I guess I should of figured this was a bad plan before I got myself clinging to the outside of one of the university buildings and watching the dark circle of the moon crawl up the sky, while beside me Werin the Weasel twisted, squirmed and muttered. He was trying to do magic on a window-ledge. And that's when I finally got past my starry giddiness at being picked out as his prentice, and wondered if stealing from the Head of the College for Sorcerous Studies was so good a chance after all.

I don't got schooling, but I can count to two. Werin wanted me because I was small and skinny, and he hadn't even looked close enough to notice I wasn't a boy. By the time I wiggled through the window and let him inside, I didn't feel special no more, and only my breath catching in my chest and the thought of the warning leaves of fall kept me from scampering there and then. Which I should of done, because next I know there's alarm bells going off, and the university police are chasing me and Werin over the campus rooftops, and what folks say happens in the College of Justice's basement ain't no better from freezing.

Werin's long legs got him ahead, and he didn't have weak lungs neither, but I caught up when he reached a roof that weren't so tilted, and pulled out a medallion made of nine gold rings all hooked together, and placed it carefully on the tiles. The thing reeked of magic. It had little rainbow colored flares of the stuff leaping off of it, and it made me nervous. But Werin couldn't see magic. I knew that from when he walked right into those blue thready things that activated the alarm, earlier. But I couldn't take another step nohow, so I collapsed over the ridgepole, and lay their gasping and watching.

"Said use as a last resort," Werin muttered, and he shot a peek toward the approaching police, and gulped. His pointy nose twitched, and he fastened his eyes once more on the medallion in frowning concentration. He traced a figure in the air, and then knelt on the roof and touched his forehead to the medallion nine times. The eighth time he hit it a bit too hard and it slipped down the roof a ways, so that when he touched it the last time he had to overreach himself and fell sprawling, almost slipping over the edge. He had to clutch desperately at the gutters, and scrabble about before he could right himself, and I would have laughed but for not having my breath yet, and I was too scared anyway.

Then a great beam of magic streamed from the medallion right up towards the sky like a beacon. It rose higher and higher, shooting up towards the black circle of the moon like a fountain lit by the glow of a hundred colored lights. And as it stretched up into the sky, the moon lit up. It glowed as shiny as a silver bit and as smooth as white satin, and I stood gaping like a gobby until I had to blink and look away, and I finally figured it was lighting up everything like a giant lamp, and if I could see the angles of the roofs and the police and the wall around the campus and everything, then they could see me too.

I began crawling away from my idiot master.

My heart was doing six thumps for one, and my breath was still rasping, but I figured I was doing good, cause I'd got over the ridge of a roof, and had slithered mostly down the other side where Werin couldn't see me nor the police neither. Then an arm reached out from the darkness under the the overhang of the next roof up, and I was hauled into the shadows.

My breath stopped up and my chest squeezed tight, and I thought I'd choke. "How did Werin Weaselface light up the moon?" whispered the person who'd hauled me over, and I started breathing again. I didn't answer though because I was too busy gulping like a fish.

"The moon is a round piece of rock, that travels around the world on the same path and precisely opposite to the sun," his whisper continued.

I figure that's the stuff I miss by not being in the orphanage school, and it didn't seem too useful to be nattering about on the rooftop at night. "Amulet." I told him between chest rattling gasps.

"When sunlight reaches the moon, on a clear dawn or sunset, it shows as a glowing red arch."

"Never seen that," I muttered, ignoring the stretching pains between my heaving ribs. "Werin's magic amulet made those lights that went up to the moon." I was trying to be helpful, because it was always good to be helpful to people who had the nape of your tunic bunched up in their fist.

"I didn't see any lights."

"They were magic lights." And this fellow couldn't see magic either. And he knew Werin. And he had no business being up on a roof of the university at night. I was still trying to figure that out when a glowing woman swooped down from the sky.

She had long golden hair, skin the color of cream, rose colored lips and she was so beautiful that when you looked at her you couldn't breathe, (not that I could breathe anyway.) But all around her dark magic writhed and swarmed like a cloak of angry snakes. She floated lower until she stood in the air just above Werin, and looked down at where I guessed he must be.

