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may have learned more than I wished,” Dabir said, though he did not explain. “Khalid was one of the greatest alchemists,” he continued after a moment, “but he did not hesitate sometimes to relay anecdotes or incidents that he himself had not witnessed. I altogether prefer the approach of Thucydides.”
    “A Greek alchemist?”
    “Greek, yes; alchemist, no. I am thinking of style, not subject.”
    A thought had been scratching at me, and I could not help myself from attending it at last. “Have you taken pleasure in some of her experiments before?” My voice was without guile, but a grin betrayed me.
    Dabir smirked. “Sheath your wit, oh braying ass. I was but a boy.”
    “She is fair,” I observed, “if a trifle thin.”
    “All but the roundest women are too thin for you, Asim.”

III
     
    Ferran lived in a poor quarter of the city, and the smell of his furnaces threw stink to the heavens. Clearly someone was there, for the noxious black smoke was steady. Yet no one answered the summons my fist made upon the door.
    “How long do you wish me to pound?” I asked Dabir.
    “Give him another moment.”
    I did, then knocked with greater force. Dabir frowned.
    “Shall I open it?”
    After a short moment, he nodded.
    I had noted that the door shook whenever I struck. Two good kicks resulted in splintering. A third forced the door ajar, a fourth set the wood swaying on its hinges, and a fifth smashed it down upon a carpet within the residence. Dust drifted up from the carpet to either side of the door’s edges.
    From out of the dim hallway beyond the reception room came a hairy Turk, naked save for his vest and pants. In his hand he bore a huge curved saber.
    I leapt into the hall and whipped out my blade. My blood sang! Here was the sort of challenge at which I excelled.
    “Begone!” the Turk cried, and swung at my head.
    Sparks flared in the gloom as I caught his sword against mine. He had strength in his wiry arms.
    “We need answers, Asim!” Dabir cried from behind, which was a not-so-subtle admonition not to kill the fellow. Dabir had scolded me in the past for leaving no foe alive to question. Doubtless he supposed that sparing an enemy is a simple matter when he is trying to behead me with a sharpened four-foot length of metal.
    “You shall not learn my master’s secrets!” the Turk cried, and launched a series of furious cuts. I blocked them, turning as I did so that I might take in the space. He followed me. Curtains hung in two alcoves on either side of the small square room. The curling toes of a boot projected from beneath one of them.
    Powerful the Turk may have been, but I had learned his pattern. I let him swing, and struck hard against his sword so that his arm flung wide from his body. Against another I would have made the death blow, but I stepped in close and slammed my fist into his face. There came a mute crack, and though my knuckles smarted, he shouted and staggered back, thumping a foot against the fallen door. While he stumbled, I grabbed through the curtain and pulled forth a shriveled old man with a gray beard and frightened eyes. He let forth a shriek when he saw me, and a louder shriek when I brought the edge of my sword near his skin.
    “Have your man lay down his sword,” I told him. He croaked for the slave to do so, and the Turk did, tenderly holding his hand to his nose with his off hand.
    Dabir entered, brandishing the medallion given him by the caliph. In the dim light there was no reading it.
    “I am Dabir ibn Khalil, and I bear the medallion of the caliph, which gives me warrant to act as I see fit to safeguard the caliphate. We seek only to question you.”
    That took some doing. With the old man’s paranoia, obtaining answers was more challenging than one might expect. Two hours we spent in that place, my eye and hand ever wary. For a long time Dabir walked alone through the fellow’s laboratory while I stood guard over the alchemist and his slave, who both sat