Isambard skidded to a stop an arm's length from Tempus's chest and lapsed intopanicked silence until his master entered the chamber. Molin Torchholder, evermindful of his position and demeanor, did not immediately clarify his acolyte'sexclamations but appraised the assembly as if they, not he, were the breathlessintruders.

"Ah, Tempus. Back in town at last?" Sanctuary's hierarch inquired, his voicecarefully modulated to conceal the manifold anxieties which that man'sunexpected presence caused him.

"That I am." Tempus detested priests, especially this one. And so he grinnedonce more, thinking that Brachis, when he arrived with Theron's sailing party,would put this foul, dark-skinned priest in his proper place. "Well, Torch, yourminion seemed to have a problem moments ago. Surely you've got it as well?" Hissword was out by then, and Jihan's also.

Kadakithis was scratching his golden curls, his handsome but vacant faceinquiring: "What's this, Molin? Dead snakes? Is your state-cult out of handagain? I told you Nikodemos was no fit guardian for those children. I-"

The Beysib monarch interjected smoothly: "Let me see these dead snakes, priest.And mind you, I'm never sure that these troubles aren't made by the Rankans whoannounce them."

By then Tempus and Jihan were running down the hall, toward secret passagesTempus knew like the back of his sword-hand or Jihan's female mysteries, whichled to the lower chambers where, near the dungeons, Niko and the children-whomsome said were more than that-were being kept.

Ischade's Foalside house was more home than haunt, less forbidding than Roxane'sto the south, but hardly an inviting place to visit.

Unless, of course, one was Straton, her lover whom she'd guided to de factopower in Sanctuary's factionalized streets, or an undead such as Janni or