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"You can't run away."

"I know. I tried to leave the Sword down there today. It wouldn't let me. When I got fifteen feet away, I started shaking. It hurt. It made me run back and grab it."

"That's spooky."

"That's terrifying. I can't live with it and I can't live without it."

"Don't think about it." She leaned over a small fire and simmering pot. "A soldier gave me a rabbit and some vegetables." She raised the pot lid. Stew smells tantalized Gathrid's nose.

"Smells good."

"Then just think about supper."

"How soon?"

"I don't know. What do I know about cooking? I just did what the man told me."

Exasperated, Gathrid asked, "How long did he say?" He wished she would discourage these soldiers more.

"All right. Another half hour, I guess."

"I'm going for a walk, then."

What he did was run. Strongly and steadily, as he had not been able since his bout with polio. And as he ran, exhilarating in his ability, he reflected that the Sword was not all bad. It hadn't given him a lot, but had given something important.

And he thought about Loida and how her fears and his nagging depression kept them from communicating about anything that mattered, kept them from getting to know one another. She got along better with Gacioch and the young soldiers who kept buzzing round. She and the demon went on like a brother and sister comedy insult act.

He wished he could reassure the girl. He could not. They both knew their fears were not imaginary.

They would be heading for Ventimiglia's capital tomorrow. Loida would be in great peril there. So might he be, though reason said the Mindak had no excuse for treachery yet.

Near the end of his run he glimpsed the dwarf scrambling through the rocks, following him. He grinned. Served Rogala right, having to bust his tail to stay near the Sword. He upped his pace.

All the disorder, squalor, misery and crowding lacking in the country manors was concentrated in Senturia. Gathrid tapped his memories. He knew the slums well. These Quarters produced the soldiers who fleshed out the brigades. No other career offered such opportunities for the poor.

There was plunder to be had, out on the frontiers. A man who survived a tour with his brigade could buy his way out.

Gathrid searched their dreams, their so-small dreams, marveling at those men, and pitying them.

The Mindak's party passed through the slums. People ignored them. Farther in, Gathrid saw buildings and monuments known to his soldier-souls only by repute. There had been a renaissance during the last century. Senturia's heart had been demolished, then rebuilt as the domain of the wealthy. The poor encircled the rich like ramparts of despair.

The city's center boasted a dozen scattered palacios belonging to Ventimiglia's leading families.

Between them lay great plazas, imaginative fountains, reflecting lakes and the somber structures of the colleges and universities where wizardry was taught and knowledge preserved. There was a feral park from which deer peeped out as the riders passed. This district denied that poverty could exist in the Mindak's Empire.

"Look at the pigeons," Loida murmured. "There must be millions of them."

One of Gathrid's spare souls snickered. Pigeons were wards of the Twelve Families. It was a crime to harm them. Even so, poor folk of the Quarters made the birds guests of honor at many a meal.

Ahlert's home proved to be a rambling, interconnected mass of baroque structures covering a dozen acres atop a low hill. A few armed men, flashy in family colors, patrolled a walkway encircling a ten-foot wall. They looked bored. On spying their master they became jaunty and arrogant.

"The House of the Five Fountains," Ahlert told Gath-rid. "Don't ask about the name. There're six fountains. Four for fresh water... . My ancestors must have had grandiose plans."

"More grandiose plans," Rogala muttered. "He calls it a house. I've seen smaller cities."

"How many people live here?" Gathrid asked. Loida had been imprisoned here. He hadn't believed her stories before.

"It varies. We're at a high point now, what with our western venture. Several thousand."

Gathrid exchanged glances with Loida. The girl looked triumphant.

The quiet seen from outside the house proved to be a mask. The House of the Five Fountains was busy as an ant's nest. Loida said, "Those are the clerks and accountants who keep track of profits and cost out west."

Whole courtyards were filled with western plunder. It was decaying for want of buyers. Gathrid looked for something from Gudermuth. He did not find a thing. .

Ahlert told him, "I was too successful. I saturated the market. We quit plundering after we occupied Greven-ing. We're concentrating on long-term projects now. Mainly colonial ventures."

Gathrid controlled his temper. The reckoning would come. Those who had died to enrich Ahlert would be avenged.

People stared at him. They avoided his eye. They knew him. They were afraid.

The Mindak observed, "Our alliance won't be popular. I don't think they realize what losing control of Nie-roda means."

Rogala grumbled, "Those brigades rebelled out of boyish high spirits, eh?"

"Some people take that attitude. They think they'll come around. They can't encompass the noncommercial aspect." Ahlert halted, dismounted, handed his animal to a groom. A platoon of stableboys took the other mounts. "It snuck up on us. We found Ansorge when there were civil wars in Gorsuch and Silhavy. They were weak. We were strong. The wizardries we controlled, augmented from Ansorge, made us think we could enrich the family on the cheap.''

"And you became addicted to conquest."

"Not entirely. Greed had more to do with it. The Corichs got excited by all the loot. They wanted more. The great families wanted their share. More powerful and effective weapons were coming out of Ansorge. We found Nieroda and the Toal. It looked like nothing could stop us."

Ahlert led them through long marble hallways filled with bustling clerks. "Then I started changing. A few years ago the title Emperor meant nothing. I took it to heart. I got grand ideas.

A world-spanning Empire, at peace. My family mastering its commerce. ... I hadn't heard of Chuchain or Suchara. I didn't know my delvings in Ansorge were wakening them, or that Chuchain was whispering into my dreams. Sometimes I wish I hadn't found the Hidden City."

They entered a large hall. The houseboys bearing personal effects spread out, heading in several directions. Ahlert sped his guests hither and yon. Loida and Gathrid followed a half-dozen servants. Between them they hadn't enough possessions to burden one. Gathrid still wore the clothing in which he had fled Kacalief. He looked and smelled it, though he had washed when he could. Loida wore the clothing in which she had, fled the Mindak's nephews.

She said, "That man doesn't sound like a mad conqueror. ''

Gathrid replied, "I haven't met anybody who fit his part. Except maybe Gerdes Mulenex. The others are as reluctant as I am."

"What about your sister?"

"I don't know. She was a special case. Maybe she was like Mulenex. She did fit in with what happened to her."

They climbed several flights of stairs. Ahlert's palacio ceased being showy off the level where visitors were welcomed. Their rooms, facing one another across a bare, narrow third-floor hallway, were windowless, small and spartan. A houseboy told Gathrid, "Don't be alarmed, Lord. The Mindak himself sleeps in a room like this." He leaned close, confided, "It's an affectation of the family. Humble beginnings, you know. They want to remind themselves that it isn't a long way from Five Fountains to the Quarters."

"The more I see of him and Ventimiglia, the more confused I get. Every conclusion I draw gets contradicted."

The servant smiled. "We puzzle ourselves, Lord." Gathrid kept the man there. He did not mind wasting the afternoon chatting. Gathrid pumped him about the Mindak and his family.

A dozen generations back, Ahlert's ancestors had been mercenaries. Luck, a talent for politics and sorcery, and a run of steel-willed offspring had built Ventimiglia's most powerful house.