"Why have you called for me?" she asked in a voice sweeter than honey, or birdsong, or the most beautiful music in the world.

"I . . . I need help," Werin voice stammered. "I was told to use the medallion as a last resort. That it could summon a god."

"I think that answers that question," whispered the man's voice in my ear.

"I am the Lady Vamesse," the vision said. "Goddess of light and truth."

"And here's where we slip away quietly while everyone's watching her." His fist tightened on my tunic, but I couldn't stop looking at them black magic snakes and my stomach clenched, and the blood pounded in my head.

"Save me, Lady!" Werin cried.

"That's no Lady of Light," I gasped.

"Well you know," the lady said in a conversational tone, "It wasn't very nice of you to have called me here when I was busy doing something else. Now what did you think was so important that you should interrupt a goddess about it?"

"The police!" Werin gasped. "Save me!"

"Oh, I'll save you all right," she answered smiling. Her magic reached out its writhing black tendrils towards him, and I heard him scream.

I was lifted by the scruff of my neck, and the world swung dizzily about. My view of the bright moon, and the lady and her magical tendrils, was replaced with a flapping cloak, and a dizzying glimpse of a ground far below, and then we landed with a thud on the next roof over, and he hustled us into another tiny snippet of shadow, and pushed me back against the wall. Werin's screams had no trouble finding us nohow, and I cursed the glowing moon.

"How did you know she wasn't...?"

I gagged and gasped, and tried to whisper an explanation. "Magic... black... all around her."

"You can see magic?"

"Like a real sorcerer," I hissed back proudly. If you've only got the one thing you can do, you might as well be proud of it, even if you're on a roof and you're going to die soon nohow.

"Sorcerers can't see magic," he responded flatly. "Magic is invisible."

Even with him whispering he sounded very sure, and I felt all shook up again, even though I had got sort of settled after being hauled here in the first place. "I saw her magic." I repeated uselessly, and shuddered.

There was more light here than was good for us, and I could see the outline of his head as he tilted it toward Werin's screams, and the shape of his long nose. "I believe you," he stopped pushing me against the wall, and patted my shoulder like he was trying to make me feel better. I curled up in a ball and put my hands over my ears, but I could still hear the screams, echoing and hoarse, like when Beggar Rafes fell and put his hand in the brazier last winter, only over and over again.

My long nosed friend rose to his feet, and horrified I pawed at his trouser leg, tugging him downward, but he looked his fill before crouching again, and never mind that we were together and if he was caught I was caught too.

"I thought Werin didn't have a prentice."

"He picked me special for this job."

"He knew you could see magic."

I shook my head.

"He just wanted a someone small, then."

Werin's screams hadn't stopped, but they seemed to be getting fainter. I could hear other sounds too, now. A commotion and some yelling. "What's going on?"

"The lady, whom you so rightly observed, is not of light, has expanded Werin's muscles. His skin is not stretching sufficiently to compensate."

That didn't make no sense. I took a quick look myself, but all I could see was the lady and her writhing cloak drifting over away to our right, where the noises were coming from.

"Every time..." his whisper halted, and he took a deep breath and tried again. "Every time he moves, his skin tears open."

I swallowed hard. "He's moving a lot?"

"She appears to be sending him to fight the Police."

It didn't do to think about things, sometimes, and I wasn't going to think about what them policemen saw running towards them, not nohow. I glared up at the glowing moon, and thought about something else. "If sorcerers can't see magic, I guess I'm a wizard."

"Even if you were born a wizard, your powers wouldn't manifest for years yet. And they wouldn't make you see magic."

"How would you know," I jeered.

"Because I'm a wizard."

I gulped and tried to match up a soft voice and sneaking around in the dark with the flashy and fiery stories of wizard powers.

Beside me the wizard shifted restlessly. "This isn't what I thought I was setting Weaselface up for." Setting Weaselface up. The whispered words entered into my head and knocked around with Werin's screams, until my breathing grew labored and I thought I would shriek.

"His ego, Master Liwhe's greed, I thought it would make for the perfect diversion while I pursued a little errand of my own," he continued. "And it was working perfectly, right up until the moon turned into a giant lantern."

My breath rasped in my ears, and I concentrated on not blacking out.

