Dagger

The Napatan scholar mounted gracefully and used Samlor's arm like the bar of a trapeze to swing himself over the lintel. Only then did the caravan master turn to see where they were and what his niece was doing.

Star had set swimming through the air a trio of miniature octopuses made of light. A blue creature drifted beneath the ceiling frescoed with scenes of anthropomorphic deities, a yellow one prowled beneath the legs of a writing table sumptuous with mother-of-pearl inlays.

The third miniature octopus was of an indigo so pale that it barely showed up against the carven door against which it bobbed feebly.

"Where's- Samlor said as he looked narrowly at Khamwas. "You know, your little friend?"

Tjainufi reappeared on the Napatan's right shoulder. The manikin moved with the silent sudde

"Khamwas," the Cirdonian added as he looked around them, "if you can locate what we're after, then get to it. I really don't want t' spend any longer here than I need to."

"Look, Uncle," Star squealed as she pranced over to the writing desk. "Mommie's box."

Samlor's speed and reflexes were in proper form after his exertions, but his judgment was off. He attempted to spring for the desk before Star got there, and his boots skidded out from under him on the wet marble. Because he'd swept the long dagger from his belt as part of the same unthinking maneuver, he had only his left palm to break his fall. The shock made the back of his hand tingle and the palm burn.

Khamwas had retrieved his staff. He stopped muttering to it when the Cirdonian slapped the floor hard enough to make the loose bars roll and jingle among themselves. "Are you. .?" he began, offering a hand to the sprawling bigger man.

"See, Uncle Samlor?" said the child, returning to the caravan master with an ivory box in her hands. "It's got mommie's mark on it."

"No, go on with your business," said Samlor calmly to the Napatan. He felt the prickly warmth of embarrassment painting his skin, but he wouldn't have survived this long if he lashed out in anger every time he'd made a public fool of himself. "Find the stele you're after, and then we'll see what Star's got here."

He took the box from the child as quickly as he could

without letting it slip from his numbed fingers. Even if it were just what it seemed-a casket of Samlane's big enough to hold a pair of armlets-it could be extremely dangerous.

Much of what Samlor's sister had owned, and had known, fell into that category, one way or another.

Khamwas' face showed the concern which any sane man would feel under the circumstances, but he resumed his meditation on-or prayers to-his staff.

Star's palm-sized creatures of light continued their slow patrol of the room. The caravan master seemed to have broken into a large study. There was a couch to one side of the door and on the other the writing desk with matching chair. The chair lay on its back, as if its last occupant had jumped up hastily.

Most of the interior wall space was taken up by cedarwood cabinets for books and scrolls. Even the palely drifting smears of light showed that the works ranged widely in age and quality of binding, but the varied types were intermixed within individual cabinets. Samlor did not doubt that the library was arrayed in a rigid order; but he was willing to bet that he would not be able to discover that order if he spent a year among the shelves.

His instinct about the tapestry he had dropped through the bars had been correct. Its counterpart still hung on the wall. The design worked into it in gorgeous color was religious. . depending on one's definition of the term. The border was formed of curlicues, interrupted at regular intervals by nodes.

The indigo octopus pulled itself along the border, illuminating the pattern beneath the groping tentacles. The embroidered nodes were humans contorted with pain. The curlicues were intestines, pulled an anatomically reasonable distance from gaping bellies.

Setios appeared to be exactly the sort of man that Samlane could be expected to meet. "Open it, Uncle!" Star demanded. Samlor still had the coffin-hilted dagger in his hand. His glance around the room had been a professional assessment of the situation, not daydreaming. The child had her own agenda, though, and this casket was-might,be-the thing that had brought them to Sanctuary to begin with.

Khamwas still murmured over his staff. The caravan master got up with caution born of experience and walked over to the writing desk. A triple-wicked oil lamp hung from a crane attached to the desktop. It promised real illumination when Samlor lit it with the brass fire-piston in his wallet.

"There's no oil, Uncle Samlor," said Star with the satisfaction of a child who knows more than adult. She cupped her hand again and turned it up with a saffron glow in the palm. The creatures of light still drifting about the room dimmed by comparison. "See?"

The bowl of the lamp was empty except for a sheen in its center, oil beyond the touch of the wicks. Only one of the three wicks had been lighted at the lamp's last use. When the flame had consumed all the oil, it reduced the twist of cotton to ash. The other wicks were sharply divided into black and white, ready to function if the fuel supply were renewed.

Setios had really left in a hurry.

"Fine, hold the light where it is, darling," Samlor said to his niece as calmly as if he were asking her to pass the bread at table. The casket wasn't anything which the Cirdonian remembered from his youth, but the family crest-the rampant wy vern of the House of Kodrix-was enameled on the lid. Beneath it was carven in Cirdonian script the motto An Eagle Does Not Snatch Flies.

Samlor's parents had never forgiven him for ru

Which couldn't save Samlane from herself, but was the best effort possible for a brother who didn't claim to be a god.

The light hanging beneath Star's hand did not have clearly defined tentacles like those of the creatures still wandering the room, but there were whorls of greater and lesser intensity within its membranous boundaries. Samlor was determined not to scream and slap at the glow which he needed in this place, but the instinct to do so was very strong.

The lid did not rise under gentle pressure from his left thumb. There was no visible catch or keyhole, but the little object had to be a box-it didn't weigh enough for a block of solid ivory. Samlor put his dagger down on the desk to free his right hand-

And read the superscription on the piece of parchment there, a letter barely begun:

To Master Samlor hil Samt

If you are well, it is good. 1 also am well.

I enclose w

The script was Cirdonian, and the final letter trailed off in a sweep of ink across the parchment. Following the curve of that motion, Samlor saw a delicate silver pen on the marble floor a few feet to the side of the desk.

Samlor set down the ivory box, and he very deliberately kept the weapon in his hand. From the look of matters, Setios might have been better off if he'd been holding a blade and not a pen a week or so earlier. Instinctively, the caravan master's left arm encircled Star, locating the child while he turned and said, "Khamwas. This is important. I think I've been doing Setios an injustice, thinking he'd ducked out to avoid me."

The other man was so still that not even his chest moved with the process of breathing. The absolute stillness was camouflaged for a moment by the fact that the octopuses threw slow, vague shadows as they circled the room. The manikin on Khamwas' shoulder was executing some sort of awkward dance with his legs stiff and his arms akimbo.