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shakes, or indifference. Sometimes the latter was mixed with contempt for the questioners. Ehomba’s simple garb and Simna’s unindentured status sank them beneath the notice of the city’s privileged and elite. Those who replied to their polite inquiries were usually not in a position to know, and those who might be often did not condescend to respond.
    “This isn’t getting us anywhere.” Simna was still determined, but discouragement was settling into his voice like a bad cold.
    “Maybe we are going about it wrong.” Ehomba was gazing out to sea, a distant look in his eyes as he stared unblinkingly at the southern horizon. A ship corrupted his vision and he blinked. “Perhaps instead of asking individuals on the street, we should seek out one who can look by other means.”
    “A seer?” Simna eyed his friend uncertainly. “But aren’t you a seer, long bruther? Can’t you do the far-looking?”
    “If I could, do you think I would be discussing the matter now? When will you accept, Simna, that I am nothing more than what I say?”
    “When prodigious abnormalities stop occurring in your company. But I accept that you cannot seer.” The swordsman turned to drink in the surging mass of humanity and other creatures who filled the waterfront with unceasing activity. “If these insipid folk cannot tell us where to find bin Grue, then maybe they can tell us where to find someone who can.”
    They were directed to a tiny shopfront set in a stone building lined with narrow shuttered doorways, like vertical shingles. There was no name above the portal, which was embellished with many words written in scripts alien to Ehomba. The more worldly Simna recognized bits of two different languages, and by combining those words he knew from each, he was able to divine some meaning, like reconstituting juice from concentrate.
    “‘Moleshohn the All-Knowing,’” he translated for his companion. “‘Comprehender of Worlds and Provider of Sage Mandates.’” He sniffed. “Let’s see what he has to offer.”
    “How will we compensate him for his services?” Ehomba wondered.
    The swordsman sighed. “After paying for our passage across the Aboqua I still have some Chlengguu gold left. More than enough to satisfy some substandard waterfront wise man, anyway.”
    The door was not latched, and a small bell rang as they entered. The unpretentious front room contained a dusty clutter of incunabula, a table piled high with old books of dubious extraction, and a great deal of spoiling food and stale clothing. It did not look promising.
    The individual who emerged from a back room popped out to greet them like a badger winkling its way free of a too-small burrow. Moleshohn the All-Knowing’s appearance reflected far more prosperity than did his environment. Short and slim, he had a narrow face, bright ferret-eyes, a goatee that appeared to have been grafted onto his pointed chin from a much larger man, flowing gray hair, and more rapid hand movements than a professional shuffler of cards. The air in the modest room was stagnant until he entered. His ceaseless, highly animated waving stirred both it and innumerable dust particles into torpid motion.
    “Welcome, welcome, progenitors of a thousand benevolences! What can I do for you?” He did not so much sit as throw himself into the chair behind the table. Ehomba thought the worried wood would collapse from the impact, but the seat and back held. “You need a cheating lover found?” The seer smirked knowingly at Simna. “You seek gainful employment in Lybondai? You want to know the best inn, or where to find the sauciest wenches? The nature of mankind troubles you, or you have acquired some small but embarrassing disease that requires treatment?”
    “We have lost something.” Ehomba did not take a seat. Given a choice, herdsmen often preferred to stand. There was only one other chair in the room anyway, and Simna had already requisitioned it.
    “Do say, do say.” As he