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set of nine curved canisters, half again as large as the amphorae....
    "Ah... the lady merchanter from the House of the Lesser Traders." Aljak steps out of the gloom at the rear of the cavernous structure toward the comparatively small groupings of goods just beyond the open warehouse door.
    Lorn focuses on the heavy-set but massively broad trader with the oiled curly black hair and the bush-like beard. Heavy bronze bands girdle overlarge wrists.
    "Trader Aljak." Ryalth inclines her head. "Sormet said you might have some cotton... some good Hamorian cotton."
    "That I do. That I do, lady merchanter. Aljak has what others lack." The big trader offers a rolling belly laugh that echoes falsely through the big warehouse, then turns and walks a good fifteen cubits before pointing at five bolts of off-white cloth, each hung on a rack above the stone floor of the warehouse. "Here ye be. Five full-length bolts of Hamorian first rate cotton, thread count guaranteed tighter than sixscore to the span, ready to bleach and dye. Twenty-five for the lot or seven and a half for each bolt, and I pick the bolts."
    Ryalth nods, then moves forward.
    Aljak steps back, his eyes flickering toward the darker section of the warehouse to the east.
    Lorn sees the other two men, nearly as big as the trader, with blades, iron blades, in the scabbards at their belts. His eyes flick back to the barrels of seed oil, then to Ryalth. As Ryalth examines each bolt of cotton, Lorn studies each with his chaos senses.
    After looking at the last bolt, Ryalth straightens and steps toward Lorn.
    He steps forward and murmurs, "The first two, the ones closest to the door, are garment class cotton, close to it. The other three are leavings or burlap or something wrapped in the good cotton."
    "He's asking five golds a bolt, if we take all of them."
    "What's a bale of garment class run?"
    "Bales are for raw cotton. Bolts are finished. I could sell it at ten a bolt to Guvell." She frowns. "Maybe fifteen if it's really good."
    The two burly men, each topping Lorn by a head, appear just behind the trader.
    "What say you, merchanter?"
    "Offer him eight for the first two bolts," Lorn suggests, noting the short timber leaning against an empty rack. He does not let his eyes even register its presence as he bends toward Ryalth. "Tell him we'd love to buy his cotton, but that it's far more than we need."
    "We'll take the first two bolts for eight golds total," Ryalth offers firmly.
    "Eight golds for that which will bring twenty, or perchance thirty. Ah... my friends... Well... perhaps you don't wish to buy my cotton after all. Sooner or later, you will. You merchanters won't have the golds to keep buying shimmercloth from the Hamorians, not with the barbarians pushing at your borders." Aljak and the two guards ease forward. Each guard bears a heavy club, besides the blades in the scabbards. Aljak has a coil of velvet rope in his left hand, and the teeth that his smile reveals are crooked and yellow.
    Lorn hides a frown, his attention on Ryalth-and the two thugs.
    "And lady merchanter... perhaps you would like to spend some time with a real man, not a girlish enumerator." Aljak laughs harshly. "To seal a bargain, shall we say."
    "When I tell you, dash toward the oil barrels... all right?" Lorn murmurs to Ryalth.
    "You won't pay me twenty-five? How about twenty-five just to leave here?" Aljak laughs again, and the two guards step away from him, as if to flank Lorn and Ryalth.
    "Now!" Lorn says.
    As Ryalth bolts for the oil barrels, the student magus concentrates- hoping he can pull chaos from enough places-then flings the firebolt into Aljak.
    Hsssttt!
    "Aeeeeiiii Dung-devil..." Aljak's words are cut off.
    The two guards freeze as they see the pillar of fire. Lorn uses the interval to cast two more firebolts. Hssst.' Hssst!
    The other two figures writhe, screaming, momentarily, before they topple into charred heaps.
    Lorn scans the rest of the warehouse, but the space is empty, as he