"How was I to know he'd be so stupid as to summon a god? I didn't know anyone could summon a god. Unfortunately, the tidbits I gleaned about gods from history class wouldn't make for even a full page of study notes. I don't think anyone here in Niontes knows much about gods."

All I knew about them was the curses used by foreign sailors down by the docks, and I didn't think I wanted to learn more. When the wizard stood up again I reached out to catch his trousers, even as he took a step towards the glowing form of the goddess. "Where, going?" I managed to gasp.

"I have to do something."

With the moon shining down like lamplight, I could see his face, but for his nose making a slash down the middle and throwing shadows all over the rest. He was tall, and scraggly thin-like, and he had a bit of a beard. He looked like just anybody on one of the trades streets, only he was standing on a roof and talking about doing things when anybody'd be scampering as fast as they could. I sure didn't want to sit here waiting for the goddess or the police to find me. Only scampering didn't work so good if you couldn't breathe and didn't have a hidey-hole to head for.

"I never been here before," I whined. "I don't know where to go!"

"I'll come back for you," he answered, which sounded more good than I usually got, but then he added, "if I can," and I decided I wasn't going to take no chances.

I stood up.

"Stay here."

I shook my head, but he wasn't looking anymore, he was already walking lopsidedly along the roof to where he could jump to the next one over, and I got after him quick as I could.

We ran a few more ridgepoles, and crouched in the shadow of a chimney where we could see the quad. Werin was all swelled up, and as he tried to chase the fleeing police he moved in jerky leaps, dark stripes covered his skin, and he screamed at every step. I looked away only to notice he was leaving a trail of dark stains on the pale cobbles, so I just closed my eyes and breathed slow and quiet as I could.

There was a tinkling musical laugh from somewhere above Werin's head, and I almost looked afore I remembered. The wizard's hand tightened around my arm like a vise. "At least she doesn't seem to mind that the police are getting away."

I nodded. "That's good?"

"It's not as bad as it could be. What's she doing now?"

Reluctantly I opened my eyes. The lady's dark magics had reached out and divided, and were closing around Werin like iron bars, lifting him up into the air before her, where he hung sobbing and dripping. "She's got him in a cage," I said, and looked back down again quick-like.

"She's gotten bored no doubt. Stay here." He stood up and ran toward where she hovered in mid air, and standing at the peak of the roof that edged on the quad, he waved his arms about. "Milady!" She started to turn, and he quickly dropped to his knees. I didn't do nothing as I didn't figure for anyone to be such a starry idiot, and I was shook so I didn't think to be after him.

"Hail! Vamesse, Lady of Light! I salute ye!"

That's how them university folks talk, but I didn't think he was one, and I was pretty sure how he hadn't talked like that before. The lady smiled hoity-toity-like, and floated towards him, that cage thing trailing along behind.

"I suppose you are a humble servant of mine?" she asked, and despite the sweetness of her voice, I somehow thought she weren't too happy to meet up with no humble servants.

"Alas, your glories have always passed by me unobserved until this night, but henceforth ever will I praise ye to all men."

"Lovely!"

"I shall travel to distant Carthart and join your Knights, and with them I shall crusade to destroy the followers of all lesser gods, for none are worthy to be worshiped but yourself."

I don't got letters, but I read faces fine, and that there goddess didn't know if she was mad or glad. "Those stupid knights wouldn't dare..." And I guess I finally figured what the wizard knew all along. This weren't no Lady of Light, so she must be some other goddess. The smile she turned on him had too many teeth. "My followers must wait my pleasure before they crusade."

"Of course, all must obey ye," he answered humbly.

"There is no need for you to go to Carthart, for the people here must also hear of my glory."

"The people here can see your glory!" he responded.

Again the musical tinkling laugh. "What a pleasant boy! But how unwise to think to play your games with me. I know what lies in your heart, and you have been trying to mislead me."

Her smile got even toothier, and her magic reached toward him, and I closed my eyes. When there were no screams I opened them again but it looked like she just hadn't got to the hurting part yet, for she had her magic wrapped around him and was holding him upside down.

"You do think I'm beautiful, don't you, little Getuinskaff who calls himself Great? And you want me, don't you?"

