CONFLICT AROSE PREDICTABLY, FOLLOWING A TEDIOUSLY Unsurprising escalation. A band of adolescents got into the Devedian quarter and threw rocks at Devedian youths, tried to break into a shop, attempted to a.s.sault a Devedian girl-then found themselves surrounded by unsmiling men who were not amused by their gender ethnic jests. They beat the invaders senseless, then flung them into the filth of a midstreet gutter.

The fathers and brothers and cousins of the injured boys took umbrage. That led to confrontations that escalated into the use of weapons. A dozen Chaldareans perished.

In time, a too bold mob of drunks started a battle during which overly enthusiastic Devedian crossbowmen slaughtered scores of raiders.

Every confrontation occurred inside the Devedian quarter. For what little value that was as an arguing point before the city's masters.

Escalation took eight days. Else played the restraining general where no general was necessary and no restraint was possible. On the eighth evening the ruling families felt compelled to take notice because the rioters, turning to Color politics, began starting fires on the Chaldarean side of the Devedian quarter wall. They directed their household troops to restore order. But those forces were besieging the barracks filled with Brotherhood of War squatters.

Knowing success might doom Sonsa's Devedians, Else nevertheless organized an ambush that embarra.s.sed the household forces.

The outrage of Sonsa's Chaldareans, naturally, knew no bounds.

Else told the elders, "Now they'll make war on you. You won't like the way it turns out. There are a hundred of them for every one of you."

"There always have been," Gledius Stewpo said. The Deves were drunk on success. To this point they had suffered no dead at all. One of the beards said, "The weapon is ready." Another said, "The business of Sonsa is business. That business can't go on without us. The Three Families have to let this run its course."

SONSA BECAME QUIET. ORDER RETURNED OUTSIDE THE Devonian quarter. The ruling families did try to let emotions cool. But too many people preferred otherwise. Especially the Brotherhood of War, guided by the unidentified sorcerer off Vivia Infanti.

A rumor said foreign mercenaries were behind the uprising. One description of a Ferris Renfrow was good enough to get Else lynched.

Circ.u.mstances were changing. Else began to consider risking trying to get out of Sonsa.

He would be of no use to Dreanger if he got killed in a local uprising.

News of the uprising reached Brothe. The Patriarch had, already, issued a bull insisting on complete obliteration of the unbelievers. He ordered the Three Families to place all their armed men at the disposal of the Brotherhood of War.

Because the Devedian community had friends and spies, because the Brotherhood had enemies determined to see it embarra.s.sed, those who schemed against the Deves had few secrets.

The Brothers were no fools. They would not believe that they could surprise the Deves. And because they numbered fewer than two score they would not be eager to lead an a.s.sault.

"Isn't that always the way? Those most eager get behind somebody who doesn't want to be there and push," Else said.

Bad timing. Right now the old men were solidly behind the young men but had no pushing to do. The youngsters were more eager than the old folks. Their situation had not yet grown grim.

Else asked, "What do you expect to do when the Brotherhood comes? They won't run from a few missiles. They'll bring their sorcerers. And they'll kill anybody who isn't one of them. I've seen it before."

Blank looks. Cold stares. The old men did not want to listen. And Else was trapped in their nightmare.

Not once since his first visit to the armory had he been alone. But he was sure he could shed his Deve shadows if he wanted.

THE BROTHERHOOD'S ATTACK CAME AT NIGHT, AS EXPECTED. Sorcerers felt more comfortable working in the dark. The family household forces, more afraid of the Brothers behind them than the Deves ahead, broke through the barricade barring entry to the Devedian quarter. Others climbed over the wall, which was slight and less than ten feet high. Its purpose was not defensive, it was intended to contain.

They met no resistance. Nervously, they moved ahead, cautious to a fault, antic.i.p.ating some deadly trap.

It was dark, after all. And Deves were agents of the Will of the Night. Everybody knew that.

The invaders found the Deve buildings boarded up. They were empty when broken into. Not only were the occupants gone, so were their valuables.

The Three Families had told their soldiers to hurt as few people as possible. Deves were critical to Sonsa's prosperity.

The Brotherhood of War moved in as soon as they heard that there was no resistance, determined to plunder.

The household troops grew ever more unsettled.

Any minute now, those Deve sorcerers would unleash all the hounds of darkness.

ELSE OBSERVED THE INVASION THROUGH A CRACK IN AN unglazed cellar window. As he had antic.i.p.ated, the invaders had worked themselves up immensely in antic.i.p.ation of a desperate fight. Many were drunk. They did not know what to do if there was n.o.body to fight. They were standing around scaring one another, not even looking for something to steal. Else whispered to Stewpo, "You see? Discipline is failing. They're drunk enough to forget why they came. They'll get a notion to start looking for secret Deve treasure in a minute. Then we'll have them."

