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let out his breath abruptly. "Sir," he said to the caravan master, "I didn't realize. Forgive me for intruding in your affairs." Tjainufi, who had disappeared when Star lifted light from the staff, now waggled an arm at Khamwas and said, "Do not say, 'I am learned.' Set yourself to become wise."
    Khamwas would have stepped by and continued up the alley, but Samlor restrained him with a gesture that would have become contact if the scholar had not halted.
    "You saved Star from a bad time before I got here," he said. "And likely you saved me, besides distracting the little bastards. My name's Samlor nil Samt." He sheathed the little dagger behind his collar. "You and I need to talk."
    "All right, Master Samlor," agreed the other man, though the way his lips pursed showed that the suggestion was not one he would have made himself. He gestured up the passageway, the direction from which the Cirdonian had come, and added,
    "There are more suitable places to discuss matters than here, I'm certain."
    "No," said Samlor flatly, "there's not." It wasn't worth his time to explain that the direction in which Khamwas was headed would be a no-go area for at least the next hour. The passageway was narrow enough to
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    be defended by one man, and both flanks were protected by masonry that would require siege equipment to breach. If their luck were really out, they could be attacked from both directions simultaneously, but that risk was better than being trapped in a cul-de-sac with no bolthole.
    Given the nature of Sanctuary, this was probably the safest place within a league in any direction.
    "What do you know about Setios?" the caravan master demanded, no more threatening than was implicit in the fact that he had already demonstrated his willingness and ability to kill.
    Star was squatting, her skirts lifted and wrapped around her thighs to keep the hem from lying in the muck. A tiny glow spun within the globe of her hands as she cooed. Its color was more nearly yellow than the blue which had washed Khamwas' staff.
    The glow was reflected faintly by the eyes of the dead youth. Khamwas' face worked in something between a grimace and a moue of embarrassment as he watched the child. "Ah," he said to Samlor. "That is, ah—
    are you . . . ?"
    The caravan master shook his head, glad to find that the question amused him rather than arousing any of the other possible emotions. "On a good day," he said, "I might be able to recite a spell without stumbling over the syllables—

    if somebody wrote 'em out for me really careful." That was an exaggeration, though not a great one,
    "My sister, though," he added, embarrassed himself for reasons the other man should not be able to fathom, "that was more her line." To the extent that anything besides sex was Samlane's line.
    "I see," said Khamwas, and he continued to glance down at the child even as he returned to the earlier question. "I don't know Setios at all," he explained,
    "but I know—
    I've been told by, well—
    "
    He shrugged. Samlor nodded grimly; but if this fellow called himself scholar rather than wizard, he at least recognized that the latter was a term of reproach to decent men.

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    "Serve your god, that he may guard you," said Tjainufi, stroking his master's—
    could Khamwas be called that?—
    right ear.
    "He has," Khamwas went on after the awkward pause, "a stele from my own land, from Napata—
    "
    "Of course," Samlor interrupted, placing the stranger at least. "The Land of the River."
    "The river," Khamwas agreed with a nod of approval, "and of the desert. And in the desert, many monuments of former times—
    " he paused again, gave a gentle
    smile "—
    greater times for my people, some would say, though I myself am content."
    "You want to—
    retrieve," said Samlor, avoiding the question of means, "a monument that this Setios has. Is he a magician?"
    "I don't know," said Khamwas with another shrug. "And I don't need the stele, only a chance to look at it. 'And, ah,