Lythande had but recently returned – if the mysterious comings and goings of a
magician can be called by so prosaic a name -from guarding a caravan across the
Grey Wastes to Twand. Somewhere in the Wastes, a gaggle of desert rats – two
-legged rats with poisoned steel teeth – had set upon the caravan, not knowing
it was guarded by magic, and had found themselves fighting skeletons that howled
and fought with eyes of flame; and at their centre a tall magician with a blue
star between blazing eyes, a star that shot lightnings of a cold and paralysing
flame. So the desert rats ran, and never stopped running until they reached
Aurvesh, and the tales they told did Lythande no harm except in the ears of the
pious.
And so there was gold in the pockets of the long, dark, magician’s robe, or
perhaps concealed in whatever,’dwelling sheltered Lythande.
For at the end, the caravan master had been almost more afraid of Lythande than
he was of the bandits, a situation which added to the generosity with which he
rewarded the magician. According to custom, Lythande neither smiled nor frowned,
but remarked, days later, to Myrtis, the proprietor of the Aphrodisia House in
the Street of Red Lanterns, that sorcery, while a useful skill and filled with
many aesthetic delights for the contemplation of the philosopher, in itself put
no beans on the table.
A curious remark, that, Myrtis pondered, putting away the ounce of gold Lythande
had bestowed upon her in consideration of a secret which lay many years behind
them both. Curious that Lythande should speak of beans on the table, when no one