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the mace he clutched in the other hand. Garett recognized the salute for what it truly was, an offer to help if help was needed.
    The followers of St. Cuthbert were like that, helpful to the point of being meddlesome. Garett returned the salute, then turned his back to the old man as a gesture of “thanks, but no thanks.”
    Why Acton Kathenor? Garett asked himself slowly. Why the high priest of Boccob and not the priests of Celestian or St. Cuthbert? Some personal grudge? An old enemy of Kathenor’s?
    Garett glanced toward the Temple of Istus, a two-level sprawling complex just to the left and down the road. No lights burned in any of its windows, and as far as he could see, no one stirred upon its open grounds.
    Footsteps sounded on the marble steps behind him. Garett turned as Burge, minus the torch, descended to his side and gave an exaggerated sigh that did little to mask the impatience and irritation that radiated from him. “It’s times like this, Cap’n,” he muttered, “when I wish I’d never left the elven highlands and my father’s people.” “Death can be disturbing,” Garett agreed, “particularly the grisly ones like this.”
    “Give me a break, Cap’n.” Burge answered disdainfully. He shot a look over his shoulder at the half-open temple door. “It’s priests, I’m talkin’ about. Mealymouthed psalm-sayers. One of ’em tried to convert me while we were finishin’ up. ‘Get a life,’ I told him.” The violet of Burge’s eyes flashed suddenly in the street light as he rubbed a hand over the dark stubble of his cheek, frowned further, and continued shaking his head. “Soft as a slug’s belly, he was, under that robe. Never so much as held a sword in his life. You could tell by lookin’ at him.”
    Garett smiled inwardly. Normally, he couldn’t stand elves or folks with elven blood. Too damned ethereal and otherworldly for his tastes. It was almost impossible to hold a decent conversation with one, unless it was on some matter of philosophy, and that usually degenerated into a lecture if a human dared hold another point of view. Oh, they were great hunters and artists and builders and all that. But there was a chauvinism in most of them that he found more than vaguely annoying.
    Not Burge, though. It seemed his mother had managed to get herself pregnant by some passing elf prince who’d promised her the world, shown her the hayloft, and vanished shortly after. With an almost vengeful determination, she’d grounded her son in the agrarian values of small-town farming life, attempting to stifle any trace of otherworldliness he might harbor in his father’s blood. In time, of course, Burge rebelled and ran away to seek his father. But his mother’s training had taken root too deeply. After a short stay with his father’s people in the highlands, he left and took a job as a riverboatman working the Nyr Dyv and the Selintan. That life, with all its crudities and hardships, had driven the last drop of elven influence from his blood. At least that’s what Burge had once confided to Garett.
    Every now and then, though, Garett thought with an inward grin, the elf part still slipped out.
    Blossom, Rudi, and the two remaining men of Rudi’s patrol emerged from the temple. They descended the steps to the point where Garett and Burge stood, then they went down to the street together. Garett glanced up at the priests of St. Cuthbert, who were beginning to file back into their own temple, as if realizing that whatever excitement had brought the City Watch running was at last over. Only the old white-haired priest kept vigil as Garett and his companions passed by on their way back to the Citadel.
    “We’re going to have to go to the Wizards’ Guild with this one,” Blossom said quietly.
    Garett agreed. He’d have to make a full report to Korbian, of course, and the Directorate would have to approve any involvement by the Wizards’ Guild. Seeing Korbian meant staying up at least until