cause he had developed a proprietary interest in what was now his plan, but he had made himself too important to risk. Knowing how disap-pointed his two warrior retainers would be, he begged that they, at least, be allowed to participate, and again was denied. Around midnight he walked over to the pyramid and started up its evil, blackened stairs, still reeking of blood from the recent slaughter. Probably this was forbidden behavior, for Corn-fang and Night-fisher seemed much perturbed, but they followed in silence as good bodyguards should.

Lynx ignored them. In the small hours of the night, he sat in lonely misery on the top of the pyramid and stared out across the moonlit lake to a distant yellow star glowing near Seven Reeds. Thanks to him, the Distliards' shipyard was ablaze, their boats and materiel turned to fire and ash. He had postponed the Allies' assault on the floating city for months. He had, in a very small way, altered the course of history. If he did a good job as shipwright and grand admiral, he might change it even more.

He had no idea which side Athelgar favored in this war. It might be that Lynx was supporting his King's enemies, but his duty to his ward gave him no choice. It hardly mattered, because he would never see Chivial again.

Sheese, Ironhall, Quondam-Chivial had never been very kind to the former Alf Attewell, so why was he so bitterly homesick?

3.We are wasting time!" Flicker repeated furiously. "Rojas is singing lullabies until we drop our guard, so he can storm the house and take all the gold. The dealers he promised will never appear. Even if Blood-mirror-walks and the others do reach El Dorado safely, do you think the Emperor will send a jaguar knight here to bargain with you? You can stay here and rot if you like, but let me go inland!"

"You must learn to be patient,"Wolf said in fatherly fashion. Flicker 298.

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was an explosive mixture of ability, ambition, and impotence, needing to vent his frustration regularly.

The Chivians held a conference every week and always had the same argument. They had been a month in Sigisa, but that was not long enough for their messengers to have reached El Dorado, let alone bring back a reply. Even news of the war was scanty, although rumors suggested that the newCaudillowas faring better than his predecessors.

"Besides, it's Long Night! Enjoy the festivities."

Nothing could be less like Chivian midwinter than a sultry tropical evening on a patio in Sigisa. Surf rumbled on the beach, palm trees waved their tresses in the trade winds. With the sun asleep behind the ranges, moths were swooping lovingly around the lanterns, and frogs were tuning up. Here Don Lope and Dona Dolores lived a lazy, rich-folks life, gathering gossip and seeking to learn more about this strange new world.The Chivians had shed their sea-voyage scrawniness, except for Flicker, who was as gaunt as ever, restless and impatient for action. They had a team of servants to pamper them; Hick and Will had even acquired live-in companions. All such outsiders were liable to be re-cruited by theAlcalde 's minions, but the inquisitors regularly identified the spies and sent them packing.

Amid the vice and squalor of Sigisa in general, the ever-charming Don Ruiz de Rojas ran a bizarre parody of high society. Wolf and Do-lores were frequent guests at his soirees, mingling with many other inter-esting guests-smugglers, pirates, spies from Isilond and other Euranian powers, also gentleman adventurers who tended to die young in brawls or vanish upcountry, where they would doubtless leave their bones.

"Why don't you let Flicker go, if he's so anxious?" Megan asked quietly.

Mutiny? Flicker had never won any support before.Wolf glanced at Dolores, to see what she thought, and was surprised to see her wearing her dead-fish inquisitor face. Did that mean she was trying to hide sur-prise or was anxious not to take sides? Personally,Wolf would love to let Wonder Boy go blundering off into the jungle and get himself killed, but the interests of the mission must come ahead of personal feelings.

"Firstly, because the mainland is enormous and infested by warring 299.

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armies that kill strangers with no questions asked. Or answered. Sec-ondly, because we are already too few.We need Flicker here. It would be crazy to divide the team."

"Then let's all go!" Flicker said sullenly.

This sort of back-talk might be correct Dark Chamber procedure, but it rankled a Blade.Wolf said,"Why don't you let Peterkin show you the sights, sonny? Then maybe we'd get some peace."

Peterkin was the expedition's brothel expert. Flicker scorned to visit the houses and brought home no women of his own. He just mooned around the hacienda making calf-eyes at Dolores, lovesick brat.

He glared."At least let me visit the coastal states.Yazotlan or Zolica."

"No. We've been over this a dozen times. If the rebel states need arms, they get them from the Distlish.

If they were willing to trade their conjury secrets, they'd have sold them to the Distlish long ago.We deal with El Dorado or with no one.We need you here and I expect you to be loyal to the team. Now, if no one has anything else to-"

"If you were loyal to the team we would be halfway to El Dorado by this time."

Now both Megan and Dolores were looking blank.

"Meaning?"

"Meaning," Flicker sneered, "you're keeping us all here in Sigisa only because you hope to catch your thief brother on his way through."

