“Inside,” I said, gesturing with my eyes. “We are going to have a private conference. Now.”

He hesitated, regarding my burden.

“Let’s make it two rooms up,” he said. “Okay? Vialle’s in here.”

“All right.”

He led the way, opened the door. I entered the small sitting room, sought a likely spot, dropped the body.

Random stared at the bundle.

“What am I supposed to do?” he asked.

“Unwrap the goodies,” I said, “and take a look.”

He knelt and undid the cloak. He folded it back. “Dead all right,” he observed. “What’s the problem?”

“You did not look closely enough,” I said. “Peel back an eyelid. Open the mouth and look at the teeth. Feel the spurs on the backs of the hands. Count the joints in the fingers. Then you tell me about the problem.”

He began doing these things. As soon as he looked at the hands he stopped and nodded. “All right,” he said. “I remember.”

“Remember out loud.”

“It was back at Flora’s place…”

“That was where I first saw anyone like this,” I said. “They were after you, though. I never did find out why.”

“That’s right,” he said. “I never got a chance to tell you about it. We weren’t together all that long. Strange… Where did this one come from?”

I hesitated, torn between pushing him from his story and telling him mine. Mine won out because it was mine and very immediate.

I sighed and sank into a chair.

“We’ve just lost us another brother,” I said. “Caine is dead. I got there a bit too late. That thing — person did it. I wanted it alive, for obvious reasons. But it put up quite a fight. I didn’t have much of a choice.”

He whistled softly, seated himself in the chair opposite me.

“I see,” he said very softly.

I studied his face. Was that the faintest of smiles waiting in the wings to enter and meet my own? Quite possibly.