But with Enas Yorl handicapped and Lythande out of town, who was there to teach him how to use his power? The Temples were useless, and the stench of the Mage guild made him feel ill.
Quite close to him, someone sneezed. Lalo jumped, set his mug teetering, and grabbed for it.
"Do you mind if I borrow your cloak?"
Lalo blinked, then focused on a thin young man clad only in a metal dog collar who was reaching for the garment Lalo had draped over the other chair.
"It's still wet ..." he said helplessly.
"That's the only trouble with these transformations," the stranger shuddered as he wrapped the cloak around him, "especially in this kind of weather. But sometimes it's safer to travel in disguise."
Lalo shifted focus and saw the blue glow of power. The pride in the stranger's face was tempered by an almost puppy ish eagerness, and a hint of wistfulness as well, as if not all his magic could win him what he really desired.
"What do you want with me, Mage?"
"Oh, you can call me Randal, Master Limner ..." the mage grinned. He smoothed back his damp hair as if he were trying to hide his ears. "And what I want is you, or rather. Sanctuary does ..."
Lalo tried to cover his confusion with another sip of wine. He had heard about the Hazard-class sorcerer who worked with the Stepsons, but during the weeks when Lalo had been trying to learn magic from the priests of Savankala, the Tysian mage had been unaccountably absent. Lalo had never seen him before.
Randal fumbled at his collar and pulled out a tight roll of canvas. With that confident grin that was already beginning to rasp Lalo's nerves, he flattened it against the table.
"Do you recognize this drawing?" It was the picture of that mercenary Niko, in whose background two other faces had so unexpectedly appeared.
Lalo grimaced, knowing it all too well, and wishing, not for the first time, that he had never let Molin Torchholder take the damned thing. Certainly no one had given him any peace over it since. It was that, as much as the conclusion that the Temple teachers didn't know how to train him, that had driven him home again.
"How did you get that?" he asked sourly. "I thought His High and Mightiness kept it closer than an Imperial pardon."
"I borrowed it," said Randal enigmatically. "Look at it!" He brandished the paper under Lalo's nose. "Do you understand what you have done?"
"That's what Molin kept asking me-you should talk to him!"
"Perhaps I can understand your answers better than he did ..."
"The answers are all no!" Lalo said harshly. "I don't know what happens if you destroy one of my portraits. I've never tried to animate a portrait, and I'm not about to start experimenting. Not after the Black Unicorn.... You're the mage you tell me what I can do!"
"Perhaps I will," Randal said winningly, "if you'll help us in return."
"Us? What 'us'?" Lalo eyed him warily. Badly as he needed knowledge, he was even more desperately afraid of being used.
This time it was Randal who hesitated. "Everyone who wants to see some kind of order restored to Sanctuary," he said finally.
"By kicking out the Fish-eyes? My daughter serves one of their ladies at the Palace. They're not all bad-"
Randal shrugged. "Who is?" Then he frowned. "We just don't want them running us, that's all. But the Beysib are hardly the worst of our problems-" His long finger stabbed at the woman's face in the picture, that searingly beautiful face whose eyes were like the eyes of the Black Unicorn.
"She-" hissed the mage. "She's at the bottom of it. If we can destroy her-even contain her-maybe we can set the rest right!"
"You go right ahead," snapped Lalo. "Just drawing her picture was bad enough. Fight your own wars-it's nothing to do with me!"
Randal sighed. "I can't force you, but others may try. You'll wish you had allies then."
Lalo stared sullenly into his wine. "Threats won't move me either, mage!"
There was a short silence. Then Randal fumbled with his collar again.
"I'm not threatening you," he said tiredly. "I don't have to. Take this ..." From the apparently limitless compartment in his dog collar he pulled a wadded cloth. It opened out as it fell and Lalo saw a garish rainbow of red and blue and yellow and black and green. "It'll get you across town when you decide you need help from me. Ask for me at the Palace ..."
He paused, but Lalo would not meet his eyes. Randal got to his feet, and as his movement stirred the drawing, shadows lifted like dark wings in the corners of the room. Like the winged shadows in the picture, thought Lalo, shivering. Very carefully the mage rolled up the drawing. Lalo made no objection. He never wanted to see it, or the mage, again. His vision blurred and images moved just beyond the limits of his perception. He shuddered again.
"Thank you for the loan of your cloak ..." The words trailed off oddly.
Lalo looked up just in time to see his outer garment settle like a deflating balloon across the chair. Something wriggled beneath it, sneezed, and then pushed free. He saw a gaunt, wolfish dog stand up, shake itself, and lift one large ear inquiringly.
Even as a dog his ears are too big for him, thought Lalo. Fascinated in spite of himself, he watched as the animal sneezed again and trotted across the room. The tavern door obligingly opened itself, then snicked shut after him. And then there was only the crackling of the fire and the whisper of rain against the windows to keep him company.
I dreamed it, thought the limner, but the armband still lay before him, striped with all the colors of the lines that sectioned Sanctuary. And what is my color, the color of magic? Lalo wondered then. But there was no one to answer him.
He dropped a few coins onto the table and stuffed the armband into his pouch. Then he jammed his hat on over his thinning hair and wrapped the damp cloak around him. Now it smelled of dog as well as of wet wool.
And as that scent clung to the cloak, the mage's words stuck in Lalo's memory. His step quickened as he headed for the door. He had to warn Gilla-he had to get home.
"You tell me, Wedemir-you see more of the town than I do. Is your father right to be afraid?" Gilla paused in her sweeping and leaned on the broom, staring at her oldest son. Her two younger children were sitting at the kitchen table, drawing on their slates with some of Lalo's broken chalks. Chalk squeaked and Wedemir grimaced.
"Well, you still need a pass to get around," he answered her, "and who's fighting whom and why seems to change from day to day. But having the real Stepsons back in their barracks seems to have calmed the Beysibs down."
Suddenly Latilla screeched and grabbed for her little brother's arm. Alfi's slate crashed to the floor and he began to cry.
"Mama, he took the chalk right out of my hand!" exclaimed Latilla.
"Red chalk!" said Alfi through his tears, as if that explained it. He glared at his sister. "Draw red dragon to eat you up!" He slid down from his chair to retrieve the slate.
Gilla smacked his bottom and pulled him upright. "You're not going to draw anything until you learn some self-control!" She glanced toward the shut door to Lalo's studio. He had said he was going to paint, but she had seen him fast asleep on the couch when she looked in a quarter hour before.
"You're going to your room, both of you!" she told her small son and daughter. "Your father needs his rest, so play quietly!"
When they had gone, she picked up the fallen slate and fragments of chalk and turned back to Wedemir, who had sat through the altercation trying to look as if he had never seen either his brother or his sister before.
"That's not what I meant, and you know it," she said softly. "Lalo is not afraid of the Beysib. He's afraid of magic."