Downwind on the other side lost their mystery by daylight and became the ugly
thing they were. The poor shuffled about their eternal business of staying
alive, whatever the business of the night. It was a peaceful day in Sanctuary
and the other-side. The invisible lines still existed; but they weakened by day,
descending to amiable formality, expecting no assault. The iron discipline of
the gangs and the death squads gave way to pragmatic spot-searches, Ilsigi poor
taking their little chances with the lines they could cross, beggars begging
their usual territories. Death squads operated nightly; bodies turned up by
daylight to impress the populace.
But a Stepson still rode through, down the invisible no-man’s line of the
riverside. Strat saw the blue graffiti on one wall; saw red on another, where
rival gangs blazoned their claims at riverside.
He knew hate surrounded him. He felt it in the city, felt it when he rode up the
daylit streets in Jubal’s territory-toward the Black line where members of the
Band and the 3rd Commando held their own, keeping the bridge and one long street
open from the Stepson Yellow line in the west, through Red through Blue and into
the Black of the Mageguild’s territory, commerce maintained against every
attempt of the individual militias and factions to shut it down. It was a
demonstration Ranke was not yet done; and some wanted to demonstrate otherwise.
His eyes scanned the way that he rode, his skin absorbed the temperature of the
glances that fell on him.
The mongrel crowds of Sanctuary were out by daylight. The workmen and the