An inferno that had once been a building raged madly against the black of the night sky. It was one of the nearby tenement blocks, and it was a solid sheet of flame from its foundation to its roof. It couldn’t have been more fully involved, and Alberich was struck motionless for a moment at the sight, for he couldn’t imagine how it had gotten that way so quickly—short of a Red-Robe Priest’s demon calling. For one horrible moment he wondered wildly if a Red-Robe had infiltrated the capital of Selenay’s Kingdom—

But then an acrid whiff told him the real reason the building was so thoroughly engulfed.

Tar. Someone had been painting the sides of the building with tar. The heavy black smoke roiling over the tips of the highest flames confirmed it. A sudden wind drove it down into the street, and screams turned to coughs and gasps.

Now, that wasn’t uncommon in this part of the city. Landlords didn’t care to spend more than they had to on maintenance of these old buildings, and when they got word that an inspection was in the offing, they frequently created a new and draftless facade by tarring and papering the exterior with any of a number of cheap substitutes for real wooden siding. The work could be done in a day or less, and when finished, presented a less ramshackle appearance that generally fooled overworked inspectors into thinking that the building was in better shape than it actually was. With so many buildings to inspect and so little time, the inspector could easily convince himself that this one didn’t need to be looked at any closer, and move on. The work would hold for a while, but soon the paper would disintegrate, the tar soak into wood left unpainted for so long that it soaked up anything, and the place would revert to its former state. A little darker, perhaps, and for a while the tar would fill in the cracks that let in the winter winds, but nothing more.

Still . . . it seemed odd to Alberich that the thing should be blazing with such fiendish enthusiasm. Slum landlords were as stingy with their tar and paper as they were with everything else, and to burn like this, someone must have laid the stuff on with a trowel—

“Stop him! Stop that boy!”

Alberich sensed, rather than saw, the swirl in the crowd that marked someone small and nimble bouncing off the legs of those around him. Then a wiry, hard body careened into his hip.

He was running to the fire. Somehow, Alberich knew that—and his ForeSight showed him what would happen if the boy made it through the crowd.

A small body writhing in the flames, screaming, dying—An echo of the sacrificial fires of Karse. His gorge rose.

Automatically he reached out and snared the tunic collar of the boy before he could get any farther.