a wife. They could threaten Rakhal's wife. And his wife
was my sister Juli.

Everything after that was anticlimax. Of course I had to drink with
Evarin, the elaborate formal ritual without which no bargain on Wolf is
concluded. He entertained me with gory and technical descriptions of the
way in which the birds, and other of his hellish Toys, did their
killing, and worse tasks.

Miellyn danced into the room and upset the exquisite solemnity of the
wine-ritual by perching on my knee, stealing a sip from my cup, and
pouting prettily when I paid her less attention than she thought she
merited. I didn't dare pay much attention, even when she whispered, with
the deliberate and thorough wantonness of a Dry-town woman of high-caste
who has flung aside her fetters, something about a rendezvous at the
Three Rainbows.

But eventually it was over and I stepped through a door that twisted
with a giddy blankness, and found myself outside a bare windowless wall
in Charin again, the night sky starred and cold. The acrid smell of the
Ghost Wind was thinning in the streets, but I had to crouch in a cranny
of the wall when a final rustling horde of Ya-men, the last of their
receding tide, rustled down the street. I found my way to my lodging in
a filthy _chak_ hostel, and threw myself down on the verminous bed.

Believe it or not, I slept.

CHAPTER TWELVE

An hour before dawn there was a noise in my room. I roused, my hand on
my skean. Someone or something was fumbling under the mattress where I
had thrust Evarin's bird. I struck out, encountered something warm and
breathing, and grappled with it in the darkness. A foul-smelling
something gripped over my mouth. I tore it away and struck hard with the
skean. There was a high shrilling. The gripping filth loosened and fell
away and something died on the floor.

I struck a light, retching in revulsion. It hadn't been human. There
wouldn't have been that much blood from a human. Not that color, either.

The _chak_ who ran the place came and gibbered at me. _Chaks_ have a
horror of blood and this one gave me to understand that my lease was up
then and there, no arguments, no refunds. He wouldn't even let me go
into his stone outbuilding to wash the foul stuff from my shirtcloak. I
gave up and fished under the mattress for Evarin's Toy.

The _chak_ got a glimpse of the embroideries on the silk in which it was
wrapped, and stood back, his loose furry lips hanging open, while