I figure he did want her for she could tell, and she was smiling a pleased smile over that, and all I know is I'm glad I'm not a boy, for I guess wanting her would be about like wanting to bathe in fire, or wear ice, and I didn't want her at all, and I wished I could scamper, but I couldn't breathe, and my legs didn't work.

"And you really do think that Knights at Carthart are about go on another stupid crusade," the lady concluded with a shriek of rage. Her magic tossed Getuinskaff about and then thrust him through the bars of Werin's cage. "I'll deal with you later!" Then the dark snaky bits thrashed about her as she swooped away upward and was gone.

The cage was still where she left it, and sucking in air like a fish out of water, I footed it over to as close as I could get. I tried to check on the wizard without looking at Werin but I kept seeing flappy bits, and drippy, oozing bits, and as soon as I saw that Getuinskaff was breathing but not awake enough to talk, I emptied my guts, and crouched down shuddering and gasping to try and think.

I figured I wasn't about to have no bright ideas for going one over a goddess, and I figured right. I already saw what trying to trick someone who could tell what you were thinking looked like, and it didn't look pretty, and I wasn't trying it. Even if I was a sorcerer, I wouldn't be able to do nothing to her. Maybe a whole bunch of sorcerers? I was standing right over their heads-- but I didn't think I could get them to wake up, and gather, and make one of their fancy magic items before she came back, nohow. The only wizard I had ever met was knocked cold and lying in a magic cage, and there just wasn't nothing human or otherwise on the whole world that could nose to nose with a god.

That would take another god.

And with a quavery feeling I guessed that I just might know how to get me another god.

My muscles knotted up, and that yucky taste in my mouth got worser. I found myself taking another look at Werin, and I figure that was what made the black fog close in around my sight for a minute. I didn't want no other god. I didn't want to be here when the one we had came back.

I began crawling stiffly back the way I had come. I stumbled to my feet, but although I felt like I was moving slowly and awkward-like on the uneven surfaces, I sailed easily over the gaps between roofs, and the slopes of the roof didn't seem too slower than the flats. And then I was standing, panting, looking down at the medallion that Werin had abandoned on the rooftop when he went charging off to fight the police.

It still had them magical flares jumping off it. Pretty, but I figure I'd rather pick up a snake. I stole up to it real cautious-like and picked it up by the chain, so for not to touch it. And I stood there holding it for forever until I could talk my legs into turning around and taking me back.

Every time I put down a foot, I was sure that she'd reappeared in the sky above me, and I felt her glaring at my back, and I kept scrunching my eyes so I wouldn't look, and my shoulders kept pulling higher and higher, and my stomach hurt from being hackled up so long. And all the time I was asking myself why I wasn't scampering, what had always kept me alive so far. Only I guess I was actually scampering, but it was the wrong direction and I didn't feel like I was moving at all. I was marking up where each foot landed, and how each leg moved, and I knew all that time I wouldn't never forget none of that trip. And then I got to the edge of the quad, and looked over at the cage, and couldn't get myself to do no more.

There was a lot of light, but it was weird and nothing was the right color. The wizard's hair was maybe brownish, or maybe gingerish, and the stains on his tunic where he had been knocked up against Werin looked black.

He was stupid. And Werin was more stupid. And I was most stupid, because I was still standing here, when the lady could return in a blink of an eye, and how long would it take her to mess over a bunch of knights? But the wizard was still breathing. And then he shifted and groaned a little, so I knelt down, put that medallion on the tiles in front of me real gentle-like, and tried to remember what Werin had done to make it light up. First I waved my hand around like he had, hoping I got the shape right, and then I curled over and forced myself put my forehead to the glimmering metal. Once, twice... I couldn't feel the magic, and with my eyes closed I couldn't see it. All I felt was the cool metal rings. But with my eyes closed it was even easier to remember the boiling dark magic that surrounded the lady, and her being so beautiful and so cold. My hands clenched with the effort of making myself bend over. Six times. Seven times.

"I suppose you think you're being clever."

I froze. Like an icicle. I didn't turn to look. I couldn't turn to look. I was stiller than a statue of Cartvas the Conqueror. My heart stopped beating. Slowly my eyes opened, and I could see the nine golden rings bright against the dark tiles of the roof.

