It was a fair test of strength, ordained by our masters, Rabben should bear me
no ill-will… Rabben’s presence in Sanctuary need not have to do with Lythande.
He might be here upon his lawful occasions – if anything of Rabben’s could be
said to be lawful; for it was only upon the last day of all that the Pilgrim
Adepts were pledged to fight upon the side of Law against Chaos. And Rabben had
not chosen to do so before then.
Caution would be needed, and yet Lythande knew that Rabben was near …
South and east of the governor’s palace, there is a little triangular park,
across from the Street of Temples. By day the gravelled walks and turns of
shrubbery are given over to predicants and priests who find not enough worship
or offerings for their liking; by night the place is the haunt of women who
worship no goddess except She of the filled purse and the empty womb. And for
both reasons the place is called, in irony, the Promise of Heaven; in Sanctuary,
as elsewhere, it is well known that those who promise do not always perform.
Lythande, who frequented neither women nor priests as a usual thing, did not
often walk here. The park seemed deserted; the evil winds had begun to blow,
whipping bushes and shrubbery into the shapes of strange beasts performing
unnatural acts; and moaning weirdly around the walls and eaves of the Temples
across the street, the wind that was said in Sanctuary to be the moaning of
Azyuna in Vashanka’s bed. Lythande moved swiftly, skirting the darkness of the
paths. And then a woman’s scream rent the air. From the shadows Lythande could