“Won’t be anybody there,” said Samlor. His own eyes were drawn to the watermarked blade of the knife. His knife, now; the owner wasn’t going to claim it with a foot of steel through his chest. The whorls of blended metals, iron black against polished steel, were only memories in the distant lamplight. There was no way Samlor could see them now, even if they began to spell words as he had watched them do-in defiance of reason-twice before.
The caravan master shook himself out of the clouded reverie into which fatigue was easing him. He needed rest as badly as his niece did, and it looked as though there was no way he was going to clear up his business tonight anyway.
“Look,” he said, irritated because Khamwas still faced the door as if there were a chance it would open. “There’s nobody here, and-“
Metal clanked as the bar closing the door from inside was withdrawn from its staples. The door leaf opened inward, squealing on bronze pivots set into the lintel and transom instead of hanging from strap hinges.
“No one will see you,” said the voice of the figure standing in the doorway. Whatever else the doorkeeper might be, it was not human.
The creature was shorter than Star. Fur clothed its body and long tail in ashen luster, but the frame beneath was skeletally thin. Its features had the pointed sharpness of a fox’s muzzle, and there was no intelligence whatever in its beady eyes.
“Wait,” said Samlor hil Samt as the doorkeeper began to close the portal again. He set his boot against the iron-strapped lower edge of the door. “Your master holds a trust f-for my niece Star.”