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a set of fresh garments that he dimly recognized as his own, he knew that he was not about to face another routine interrogation. His first thought was that they had come to drag him off to execution, and he went limp with fear. But the law, even Taerleezi law, granted him a trial of some sort, and there had been none. Not that it would have been anything more than an empty formality at best, but it would at least have given him time to prepare, time to assume a dignified demeanor.
    No room for dignity now, not with hands shaking so badly that he could hardly manage the fastenings of his own clothes. He dressed himself at last, under the guards’ unblinking regard. Then they were trundling him out of the cell, along the corridor, up the short flight of stairs, at the top of which they steered him left; not right toward the interrogation chamber that he knew, but left. Toward the scaffold? His steps faltered then, and he might have fallen had not the grip of the guards held him upright.
    “Don’t look so green, Magnifico,” one of them advised with undisguised amusement. “You’re the lucky one today.”
    Lucky one?
What did the ruffian mean by that? Not trusting his own voice, Vinz raised his brows in mute and miserable inquiry.
    “You’re going home,” the guard informed him.
    Home
. The pang that shot through him was almost painful. For an instant wild hope flamed, before he realized that they were mocking him, and then a rush of desperate anger restored his courage. He replied with an obscenity that set both guards roaring with laughter.
    “He don’t believe it,” one of them observed.
    “Would
you
believe it?” countered the other.
    “Nah, but then, I don’t have big friends.”
    “Choice friends. Don’t it make your mouth water?”
    What are you talking about?
Vinz wanted to shout at them. He controlled the urge, and finally they came to a place that he remembered. It was a chamber of moderate size, its wallslined with shelves loaded with ledgers, its central space occupied by a big desk, a chair, and a manifestly indifferent individual. Here he had been conducted upon the evening of his arrival, here his name and the date of his arrest had been entered into one of the ledgers by this same bored Taerleezi, who had then consigned him to a cell, whose number had also been entered. And now the process seemed to be reversing itself.
    “Name?” the officer inquired without interest.
    Vinz furnished the required information, and the other jotted it down neatly. Several perfunctory questions followed until the prisoner, unable to contain his bewilderment, finally blurted out, “What does this mean?”
    “Don’t you understand?” The officer appeared mildly surprised. “You’re being released.”
    “No, no I don’t understand. What of the charges against me?”
    The officer consulted one of his notebooks without haste, then reported, “Dropped.”
    “Dropped? How? Why?”
    “Lack of evidence, it says. No case.”
    “But—I’d been told there was strong evidence. Written evidence. I was never allowed to see it, but—”
    “No evidence. If it ever existed, it’s gone now.”
    “Gone where? How?”
    “Who knows? Mislaid, pinched, or accidentally discarded, maybe. Looks like you’re one lucky little Faerlonnishman with some good friends out there, eh?”
    Good friends? The Taerleezi seemed to imply that somebody had exerted some sort of influence on his behalf. It must have been Lousewort and his allies of the resistance. Somehow they had broken in and stolen the incriminating documents. He would not have believed them capable of penetrating the Witch itself, but they must have succeeded, for who else could it have been? Unless, by some unlikely chance, the “accidental” loss of the evidence really
had
been an accident.
    The formalities were swiftly completed, whereupon Vinz was conducted from the building, across the grim walled courtyard, to a small side gate through which he was neatly