-shaven, the face of Lythande, or beardless – none had come close enough, in
living memory, to say whether this was the whim of an effeminate or the
hairlessness of a freak. The hair beneath the hood was as long and luxuriant as
a woman’s, but greying, as no woman in this city of harlots would have allowed
it to do.
Striding quickly along a shadowed wall, Lythande stepped through an open door,
over which the sandal of Thufir, god of pilgrims, had been nailed up for luck;
but the footsteps were so soft, and the hooded robe blended so well into the
shadows, that eyewitnesses would later swear, truthfully, that they had seen
Lythande appear from the air, protected by sorceries, or by a cloak of
invisibility.
Around the hearth fire, a group of men were banging their mugs together noisily
to the sound of a rowdy drinking-song, strummed on a worn and tinny lute
– Lythande knew it belonged to the tavern-keeper, and could be borrowed – by a
young man, dressed in fragments of foppish finery, torn and slashed by the
chances of the road. He was sitting lazily, with one knee crossed over the
other; and when the rowdy song died away, the young man drifted into another, a
quiet love-song from another time and another country. Lythande had known the
song, more years ago than bore remembering, and in those days Lythande the
magician had borne another name and had known little of sorcery. When the song
died, Lythande had stepped from the shadows, visible, and the firelight glinted
on the blue star, mocking at the centre of the high forehead.