The families and their most precious possessions had moved into the tunnels and cellars undermining the quarter. If complete disaster befell, there was an evacuation tunnel running under Sonsa's south wall. Though Else was not supposed to know about that, or several other tunnels leading out of the quarter. The younger Deves often forgot to speak Melhaic when he was around.

Else had done his best on behalf of the resistance because any success might inspire Devedians elsewhere. If Sublime was busy suppressing minorities at home he might not have time to look to the east.

"Here's the man we're waiting for."

A tall man well-wrapped in black appeared. This was the taller of the two who had come over aboard Vivia Infanti. The one Else had attacked. He seemed in surprisingly good health.

"Stand by," Else cautioned. "He'll use his powers to see what became of the people who should be here."

There was some truth to the rumor that old Deves were sorcerers. Not all of them, just a few. About as many as in any similarly sized group of old people. Those with that dollop of talent had been tasked with masking the hiding places of the women and children.

A number of obvious hiding places had been singled out for the opposite effect.

The tall Brother moved toward Else's hiding place suddenly, swiftly, sensing something. "Match! Now!" Else said. He held the firepowder weapon on target. The sorcerer broke into a sprint.

The match man did his job.

There was a thunderous boom and a great cloud of sulfurous smoke. When the smoke cleared the Brother was sprawled on the cobbled street, ten feet back of where he had been when the weapon discharged, pierced through the heart by a silver ball, dead before he hit me ground.

The explosion was the signal hidden Devedian fighters were awaiting.

They made themselves known from the roofs, with a surprise rain of death directed mainly at the Brotherhood of War.

Men shouted orders to put all torches out.

Men shouted orders to belay those orders.

Devedian fighters emerged from the narrow byways, struck, faded away. Snipers up high continued to deliver misery to the intruders.

Else barked and swore at the men working the firepowder weapon. He wanted the weapon ready in case the older Brotherhood witchman turned up. But, even with three men working, it took five minutes to swab the fire tube and repack it with powder, wads, primer, iron pellets, and the silver sc.r.a.p that was all skinflint Stewpo was willing to provide for a second firing.

It grew quiet outside. The Deve fighters faded away, taking their injured. They let the raiders remove their own casualties. Hope remained that it might be possible to get through this without alienating the Three Families.

"Outlander!" one of Else's team barked. "Here comes the other one."

Else elbowed his way to the window slit.

The mystery man from Vivia Infanti arrived shouting. Like whipped dogs the Household troops returned and began to creep off into the tight alleys and streets of the Devedian quarter.

The Brotherhood sorcerer spotted his fallen henchman. He studied the surrounding night as he edged toward the dead man. But he became so distressed that he failed to remain sufficiently alert One of the crossbow bolts whizzing around caught a nip of flesh.

He let out a roar driven more by emotional pain than the sting of his wound. Then he began to cast a spell that had been prepared in advance.

That would be something meant to blind or disarm the snipers. Otherwise, he would suffer an endless shower of missiles. The spell would effect his own men, too. But he would not be worried about them.

"This isn't good," Else said as soon as he recognized what was happening. "Not good at all. Do we have any cold water handy? Do we have rags we can soak?"

His a.s.sistants wanted to know why that mattered.

"Because we've got a ferromage on our hands. This tube is going to get too hot to handle. Maybe even hot enough to set off the firepowder inside. If that happens, the weapon is useless. And we'll be dead."

The sorcerer did them a favor, though.

While his magic was still growing, while his surviving Brotherhood henchmen were bringing out weapons made of wood or gla.s.s, he seemed to sense the source of, if not the cause of, his apprentice's misfortune.

He uttered another thunderous cry and headed toward Else and his team.

Else aimed desperately, the tube not yet too hot to rest atop his shoulder. "Match man! Match man!"

He heard the firepowder hiss in the primer pan. The Brotherhood sorcerer seemed to hear it, too, because he made a sudden, violent effort to stop.

The firepowder exploded. Silver sc.r.a.p and iron sand spewed into the night. Impact laid the Brotherhood sorcerer out in the air and flung him backward.

Something hit Else from behind, violently.

ELSE WAS OUT ONLY MOMENTARILY. HE RECOVERED Consciousness, found the cellar filled with smoke. It stank of spent firepowder, with a taint of smoldering timber.

The firepowder tube had exploded. He was still alive only because the match man had absorbed the blast. The Deve's blood was all over him now.

