hand with its burning torch. Then he turned away. “Anything
to eat in the cupboard?”
She laughed. “Hardly.” Impulsively she went to him, put her
arms about his waist, held him momentarily, then kissed his
cheek. “Par Ohmsford.” She spoke his name softly.
He hugged her, stroked her hair, felt the warmth of her seep
through him. “I know,” he whispered.
“It will be all right for you and me.”
He nodded without speaking, determined that it would be,
that it must.
“I have some fresh cheese and bread in my pack,” she said,
pulling away. “And some ale. Good enough for refugees like us.”
They ate in silence, listening to the muffled tick of cooling
iron nails embedded in the building’s walls, tightening as the
night grew deeper. Once or twice there were voices, so distant
the words were indistinguishable, carried from the street through
the padlocked door and down the ancient stairs When they had
finished, they carefully packed away what was left, extinguished
the torch, wrapped themselves in their blankets, lay close to-
gether on the narrow bed, and quickly fell asleep.
Daybreak brought a glimmer of light creeping through
cracks and crevices, cool and hazy, and the sounds of the city
grew loud and distinct as people began to venture forth on a
new day’s business. Par woke refreshed for the first time in a
week, wishing he had water in which to wash, but grateful sim-
ply to be shed momentarily of his weariness. Damson was bright-
eyed and lovely to look upon, tousled and at the same time
perfectly ordered, and Par felt as if the worst might at last be
behind them.
“The first order of business is to find a way out of the city,”
Damson declared between bites of her breakfast, seated across
from him at the little table. Her forehead was lined with deter-
mination. “We can’t go on like this.”
“I wish we could find out something about the Mole.”
She nodded, her eyes shifting away. “I’ve looked for him
when I’ve been out.” She shook her head. “The Mole is resource-
ful. He has stayed alive a long time.”
Not with the Shadowen hunting for him, Par almost said,
then thought better of it. Damson would be thinking the same
thing anyway. “What do I do today?”
She looked back at him. “Same as always. You stay put.
They still don’t know about me. They only know about you.”
“You hope.”
She sighed. “I hope. Anyway, I have to find a way for us to
get past the walls, out of Tyrsis to where we can discover what’s
happened to Padishar and the others.”
He folded his arms across his chest and leaned back. “I feel
useless just sitting around here.”
“Sometimes waiting is what works best, Par.”
“And I don’t like letting you go out alone.”
She smiled. “And I don’t like leaving you here by yourself.
But that’s the way it has to be for now. We have to be smart
about this.”
She pulled on her street cloak, her magician’s garb, for she
still appeared regularly in the marketplace to do tricks for
the children, keeping up the appearance that everything was the
same as always. A pale shaft of light penetrated the gloom of
the passageways that had brought them, and with a wave back
to him she disappeared into it and was gone.
He spent the remainder of the morning being restless, prowl-
ing the narrow confines of his shelter. Once, he climbed to the
top of the stairs leading back to the street where he tested the
lock that fastened the heavy wooden door and found it secure.
He wandered back through the tunnels that branched from the
gristmill cellar and discovered that each dead-ended at a storage
hold or bin, all long empty and abandoned. When noon came,
he took his lunch from the remains of yesterday’s foodstuffs,
still cached in Damson’s backpack, then stretched out on the
bed to nap and fell into a deep sleep.
When he finally woke, the light had gone silver, and the day
was fading rapidly into dusk. He lay blinking sleepily for a mo-
ment, then realized that Damson had not returned. She had