Did not Tempus still labor at his gory task of purging the disloyal-all who hadbeen influential in Abakithis's court? Did not women still wake to empty bedsand find pouches made of human skin and filled with thirty gold soldats (theRankan price for one human life) nailed to their boudoir doors?

Did not those few remaining adherents of Abakithis, former emperor of Ranke (nowdeceased, unavenged, much cursed in his uneasy grave), still scuttle eventhrough the deadly, knife-sharp hail with bulging pockets to the mercenaries'guildhall to leave their fortunes at the desk with scrawled notes saying, "ForTempus, to distribute as he wills, from the admiring and loyal family of So-andSo," while servants spirited noble wives and children out back ways and slumyardgates in beggars' guise?

Thus it was whispered, as the storm raged unabated into its second day, thatTheron and his creature Tempus were to blame for this black blizzard straightfrom hell.

It was whispered by a woman to Critias, Tempus's first officer and finest covertactor, who had infiltrated the noble strata of the imperial city; And Crit, witha wry twitch of lips that drew down his patrician nose and a rake of hisswordhand through dark, feathery hair, replied to the governor's wife he wasbedding: "No one gives a contract for a sunrise, m'lady. No man. that is.Theron is no more than that. When gods throw tantrums, even Tempus listens."

Crit had fought in the Wizard Wars up north and the woman knew it. His guise wasthat of a disaffected officer who had renounced his commission after Abakithis'sassassination at the Festival of Man and now, like so many others of the oldguard, scrambled from allegiance to allegiance in search of safety.

So the governor's wife just ran a finger along his jaw and smiledcommiseratingly as she said, "You men of the armies ... all alike. I suppose