slight-built man whose Nisi heritage showed in his face, a man bearing a small
narrow silk-wrapped package and another bulkier one, and looking as if he would
rather have been elsewhere. Last of all, more or less transparent from moment to
moment, came a ghost dressed in Hell-Hounds’ harness. It was Razkuli, dead a
long time, stealing wistful glances at the old, living Hell-Hound haunts.
The Promise of Heaven was even falser to its name than usual tonight. Word of
the procession had run up the street half an hour before, and the panic-stricken
ladies of the night had abandoned their usual territory in favor of one more
deserving of the title. Ischade strolled in past the stone pillar-gates of the
park, looking with cool amusement at the convenient bowers and bushes scattered
about for those who wished to begin their huggermuggering as soon as their
agreements with the park ladies were struck. The cover, copses of cypress and
downhanging willow, suited Ischade well. So did the little empty altar to Eshi
in the middle of the park. Once there had been a statue of her there, but
naturally the statue and its pediment had been stolen, leaving only a long
boxlike slab of marble much carved with PFLS graffiti and inscriptions such as
Petronius Loves Sulla.
She paused by the stone and ran gentle fingers along it. A dog’s howl went
wavering up into the cloudy night. Ischade looked up and smiled.
“You’re prompt,” she said. “It’s well. Haught, bring me what you carry. Stilcho,
fasten them here.”
Standing by the altar, Mriga and Siveni looked around them-Mriga with interest,