That hurt, as Flicker undoubtedly intended.Yes,Wolf kept an eye on ships arriving and Heron-jade said he did, too.What else the eagle war-rior did with his time, apart from eating and wandering the streets, only the spirits knew. He kept his slave scars hidden under a shirt, and he was too big to attract trouble he did not choose himself.

Meanwhile, to become angry would be to give Flicker a victory.

"That is not true,"Wolf said calmly. "I do watch for Lynx, but I do not let my own priorities interfere with the mission, and you can tell I'm not lying.You reminded me of something, though. There's a Chi-vian caravel namedSea Queenin the river, unloading barrel staves and pig iron. I've spoken with the captain and he's willing to take mail Home for us. Mention that to the sailors, will you, Megan? Now, if no one . .

.Yes, Duff ?"

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The carpenter had emerged from the house, looking unhappy at in-terrupting. "Note handed in, sir. Man says it's urgent."

Dolores beat Flicker to the message, grabbed it, and broke the seal.

"They've answered, they've answered! Oh, Wolf, they want to trade!" She tried to kiss him and show him the note at the same time.

The cause of her excitement was brief, neatly inscribed.AlcaldeDon Rojas requested the presence of Don Lope and Dona Dolores at their earliest convenience this evening,so that certain promises could be made and other promises kept.

Wolf glanced inquiringly at Flicker, but now he was being in-scrutable, of course.

"Isn't it wonderful!" Dolores said. "I have nothing to wear!"

"Chain mail might be safest." Bait in a trap should smell as sweet as this. "It's a very quick response, but possible, I suppose." Just plausible enough to be believed? "Will you be able to tell if the emissaries he pro-duces are fakes?"

"Of course! If they say they're what they're not." Suddenly she turned coolly professional. "He's hinting he wants us to bring the gold along!"

"Over my dead ...I mean, not yet."

The summons gave Wolf gooseflesh, and even Dolores was starting to look edgy, now the first excitement had worn off."Why not let me go and you have a headache?" he said.

"That won't work."

"I'll take Flicker. He can do truth-sounding as well as you can."

"Flicker doesn't know an execration from an exaltation. Don'tbabyme!" She was right."Very well.Tell the man he'll have our reply in a mo-ment, Duff." Wolf went in search of pen and paper.

He would trust a fer-de-lance ahead of Don Rojas. Whenever he and Dolores visited the hyena's den, he put everyone on alert in case they needed rescuing or the villa was attacked in their absence. Normally a couple of the sailors accompanied them to theAlcalde's door, while 301.

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Heron-jade kept watch from their own kitchen table. There was no question that the eagle warrior could see some things at a distance and, although he was never specific about which things or how he looked for them, he had never failed to dispatch sailors to escort them home again when they were ready to leave. Rojas's invitation had taken them unawares and Heron-jade was nowhere to be found. He might be carousing somewhere or he might already be floating in the harbor. It was worrisome.

An hour or so later the Attewells strolled arm-in-arm along the bustling street, with nightlife roistering around them and Will and Hick stalking behind.The gate to the mayor's compound was opened by the usual men-at-arms, but the guard in the torch-lit courtyard included a dozennaturalewarriors in feathered headdresses. Most wore the usual embroidered cloak or mantle pinned at the right shoulder, but some were in padded cotton armor, while a couple of youngsters had not graduated beyond simple loincloths.

Many carried feathered shields, and all were armed with spears and obsidian-edged swords. They outnum-bered the Distliards.

"This is real!" Dolores whispered in Chivian. "He wouldn't fake all this."

Seventy thousand pesos would finance a fair scam, but Wolf was cer-tainly not about to call these bravos imposters to their faces. How had Rojas smuggled such visions into the city? How had hedared?

By en-tertaining his king's enemies, he was openly playing traitor.

The usual servants had vanished. The visitors were greeted at the front door by pox-faced Don Pedrarias, who was chief justice of Sigisa and as ruthless as theAlcaldehimself. He looked them over coldly.

"You brought it?"

"No. If it is due I can easily fetch it."

The villain scowled, but he could not seriously have expected Wolf to drop a fortune at his feet. He led the way out to the main terrace and left them there.

The garden was dimmer than usual, with no moon so close to Long Night, and only a few small lanterns substituting for the usual flaming torches. Stars swarmed overhead, flowers loaded the air with soporific 302.

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scents, and the surf beat its slow measure like a great heart, but there were no guests in sight, no servants, not even stools or benches. Dolores grinned and fidgeted with excitement, while Wolf grew steadily more tense. Truly, they were the world's greatest pessimist-optimist partner-ship.

