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that his cape was rearranged.
    "Who would you be, my friend?" Samlor asked without hostility or any other motion.
    "My name is Khamwas," the fellow said in a cultured voice that tried to be calm. The peak of his hood must have added several inches to his height, because he was clearly shorter than the caravan master as well as being much more slightly built. "I'm a stranger here in your city."
    The manikin silently reappeared on Khamwas' shoulder. The tiny features were unreadable in the dim light, but the figure's pose was apprehensive.
    "Did you have a friend in that tavern?" asked the caravan master softly. When his right thumb turned to indicate the wall of the Vulgar Unicorn, the point of the push dagger winked knowingly toward Khamwas' eyes. "A brother, maybe?" Reaching out on a sudden whim, Samlor jerked open the other man's cape. He knew the body he'd thrown ahead of him through the tavern window was dead, but the faces were so much alike. . . .
    There were no bloodstains on this man's clothes and the
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    David Drake
    garments themselves were different—
    though of a not dissimilar fashion. A linen
    tunic bared Khamwas' right shoulder but covered most of his chest, and the belt that cinched it at the waist was of dark brocade, red or blue—
    certainly not
    gold.
    "I beg your pardon," Khamwas said, touching his cape closed again with cautious dignity. "I have no brothers, and I don't know anyone in this city. I'm a scholar from a far country, and I've come to ask a favor here from a man named Setios."
    "Uncle, that—
    " blurted Star, catching herself before Samlor's free hand could waggle a warning.
    "A bird who flies to the nest of another," chirped the manikin sententiously,
    "will lose a feather."
    "What in hell is that?" asked the caravan master deliberately, pointing at the manikin with his right index finger. The bodkin-bladed push dagger parallelled the gesturing finger as if by chance.
    The manikin eeped and cowered. Khamwas reached across to his right shoulder with his cupped hand, as if to shield and stroke the little creature simultaneously.
    "He does no harm, sir," the self-styled scholar replied calmly. "I—
    when I was
    younger, you understand—
    prayed to certain powers for wisdom. They sent me this
    little fellow instead. His name is Tjainufi."
    The manikin stared balefully at Khamwas, but his tiny arm reached out to pat the hand protecting him. "A fool who wants to go with a wise man," he said, "is a gooSe who wants to go with the slaughter knife."
    Samlor blinked. He was confused, but that probably didn't matter, not compared to a dozen other things. "You know my name, then?" he said, harshly again, sure that Khamwas had to have some connection with the stranger in the tavern. A sorcerer who knew your name had the first knot in a rope of power to bind you. .
    . .
    "Sir, I know no one in your city," Khamwas repeated, drawing himself up and planting the staff firmly before him with his hands linked on it. "I have a daughter the age of your niece, so I—
    tried, I should say, to intervene when she
    seemed to be in difficulties."

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    He paused. For an instant his staff glowed again. The grain of the wood made ripples in the phosphorescence, and a haze of light wrapped Khamwas' hands like a real fog.
    Star reached past her uncle and touched the staff.
    The glow flickered out as Khamwas started, but a tinge of blue clung to the child's fingers as she withdrew them. Samlor did not swear, because words had power-—
    especially at times like these. His left hand caressed his niece's hair, offering human contact when he could not be sure what help, if any, the child required.
    If Khamwas' toying had done any harm, he would be fed his liver on the point of a knife.
    Star giggled while both men watched her with fear born of uncertainty. She opened her fingers slowly and the glow between their tips grew and paled like the sheen of an expanding soap bubble. Then it popped as if it had never been. Khamwas