"All it does," the Lady told me, "is ring a little bell in the home of the gods."

Didn't it light up the moon?

"No, you little fool, I lit up the moon."

I continued staring at the rings. Nine of them. Nine rings for nine gods. If all it did was ring a bell, then any god could hear it and come to see what was going on.

"We've got better things to do than come running, just because some little mortal calls us."

I figured that meant I might as well finish the ritual, and lowered my forehead the eighth time.

"Begging your pardon lady." The wizard sounded shaky as I felt.

"Yesssss?" she hissed.

I dropped my forehead to the medallion the ninth time, and found that the reason Werin had gone tumbling didn't have nothing to do with being off balance. The magic pouring out of the rings pushed at me like a gale wind, and I opened my eyes, and the magic light stabbed into them like knives, and I threw myself backwards, and with spots dancing before me I started slipping over the edge of the roof. I grabbed, and scrabbled, I felt the sharp edge of the tiles digging into my shoulder, and then I was falling, reaching, scraping my arm against the edge. My hand found a hold, and I came to a stop with a wrenching jerk that set fire in my shoulder, and my free hand flopping about like a dying fish.

I dangled. My fingers slipped a little, and dots continued to whirl before my eyes. My other hand finally found the edge, and I clung there and tried to begin breathing.

"Don't you consider playing with mortals rather childish?" a voice chimed from above me. I looked up and there were two goddess floating in midair above me, one with bright magic, and one with dark. But the spots were getting darker, and my head was spinning and I looked down. I still couldn't breathe.

"Are you well?" The wizard was still shaky, but I figure this time he was doing better nor me.

I thought I heard one lady saying to the other, "You can't tell me what to do!" but my ears were beginning to buzz, and I could feel the air pushing in on me. I was going to die. I always figured I would, but I guess I figured I'd die in winter, because Dame Larika who tends us streeties said how my weak lungs needed a warm house, and I wasn't going to find none. Dying of weak lungs, that was what anyone might do. It was most stupid to die for a wizard who couldn't do better for me than say "are you well?"

Finally, I drew breath. It rasped going in and sounded like a loose shutter in a wind storm, but I had air, and my hands tightened their grip. Then I started coughing, and my fingers slipped a bit more.

"Hang on!"

I hung. It didn't take schooling to figure out that! Above me the new goddess and the old goddess were standing staring at each other in mid air, while all about them in a tight little knot their magics poked at pushed at each-other, shadow dark, and shining bright, sending waves pushing outward like they was a stone dropped in a puddle. Beside them the wizard edged back to the far side of the cage, stumbling over Werin's limp figure.

I managed to suck in another breath and croak out "Rope!"

The cage jostled and swayed in the breeze from the magic battle, and Getuinskaff seemed to be having trouble getting at Werin's pack. Foggy wisps of magical spells pulled at me too, and I kept looking down at the ground below, and it seemed to get further and further away. So I'd close my eyes, until another wave of magic beat at me, and then I would look up in time to see more dark tendrils wrap around the second lady, and the look of glee on the first one's face made two broken legs seem like a good plan, and my fingers slipped more.

Finally the rope tumbled down and landed across my shoulders. "Can't... grab..."

"No need," he said. There was a magical flash from the rope. "Let go now."

I didn't notice nothing happening but for that little flash, but the rope was looped around me somehow.

"You can let go now," he repeated.

I never got no chance to let go, because I somehow couldn't make me do it and then my fingers finished slipping the rest of the way, nohow. I fell into the rope and it pulled and rubbed as I swung about. Below me the ground lurched closer and closer until I landed with a jarring thud, lost my balance, and rolled down onto the damp grass.

I don't know how long I lay around wheezing, but I would have done even more if the wizard hadn't asked me all anxious-like, if I could move. I could move, it just hurt a lot, and the tightness of the rope made breathing mostly impossible. I pushed myself up of the grass which was sort of slick and sort of sticky at the same time, and my hands came away with dark stains. I stared at them for a good while before I could figure that I was looking at some of Werin's blood.

I guess I just stood there listening to my breath whine in and and out, and figuring that the dark lady hated me, and there wasn't no good going anywhere and doing anything. I didn't think none of the rope, or the wizard or anything much, until there was another little magical flash and the rope fell away from me.