Soon, though, a dozen men paraded out from the house. Other than Don Ruiz, they were allnaturalesin their glory-gems, gold, and feathers. Earrings, labrets, nose plugs, bracelets. They were almost all armed, but older men than the guards on the gate. The leader of the delegation, the sun amid this constellation of nobles, was the man on theAlcalde's arm.When those two stopped, the others spread around in a circle.Trapped, all Wolf could do was wait politely to be presented to the bull elk.

He was a smallish man made tall by pride, well-preserved but old enough to have stringy whiskers. The shimmering feather cloak hung loosely on his shoulders, like his headdress and jewelry, seeming at once less gaudy than most of the others' and more impressive. His eyes were rapier-sharp, deep-set in wrinkles.

"This is the foreigner, glorious one," Rojas said in halting Tlixilian. "And his senior wife. His name is Lord Wild-dog-by-the-spring. Don Lope, we are honored by the presence of Prince Hummingbird, Conch-flute of Yazotlan."

Yazotlan?All the arguments Wolf had thrown at Flicker earlier col-lapsed.Why Yazotlan? Yazotlan was a coastal state, a Distlish ally. His head throbbed as he tried to work out why it would want to buy steel swords from him. Did the Distlish charge too much? Or were the Yazotlans try-ing to buy more arms than Distlain would supply?-for both sides must know that all bets would be off as soon as El Dorado fell. Or perhaps precious spiritualist secrets were the Distliards' asking price also. In that case, the Yazotlans must prefer they go to a distant, unaligned power like Chivial than to one with an army already on the mainland.

And theConch-flute! El Dorado was ruled by a Great Council com-posed of men of the imperial family.

The man called Emperor by the Distlish and Fountain-of-swords by the Tlixilians was leader of the army and thus the most powerful, ranking first in the council without being 303.

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paramount. Second in authority was his minister for foreign affairs, termed the Conch-flute for reasons lost in the mists of time. Apparently the arrangements in the city of Yazotlan were similar.

Wolf offered a full court bow and some sickly compliments.

Hummingbird's curt nod suggested he should lie prostrate and kiss sandals. Rojas frowned, perhaps wishing he had coached the foreigners in the correct etiquette. Of course all those obsidian swords might be making the tyrant's neck itch.Technically Yazotlan was a Distlish ally, but only theCaudillowould have royal authority to deal with its govern-ment, so Rojas was still playing a dangerous game.

The Conch-flute gestured. An attendant spread a mat behind him. The great man sat down. Everyone else at once dropped to their knees on the stones. Since Dolores had given no signal that Lord Humming-bird was a fake, Rojas had amply fulfilled his side of the bargain and now it was up to Wolf to negotiate. In that sticky tropical night, the prospect made him sweat rivers.

"Your women are most beautiful, Wild-dog-by-the-spring," the prince remarked politely, hugging his shins.

"So are yours, Highness. So are all women."

He smiled. "There speaks youth."

The courtiers' obedient little chuckles sounded like beetles dancing.

"TheAlcaldetells me that your wives are callers of the spirits?"

"I am limited to one wife, Highness, but she is wise in the ways of the elementals.This is not unusual for women in our country." It would be in his. He must find Dolores's presence bizarre.

Again a thin smile. "Then she has great talent as well as beauty, and also fortitude, for I understand that journeying upon the waves is an or-deal to try strong men."

"It is indeed, but what man ever dared give birth to a baby?"

A thinner smile. "She has very pale skin."

In Wolf's opinion Dolores's visible parts bore a magnificent tropical tan. "Our land lies farther from the sun, Great One.That is why."

"How many days did you journey upon the waves?" His accent was not that of El Dorado as Heron-jade spoke it.

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politeness. Too late Wolf saw that it struck at the heart of the night's business. ". . . year."

The bargaining had begun and he had already stumbled.

"You speak with your King's voice,Wild-dog-by-the-spring?"

"Well, sort of. But he doesn't know it. I mean my King doesn't."

"Of course he does!" Dolores corrected. Everyone glared at her.

Wolf tried to recall his blunder."I mean he's really on the side of El Dorado in your war, but don't worry about that." No, that was worse. His thumping headache was mashing his wits.

"And what war goods have you ready to trade?"

"Swords and spears and horses. Lots of horses and swords. Good swords. Not the best, like mine, but good enough to fool you." "Fighting dogs?" "You want dogs, I'll promise dogs." "You have ships standing by? On their way?" "Oh, no.You can fetch the stuff the way the El Dorado knights sent their warriors to my land last winter, can't you? Isn't your conjuration as good as theirs?" "The world is a big place. How will you show our Eagles where to go?"

"I can't."

"So when could you deliver the weapons?"

That was the crux. If the Distliards overthrew El Dorado without significant Yazotlan help,Yazotlan would not share in the booty. Worse, if the Distliards gave up and sailed away, the allies it abandoned would face terrible vengeance from the triumphant Empire. The negotiations were urgent, but Wolf had already admitted that his homeland was far-ther away than Distlain was.