'I'll have to guess, but I guess it means you are a mage.'

'Excellent. A few years of lessons like that and you might survive, a while, inSanctuary - in the Maze - in the Unicorn!'

'We haven't got years,' Aerie whispered. 'We have, perhaps, overspent the timewe do have.'

Quartz put her arm around Aerie's shoulders, for comfort, and hugged her gently.

'You interest me,' Lythande said. 'Tell me what information you seek. Perhaps Iwill know whether you can obtain it less expensively - not cheaply, but lessexpensively - from Jubal the Slavemonger, or from a seer -' At theirexpressions, he stopped.

'Slavemonger!'

'He collects information as well. You needn't worry that he'll abduct you fromhis sitting-room.'

They all started speaking at once, then fell silent, realizing the futility.

'Start at the beginning.'

'We're looking for someone,' Wess said.

'This is a poor place to search. No one will tell you anything about any patronof this establishment.'

'But he's a friend.'

'There's only your word for that.'

'Satan wouldn't be here anyway,' Wess said. 'If he were free to come here he'dbe free to go home. We'd have heard something of him, or he would have found us,or -'

'You fear he was taken prisoner. Enslaved perhaps.'

'He must have been. He was hunting, alone. He liked to do that, his people oftendo.'

'We need solitude sometimes,' Aerie said.

Wess nodded. 'We didn't worry about him till he didn't come home for Equinox.Then we searched. We found his camp, and a cold trail...'

'We tried to hope for kidnapping,' Chan said. 'But there was no ransom demand.The trail was so old - they took him away.'

'We followed, and we heard some rumours of him,' Aerie said. 'But the roadbranched, and we had to choose which way to go." She shrugged, but could notmaintain the careless pose; she turned away in despair. 'I could find no