"Run!" the wizard urged me.

And I looked up, and while I was gawking at how the dark lady's cage was whipping about, I wiped off my hands without even hardly thinking about it. The cage seemed to have shrunk some, and the wizard was forced down on top of Werin, and the two of them sloshed from one side to another as more dark and bright magic slammed into the bars.

"Can you get out?"

I thought he shook his head, but it wasn't so easy to tell.

"Use your magic," I urged him.

"I can't use magic on stuff I can't see or feel!"

The two goddesses still stood quietly in the middle of the storm as their magics pushed and pulled and sweeped about. The dark lady's snakes of shadow magic would wrap about the light lady, and then her magic would push through as little, and then the dark lady would wrap some more. As even a match as I ever saw.

"Can you magic her?" I asked.

"I can't even tell which is which!" he croaked.

I done forgot about that. "That one!"

There was a little tiny flash. It didn't seem to do nothing, but the dark lady gave him a look that promised revenge, and then the cage blew away like smoke, and Werin and the wizard fell out of the sky. I guess I just hoped that he could distract her, like he done when I was working them rings, give the bright lady a chance at winning, and now all I could think was that I killed him. And then somehow things changed and I wasn't so scared no more, because my heart was burning and I was mad. I stumbled over to Werin and fetched out the pouch of trinkets that he had brought so he could steal from a sorcerer. I'd give her a distraction! There was this belt that made a blue glow around you, and a thingy that turned off locks, and a couple rings, and a bracelet and when I got them out from under him I realized that I didn't know how to work them. So I started throwing them at her, one by one, hoping to bounce one off her ear, at the very least. I was gasping and screeching, and spitting in anger, like I was a cat in a cat fight, and too mad to care if I made things worse. As I lined up and let go with the last of my trinkets, I thought I heard the whisper of a word from the crumpled form of Getuinskaff-- and the ring I was throwing lit up and started spitting magic sparks. The dark goddess looked up, and raised her hand to ward it off, and the other lady's magic burst out of the shadow bounds, and flew at the dark lady. "Time to go home!" the bright lady said in her gently dissaproving voice.

There was a bright flash, and both ladies disappeared.

And then the moon went dark.

The night was black, and still, except for a muffled groan from the wizard, and I dropped down and felt for him. "Will you live?"

"I'm not a good wizard, you see," he whispered. "I can't do anything big. But it doesn't take much to turn on those things. The hard part is always making them."

I guess that's another thing I'd know about if I'd gone to the orphanage school, but I still didn't see no use in talking about it. "I'll call the University Police," I told him. "They'll get someone to take care of you. I figure, they'll be too happy you got rid of that lady to punish you for thieving."

"I wasn't thieving." He answered weakly. "I was copying someone's secret notes. I never do anything illegal if I can help it. I'm not dying either... I just hurt a lot."

I guessed that he needed help anyhow, and I was getting to my feet when I remembered Werin. I turned back towards his still form and almost started to touch him.

"He's dead," Getuinskaff whispered.

I had gotten those things out of his pouch and thrown them, and I hadn't thought about it then, but now that the words were said, I knew he was dead then, and I withdrew my hand very, very slowly.

"I'd be dead too, if not for you," the wizard continued. "Why didn't you stay where you were?"

I guess I didn't have no answer. Helping him was as stupid as him trying to help Werin. Maybe it was catching, like the plague.

"You're a streety?"

I didn't figure that I could have lived through all that and still be a streety. They didn't do nothing like this. But I weren't going to be a thief no more, and I didn't have the schooling for sorcery or been born a wizard.

"They call me Raff."

"Getuinskaff the Great." He didn't sound too great to me, in fact his voice seemed to be fading. "My shingle's on Tanner Way. You have a free meal and a roof there, whenever you want."

At the rate he was going, he'd slip off before I could collect. "You lie still," I told him. "I'll get help."

I guess it was the first time I ever ran to the Police, and it was nervousing, but I knew I didn't need to be scared of them, and that felt good. Now I had a place to hole up, there weren't no need to be scared of the winter, anymore, neither. A future I never figured to have stretched out in front and I was eager to see what I could make of it.