and the quiet footsteps as she moved toward him, but would not look; could not.
Could this be? Didn’t she love what he had been, that brilliant and prospering
Sumese wizard-on-the-rise? She was a woman of beauty and she had been married to
wealth and power; Ezucar of Suma. This was … this was Sly’s Place.
And I am Ahdiovizun, not Ahdiomer Viz. Not anymore.
“That’s different. That’s all there is, and all there will be of my power and my
Practice, Jodeera. I’m so out of practice that one of the cats left me and I
can’t even locate him. That’s all buried. Ahdiovizun is the man who runs Sly’s
Place in the Maze in Sanctuary, and serves drinks wearing a coat of chain.”
He partly turned and bent then, to wriggle his shoulders and let the mailcoat
rustle clinkingly down over his head and arms. It became a smallish package,
which he placed on the bar as if it were not at all heavy.
“Let it be buried with Ezucar then,” she said softly, right beside him behind
the bar, “and the rest of the past. The present is that I love you, Ahdio. What
about the future? Can’t we start it right now?”
He looked at her, and the tears he saw on her cheeks caused those in his eyes to
well over. Then he was embracing her and being embraced, both of them striving
to meld their bodies into one. The embrace lasted a long, long while, and surely
no one who knew or thought he knew Ahdiovizun could imagine him weeping, as he
wept now. Some of their murmuring was incoherent but most of it was the
repeating of the other’s name, over and over.