"I'm here to buy paper, not collect heads. I want an inexpensive, working grade. Twenty sheets. Then I want a better grade, suitable for permanent records and letters expected to survive travel over extended distances. Again, twenty standard sheets. Finally, I want some of that erasable parchment or vellum that students use."

The old man found his tongue. "That's an animal product, not paper, though normally we keep some around. You need a special ink, a treatment sponge, a sanding stone, an ink remover, and Halmas clay. Plus calligraphy brushes."

"I'm in the market for those things, too."

"We don't carry any of that."

"And that isn't a problem. There seems to be a paper shortage in Brothe. I'm prepared to go from shop to shop until I find everything."

"You can pay for all that?"

"Of course. You have a problem with me? You're averse to making a sale?"

"Not at all, sir. This constitutes an excellent sale. My biggest in weeks. It's just that we don't often see men like yourself here in the quarter. Twenty sheets packer grade, twenty choice?"

"Packer?"

The old man shrugged. "Nobody knows why it's called that. Not anymore. It's your working grade. Your most affordable paper."

"I see."

"And how much of the reusable?"

"Six folded to standard-size double exercise sheets. One for me and one for each of my students."

"Students? Uh … Never mind. None of my business. I have three of those in stock. I know where to find the rest. And the supplies to go with."

"Good."

"I'll send my grandsons to bring it all here. That'll save you running from shop to shop."

Else scowled.

"Oh. No, sir. I won't add another layer of markup." The bent little man leaned closer to confide, "They'll pay a commission. Because they know I could send the boys to someone else. It's about the extension of goodwill and favor."

"Go ahead, then," Else said. "I've walked enough for today. And I still have to go back home."

The old man shouted in a locally warped exile Melhaic dialect, well spiced with Firaldian derivatives.

Else spoke some Suriet Melhaic and enough of its cousin Peqaad to get by with those tribesmen. He understood half of what he heard. The old man gave orders to collect Else's merchandise, then directed that someone named Pinan Talab be told that a blond stranger was in Luca Farada's paper shop. While the old man jabbered a parade of boys from the rear of the shop snapped quick bows at Else, then headed out the front door. Each brought a burst of chemical smell, a sulfurous cast that Else had associated with papermakers since childhood. The odor stirred memories of the time before time, before his purchase by the Sha-lug. Though those memories were seldom more than a nostalgic mood.

The old man offered plenty of distracting chatter, speaking Firaldian to Else when not instructing his descendants, sometimes changing languages in midsentence. In a puckish moment, Else asked, "Why would Pinan Talab be interested in what kind of paper a Chaldarean buys?"

For an instant it seemed the superannuated papermaker would expire from horror. Then he just stared at Else in silence, disturbed and frightened.

"My paper? Shouldn't you get that ready while you wait to hear from Talab?"

"These are strange times, sir. For example, much of Brothe is obsessing about foreigners with blond hair. It doesn't affect us here, but it's still a concern – if you're the man who caused the excitement."

Else donned a stupid, baffled expression. "I work for the Bruglioni. Uh. You're all lathered about those guys who were supposed to work for us but really worked for the priest who was planted on us by the Brotherhood of War? Pretty funny, huh? Those guys, after the priest turned them loose, went and killed like eight or ten of me bunch that the priest was spying for."

The old man was not amused. His grandsons began to return. As they surrendered their merchandise they hustled on to the rear of the shop. Each passage loosed another puff of chemical-laden air.

Else remained prepared for treachery – though he could not imagine why these people would bother. But nothing happened. The grandsons came back. The merchandise piled up. Soon everything Else had asked for was ready. "Excellent. I'll recommend you to anyone looking for paper."

"That's kind of you, sir. Tell them to stock up now. Once the fighting starts the soldiers will take all we produce."

"The fighting? What fighting?"

"You haven't heard?"

"Obviously, not. I'm bottled up inside the Bruglioni citadel most of the time. When I do come out people won't talk to me because I have blond hair. What's happened?"

"The pirates. They launched a massive raid yesterday. Against Starplire. They massacred the priests and nuns and scholars and looted everything they could carry off. They even murdered most of the townspeople. A squadron of Imperial cavalry that was headed for Alameddine overran the stragglers. That saved a few people the pirates hadn't yet found." The old man's face darkened as he sketched the disaster.

Starplire, Else thought. Just inland from the coast, south of the mouth of the Teragi. Not fortified. A population in the thousands, mostly monks, nuns, and sacred scholars. Main industries, monasticism and religious education. Starplire boasted Episcopal Chadareanism's principal university. And a tiny Devedian colony, practicing the arts that seemed to come so easily to that race.

"I see."

"They say the Patriarch will convene the Collegium and preach a crusade against Calzir."

"About time, if you ask me." Else accepted his change. The old man put his purchases into a sack that, in a previous incarnation, might have contained rice. "Did you have family there?"

"We're all family."

Else wrestled with mixed emotions as he left. An Episcopal crusade against Calzir would serve Dreanger better than a crusade against the heretics of the Connec. It should occupy Sublime far longer while not profiting him a ducat. Calzir might hold out long enough for nature to catch up with Sublime. Or the crusade might bankrupt him.

But Calzirans were Praman.

And not very bright Pramans. What insanity moved them to do something as stupid as butcher the entire population of Starplire?

Sinister forces were at work.

"Captain."

The soft voice came from a shadow in a foot-wide crack between buildings. Else would not have responded had it not been familiar. A hairy little shape hid in the crack. "Gledius Stewpo? What're you doing here?"

"This is no place to talk. Follow me." Stewpo popped out and hurried along the street, comical in his effort not to appear furtive. What could be more noteworthy than a sneaking dwarf?

Else followed, awash with thoughts and questions. First, war. Now, Gledius Stewpo.

"YOU PEOPLE HAVE AN UNNATURAL PASSION FOR HOLES IN THE ground," Else told Stewpo.

"That's why they talk about a Deve underground."

"Ha! And ha!"

"You're treated like vermin, you adopt vermin's strategies for surviving." Stewpo had led Else down into a warren underneath the Devedian quarter. Which he suggested had been there since early Imperial times. The Deves of those days used to rescue brethren enslaved in the Holy Lands and hide them in the labyrinth. "It isn't just a Devedian thing, though, Captain. Everybody in Brothe has secret cellars and hidden worlds below. The primitive Chaldareans, the Arianists, had a network of tunnels and secret rooms and chapels all over under the city. We know they're still there because they keep caving in."

Four Devedians met them in a hidden place much like the hidden place in Sonsa. Even the odor of the earth was similar. Else recognized two men. Like Gledius Stewpo, they hailed from Sonsa. The others, when introduced, were Pinan Talab and Else's principal contact in Brothe, one Shire Spereo.