towering only in its insignificance: the "life" of a petty mageling, a would-bewizard called Randal, a flop-eared, freckled fool who fooled now with forcesbeyond his ability to control.

Yes, Niko had dared to trick Roxane, to distract her with his charms while thisposturing prestidigitator, whom she'd thought to have for dinner, got away.

And now Niko lurked in priestholes, palaces, and princely bedrooms, protected byRandal (who had a Globe of Power similar to Roxane's own, and more powerful) andthe countermagical armor given Niko by the entelechy of dreams. Not once didsweet Stealth venture riverward, though his de facto commander, Straton of theStepsons, rode this way on evenings to visit another witch.

This other witch, too, was an enemy of Roxane's-Ischade the necromant, whom byrights the Stepsons should have hated more than they did Roxane, vilified intheir prayers as they nightly did Death's Queen.

There was some irony to that: Ischade, a tawdry soul-sucker with limited powerand unlimited lust, was a friend of the Stepsons, ally of the mercenary armythat was all that stood between Sanctuary and total chaos now that the town wasdivided into blood feuds and factions as the Rankan Empire's grasp grew weak andthe Rankan prince, Kadakithis, was barricaded in his palace with some salmoneyed Beysib slut from a fishy foreign land.

And Roxane, who'd been Death's Queen on Wizardwall and flown high, ruler of allshe once surveyed, was shunned by Stepsons and even by lesser factions in thetown-all but her own death squads, some truly dead and raised from crypts to doher bidding, some only a hair's-breadth away from mossy graves like One-Thumb,the Vulgar Unicorn's proprietor, a.k.a. Lastel, and Zip, guttersnipe leader ofthe PFLS (Popular Front for the Liberation of Sanctuary) rebels who couldn't getalong without her help.

And Snapper Jo, of course, her single remaining fiend-a warty, gray-skinned,