"What is it?" Urson asked. "I didn't see anything." "Show them," she said. Snake opened his hand, and on the dirty palm, in coiled leather, held by a clumsy wire cage, was a milky sphere the size of a man's eye, lucent through the shadow. "A very fine thief indeed," repeated the woman in a low voice tautened strangely from its previous brittle clarity. She had pulled her veil aside now, and Geo saw, where her hand had again raised to her throat, the tips of her slim fingers held an identical jewel, only this one in a platinum claw, hung from a wrought gold chain. Her eyes, unveiled, black as obsidian, raised to meet Geo's. A slight smile lifted her pale mouth and then fell again. "No," she said. "Not quite so clever as I thought. At first I believed he had taken mine. But clever enough. Clever enough. You, schooled in the antiquity of Leptar's rituals, are you clever enough to tell me what these baubles mean?" Geo shook his head. A breath passed her pale mouth now, and though her eyes still fixed his, she seemed to draw away, blown into some past shadow by her own sigh. "No," she said. "It has all been lost, or destroyed by the old priests and priestesses, the old poets. "_Freeze the drop in the hand and break the earth with singing. Hail the height of a man and also the height of a woman._ _The eyes have imprisoned a vision_ ..." She spoke the lines almost reverently. "Do you recognize any of this? Can you tell me where they are from?" "Only one stanza of it," said Geo. "And that in a slightly different form." He recited: "_Burn the grain speck in the hand and batter the stars with singing. Hail the height of a man, and also the height of a woman._" "Well," said the woman. "You have done better than all the priests and priestesses of Leptar. What about this fragment? Where is it from?" "It is a stanza of the discarded rituals of the Goddess Argo, the ones banned and destroyed five hundred years ago. The rest of the poem is completely lost," explained Geo. "I found that stanza when I peeled away the binding paper of an ancient tome that I found in the Antiquity Collection in the Temple Library at Acedia. Apparently a page from an even older book had been used in the binding of this one. I assume these are fragments of the rituals before Leptar purged her litanies. I know at least my variant stanza belongs to that period. Perhaps you have received a misquoted rendition; for I will vouch for the authenticity of mine." "No," she said, almost regretfully. "Mine is the authentic version. So, you too, are not that clever." She turned back to the boy. "But I have need of a good thief. Will you come with me? And you, poet, I have need of one who thinks so meticulously and who delves into places where even my priests and priestesses do not go. Will you come with me?" "Where are we going?" "Aboard that ship," she said, smiling toward the vessel.