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never forgot to remind the girl that every member of the troupe must do his part, earn his keep, pull his share of the load. His nagging homilies forever in her ears, Erill learned to do one thing and another for him and about the carnival. When someone left an asp in Wurdis' boot one night, another assumed management of the loose-knit caravan, and Erill made her own way.
    She was thin, with the flat muscles and agile limbs of an acrobat, and her figure seemed to have attained such fullness as it ever would. She had a firm jaw, a square chin, full lips and straight nose, and the sort of mobile features that remained expressive under a painted mask. Her hair was a close-curled shock of blonde, and her eyes were a shade of green that matched the fillet of jade beads she always wore.
    Jade also was the tiny pipe from which she sucked the last tingling lungful of opiated hashish. Erill blew a wreath of smoke toward the wavering torches beyond the wall, coughed softly, and despondently examined the oily lump of ash in the stained bowl. It was only ash, and crumbled beneath the stub of reed taper. Erill cursed again. It was her last.
    "You'd be advised to keep your wits about you tonight," admonished Boree, joining her along the parapet. "If the Satakis carry the wall, there's a chance to make a break during the street fighting."
    "What the hell difference does it make, Boree?" Erill scowled at the pock-faced fortune teller whose wagon she shared. "There's no refuge in Gillera. We're trapped here. The Satakis will roll over these ancient walls in a single rush--and they'll massacre us all because these damn fools dared to resist them."
    Boree shrugged her mannish shoulders. "Where there's life, there's a chance."
    "Chance, hell."
    Boree drew a flat ebony box from the purse at her belt. She released its lid, slipped the deck of lacquered black squares into her palm. "See what your chances are," she invited, extending the deck to Erill.
    Erill made a motion to take the cards, then waved them aside. "Hell, I'll take my chances as I find them."
    "Or as they find you," Boree intoned sombrely.
    "Go haunt someone else tonight, will you?" Erill snapped. "Whatever's coming, I just want to get enough of a load on so I won't feel it when it hits me."
    "Just take the cards," Boree persisted.
    If only to get rid of her, Erill accepted the deck of twenty-seven black cards, shuffled them expertly, cut three from the deck and lay them face down on the parapet.
    Boree's long-nailed fingers flipped them over. Erill tried to peer past her shoulder, but the older woman's black tangle of hair obscured her view. Silently Boree returned the cards to their ebony casket.
    "Well?"
    "You're too hashish-sotted to do it right," the dark-haired woman told her gruffly. Not meeting Erill's gaze, she quickly turned and left the rooftop.
    Erill swore and hugged her shoulders. She wore only a thin bandeau and slitted cotton skirt of calf length. It seemed suddenly cold, alone here in the night. The last night of her life, most probably.
    Damn Boree! Erill had wandered up here for solitude and hashish-tinted oblivion. Boree's gloomy presence had restored a grim sense of reality to the night.
    "I don't want to die," Erill whispered to the night.
    "Of course not," the night answered.
    Erill caught her breath, spun about. The hashish... of course.
    "Nor is there need for you to die," the night assured her.
    Erill pressed a knuckle to her teeth, felt for the triangular-bladed poniard she wore at her belt.
    A portion of the darkness detached itself. It was a figure in a black robe, face hidden in shadowy cowl. Erill had seen the priests of Sataki in her girlhood in Ingoldi. She knew that she looked upon one now.
    "Only those who oppose Sataki shall die," the cowled figure whispered. "It is the rulers of Gillera who thus deny Sataki's power, and not Gillera's people. What a pity that the masses must suffer for the sins of their rulers."
    Erill stared at the shadowy figure,