justice, Rakhal Sensar."

_Rakhal Sensar!_ Once again Rakhal!

Shaken, I pulled a rag from my pocket and wiped blood from my mouth. I'd
figured out, in Shainsa, why the mistake was logical. And here in Charin
I'd been hanging around in Rakhal's old haunts, covering his old trails.
Once again, mistaken identity was natural.

Natural or not, I wasn't going to deny it. If these were Rakhal's
enemies, my real identity should be kept as an ace in reserve which
might--just might--get me out alive again. If they were his friends ...
well, I could only hope that no one who knew him well by sight would
walk in on me.

"We knew," the nonhuman continued, "that if you remained where you
were, the _Terranan_ Cargill would have made his arrest. We know about
your quarrel with Cargill, among other things, but we did not consider
it necessary that you should fall into his hands at present."

I was puzzled. "I still don't understand. Exactly where am I?"

"This is the mastershrine of Nebran."

_Nebran!_

The stray pieces of the puzzle suddenly jolted into place. Kyral had
warned me, not knowing he was doing it. I hastily imitated the gesture
Kyral had made, gabbling a few words of an archaic charm.

Like every Earthman who's lived on Wolf more than a tourist season, I'd
seen faces go blank and impassive at mention of the Toad God. Rumor made
his spies omnipresent, his priests omniscient, his anger all-powerful. I
had believed about a tenth of what I had heard, or less.

The Terran Empire has little to say to planetary religions, and Nebran's
cult is a remarkably obscure one, despite the street-shrines on every
corner. Now I was in his mastershrine, and the device which had brought
me here was beyond doubt a working model of a matter transmitter.

A matter transmitter, a working model--the words triggered memory.
Rakhal was after it.

"And who," I asked slowly, "are you, Lord?"

The green-clad creature hunched thin shoulders again in a ceremonious
gesture. "I am called Evarin. Humble servant of Nebran and yourself," he
added, but there was no humility in his manner. "I am called the
Toymaker."

_Evarin._ That was another name given weight by rumor. A breath of
gossip in a thieves market. A scrawled word on smudged paper. A blank
folder in Terran Intelligence. Another puzzle-piece snapped into
place--_Toymaker_!

The girl on the divan sat up suddenly passing slim hands over her
disheveled hair. "Did I faint, Evarin? I