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He and Majnuna were in the wings of the stage when one of the aruriisthion had found a service entrance to the hall s underbelly It was hidden by a cluotten the service entrances didnt want to ruin the beauty of the building with anything as sordid as taking out the rubbish,he panted as he and his aruri simple if they can think of a complicated way around it

Quickly they found the path into the greenery and followed it to a circle of open ground An open door yawned at its centre On top of the steps leading down lay the body of a yaskedasu

Deain

He looked around They had been quiet since co outside There was a chance that the killer was still nearby

An application of heartbeat powder over the dead woman told him shed been dead less than an hour He didnt waste tiulped a mouthful of stepsfind and sprayed it over the yaskedasu In the glooht it drifted to one side of her, and shiround

None of the arurih the back ways of Heskalifos, through alleys and service entrances hidden with brush and trees, until the trail of the kille r turned downhill They followed hiht up to the white hly protected by cleansing ht the priests out to discover as round his teeth The killer had vanished into the bowels of the Heskalifos te He had carried his pollution into the teuardian spells erased all trace of hi from a trail so plainly marked Dema could have followed it blindfolded

Take too much on yourself,a priestess infor as his people searched outside the grounds in case the Ghost had not vanished into the service tunnels You think thatdead, a tool to be used,she continued, standing beside hi priestess She had the age for it, with laugh lines and the lines drawn by long watches frae with delicate nostrils, her thin-lipped mouth painted the same red that decorated her robes

is not dead,protested De for his arurimi it is a tool, a device we can use to set the balance of justice right

The priestess shook her head is a living force that obeys its own time and its os We must accept that and learn to live with it, for our own serenitys sake Magic leaves us no choice

De a choice

The priestess rested a hand on his shoulder Dema looked at her, wary So far his contacts with this particular priesthood were less than encouraging