Else tried to look outside again. The view was inadequate. The target was down but did not seem mortally injured. The surviving Brotherhood soldiers were dragging him away.

The smell of wood smoke grew stronger.

It was time to find somewhere else to be. There was a whole cask of firepowder somewhere in the darkened cellar, along with all the brave, dead young Deves.

HIS EVERY BREATH NO LONGER MONITORED, ELSE SEIZED THE.

opportunity to serve his G.o.d, Dreanger, and the Sha-lug elsewhere. He abandoned the Devedian quarter by means of a deep, wet tunnel that led not to the country outside the city wall-that one would be crowded and well-guarded-but to a crypt in a mausoleum in the cathedral cemetery a hundred yards northeast of the Devedian quarter wall.

The existence of the tunnel was one of those secrets Else picked up when young fighters had not paid attention to what they were saying.

Despite the tumult in the Devedian quarter the rest of Sonsa was enjoying a quiet summer night. No moon interfered with the view of the sea of stars. A few belated fireflies still sparked among the tomostones and memorials. Neither the dead nor the living nor the Instrumentalities of the Night seemed interested in the progress of one filthy fugitive armed with a long knife and a short iron bar he had picked up during his flight.

Smoke and firelight rose above the Devedian quarter. The keg of firepowder had gone up while Else was in the tunnel. Household troops and Devedian fighters now worked shoulder to shoulder to stifle the flames.

Else took advantage of the opportunity offered by Fate's indifference. He looked for his other Sonsan contact, wishing he had sought this one first. He could have avoided all that Devedian unpleasantness. By now he could be in Brothe, employed in the Patriarch's armies. All unaware of the fact that Deve spies had penetrated the Palace of the Kings.

Rumor said the Patriarch was a.s.sembling an army to conquer Calzir. Or it might be the Emperor. Whichever, evidently, there were few takers. The campaign, if ever it materialized, would be extremely arduous while offering private soldiers little hope of plunder. Calzir was poor, agricultural, a bitter place to live. For two thousand years not much had changed there but the names of the masters.

An old joke said that Chaldareans and Pramans fought a war with Calzir at stake and the Pramans lost.

Calzir, though, did have considerable strategic significance. It bestrode the horn of Firaldia and the huge island of Shippen, gazing out at the slim waist of the Mother Sea. And it provided a Praman bridgehead on the Firaldian peninsula.

Else pa.s.sed by four times before he discovered the cast bronze leopard that identified the home he sought. The leopard was no bigger than a house cat. It did not stand out. He had antic.i.p.ated something more dramatic.

He slipped up to the door and knocked the prescribed series, unsure that anyone would respond at this hour. He ran through the series a second time, then a third, shrinking into shadow in order to be less noticeable. He leaned out once to consider the progress of the fire in the Devedian quarter.

They seemed to have gotten that under control.

His fourth effort was rewarded by appropriate counter-knocks from inside. He offered the counter countersign.

The narrow door opened a crack. Else saw nothing but heard a whispered query. He offered the proper response.

The door opened another inch. It was as dark as the Patriarch's heart in there. He did not move. He would not until he was invited or refused. There would be some sort of protection set up for the householder.

"Come forward."

He moved carefully, keeping his hands in plain sight, doing nothing that might be considered suspicious. The agent would be nervous, what with the Brotherhood raving on about foreign agitators stirring up the Deves.

"Turn to your right."

He could not see the speaker in the dark. The whispers came from a low alt.i.tude.

Not another dwarf?

No, it developed. Not another dwarf. A woman. Which he discovered once they entered a small room where a single weak candle burned. "I thought..."

"You were expecting my husband. He pa.s.sed away last winter."

"I don't believe they know that at home." He did not mention al-Qarn because, he recalled, this agent believed he served the Eastern Emperor.

"It hasn't been reported. I need the money. Pledga left me no other income when he went."

Else did not ask how or why. He did not care. And knowing would change nothing. He considered the woman. She was small in stature and frame, about forty, graying, obviously proud, still striking and still betraying traces of the beauty she had been not so long ago. "I understand. Are you alone, then?"

The woman studied him as intently as he studied her. Each considered his or her life to be in the hands of the other.

"Yes. As long as the stipend keeps coming, I can afford that."

"Your husband let you know what he was doing?"

"We had no secrets. He told me a story he believed. But he was a bit gullible. What do you need?"

"A place to hide."

"You're the foreign spy they're warning everyone about." Her large, dark eyes came alive with humor.

"I'm a spy. The one they're talking about is one they made up to scare people. A boogeyman to make people behave the way they want."