chariot racing teams from throughout Chaldarean Firaldia would participate in a huge elimination contest. The Colors would be out in strength, then.

Else's ramble took him to the south bank of the Teragi River, half a mile above the place where Father Obilade had been introduced to the Sacred Flood. In pre-Chaldarean times the river had been considered a goddess in its own right, harboring within her bosom a host of spirits, some quite wicked, all of which had to be appeased. The goddess was gone, now, but not so all of the dark sprites and nymphs and water horses who had attended her.

The Brothen ancients had done well, coming to terms with the Instrumentalities of the Night. The entire waterfront had been built up in a way that revealed ages of complete confidence that the river would not get out of control. Embankments constructed of huge blocks of dressed stone rose high enough that the water level could rise another twenty-five feet before there was a need to worry.

Else strolled downriver, along the top of the embankment, admiring the work of the ancient engineers. He was confident today's Brothens couldn't manage anything like this, if only for lack of will and energy. He had sensed a paucity of those commodities in the modern tribe.

He was impressed by the bridges, both in their number and their engineering. Each was a monument likely to last forever. And there was nowhere one had to walk more than a third of a mile to make a crossing. Above Castella dollas Pontellas, as it turned out.

The whole would have been immensely picturesque. Without the swarms of people and animals and vehicles clattering the picture.

Else settled himself on a stone block atop the embankment, at a point where he could see Krois on its stone-faced island, the Castella dollas Pontellas and its six little bridges arching over an arm of the Teragi that served as its moat, and farther left, the immense, massive dignity of the Chiaro Palace, the spiritual heart of the Episcopal strain of Chaldareanism. His was a vantage sought by many. When Else sat down he did so amongst a dozen fellow spectators who were besieged by street vendors selling purported holy souvenirs, hot sausages, and sweet cakes.

Sitting there, those three grand structures so close he could make out the streaks of pigeon droppings down their dun flanks, Else first felt some awe of western civilization. What were these buildings but the greatest ghosts of the glory that had been?

The fortress Krois, out in the midst of the flood, had stood there for twelve centuries. It began construction before the birth of the oldest of the Chaldarean founders. It had been decreed by a Brothen emperor uninterested in becoming the victim of the mob, after that had befallen several of his most immediate predecessors. A later emperor, in the end days of the Old Empire, bequeathed Krois to me Church.