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Lussar, Malmaj, and other minor Balhibo cities. And beyond the little park to the east, across the boundary of the Bacha, Fallon could discern the onion-dome of the Chapel of Yesht. This was used for the minor services, to which the general public was admitted. Here were held classes for the instruction of prospective converts and other such activities. But the priests of Yesht allowed laymen into their major stronghold only on significant occasions, and then only tried and established members of the sect.
    Fallon came around to the entrance, corresponding to the opening of the shell of a living safq. The beams of Karrim showed the immense bronze doors which, it was rumored, turned upon ball bearings of jewels. They still showed the marks of the futile attack by the soldiers of Ruz, hundreds of Krishnan years before. To the left of these doors something white caught Fallon’s eye.
     
    He strode closer. No sound came from inside, until he put his ear against the chilly bronze of the portal. Then, something did come to him: a faint thump or bang, rhythmically repeated, but too muted by distance and thicknesses of masonry for Fallon to tell whether it-was the sound of a drum, a gong, or a beaten anvil. After a while it stopped, then began again.
    Fallon turned his attention from this puzzle—whose solution would no doubt transpire once he got inside the Safq—to the white thing, which, comprised a number of sheets of native Krishnan paper tacked to the temple’s bulletin-board with thorns of the qulaf-bush. Across the top of the board appeared the words DAKHT VA-YESHT ZANIDO. (Cathedral of Yesht in Zanid.) Fallon, though not very skilled in written Balhibou, managed to puzzle it out. The word “Yesht” was easy to pick out, for in the Balhibo print or book-hand characters it looked something like “OU62,” though it read from right to left.
    He strained his eyes at the sheets. The biggest said PROGRAM OF SERVICES; but despite the brightness of the double moonlight, he could not read the printing below it. (When he had been younger, he thought, he could have read it.) At last he took out his Krishnan cigar-lighter and snapped it into flame.
    Then Fallon leaned against the board, got out a small pad and pencil, and copied off the wording.

Chapter IV
    When Anthony Fallon walked into the armory, Captain Kordaq was sitting at the record-table—his crested helmet standing on the floor beside him and a pair of black-rimmed spectacles upon his nose—writing by lamplight. He was bringing the company rolls up to date, and looked up over the tops of his eyeglasses at Fallon. “Hail, Master Antanel Where’s your squad?”
    Fallon told him.
    “Good—most excellent, sir. A deed of dazzling thought, worthy of a very Qarar. Take your ease.” The captain picked up a jug and poured an extra cup of shurab. “Master Antane, be you not the jagain of Gazier-Doukh?”
    “Yes. How did you know?”
    “Something you said.”
    “Why—do you know her, too?”
    Kordaq sighed. “Aye. In former times I aspired to that position myself. I burned with passion like a lake of lava, but ere aught could come of it her only brother was slain and I lost touch with her. Might I impose upon your hospitality to the extent of renewing an old acquaintance some day?”
    “Surely, any time. Glad to have you around.”
    Fallon looked toward the door as his squad trailed in to report the prisoners, and witness duly delivered to the House of Justice. He said: “Rest your bones a minute, boys, before we start out again.”
    The squad sat around and drank shurab for a quarter-hour. Then another squad came in from its round, and Kordaq gave -Fallon’s crew its orders for the next round: “Go out via Barfur Street, then head south along the boundary of the Dumu, for Chilian’s gang of rogues infests the eastern march of the Dumu…”
    The Dumu, southernmost district of Zanid, was notorious as the city’s principal thieves’ quarter. Those from other