was a grating sound, followed by scrabbling, a square of light that came and
went, and when his horse danced forward, both Kama and the boy called Zip were
gone-if they’d ever been there.
Riding Mazeward on a horse suddenly and unreasonably skittish, he cursed himself
for a fool. No proof that it was Kama-what he’d seen could have been some
apparition, even the witch, Roxane, in disguise. He’d touched nothing; only seen
something he thought was Kama-there were undeads in Sanctuary who resembled the
forms they’d had in life, and some of those were Roxane’s slaves. Though if any
such had happened to Kama, he told himself, Strat would have sent word to him.
At least, the Strat he used to know would have. Right then, Critias could count
the things he knew for certain on the fingers of one hand.
But he knew he was going to the vampire woman’s house to find his partner. It
was just a matter of time; Kama’s allegations were already eating at his soul.
He had to leam the truth.
Kadakithis’s palace was full of fish-eyed Beysibs: Beysib men with more jewelry
on their persons than Rankan women from uptown or Ilsigi whores; Beysib women
female shock troops with bared and painted breasts and poison snakes wound about
their necks or arms-who seemed never to blink and gave Tempus gooseflesh.
Kadakithis wanted to introduce Tempus and Jihan to his Beysib flounder,
Shupansea; before Tempus could protest, in the prince/governor’s velvet-hung
chamber, that he needed no more women in his life, the Rankan prince had called