To pursue those questions would invite the very attention he needed to avoid. There was nothing he could do but to wait and remain inconspicuous.

He bought a skewer of meat from a stall and moved on while he ate, pausing at the blaze of light thrown by lanterns over a gambling layout, watching as the dealer taught those placing bets how to manipulate the cards. A lesson they never even suspected-the man was good at his trade.

A crone offered vials of potion guaranteed to win adoration. A tall, gaunt man offered a drug which would increase the ability to memorize data. A woman with silver hair dotted with scarlet made crude jests as she persuaded a bunch of students to buy her system of mnemonics. A monk lifted a chipped bowl of worn plastic.

"Of your charity, brother."

Dumarest paused, tearing the last of the meat from the skewer and throwing aside the wood. The monk followed it with his eyes, saying nothing, but his meaning was plain. Dumarest had eaten-others would starve. If he could realize that, realize too that, but for the grace of God, he could be one of them, then the millennium would be that much closer. When all accepted the basic credo then it would have arrived.

Brother Lond would never see it. Mankind bred too fast, spread too quickly, but to cease from struggle because the aim was distant was alien to the Church of Universal Brotherhood of which he was a part.

Now he lifted his bowl, tall and gaunt in his robe of brown homespun, the bare feet in their sandals gnarled and stained with the dirt of the field, an old man who had dedicated his life to the easement of suffering. His head lowered as Dumarest dropped coins into the bowl.