Tan bent double and spluttered again, forcing the three revolted men to take the long way around the maze of stalls. He'd seen a man in Elamendi with shuth-fever once and now seemed a good time to re-enact it. He began to moan, and salivated at the corners of his mouth. If he could pull this off he might just have them frightened enough to not pursue him. He could die in the slums for all they cared.

"Somebody," a woman whined. "Somebody hold him until they return." No-one volunteered. Tan hacked and croaked, spitting the remnant taste of the remedy from his mouth, and collapsed to his knees. He fumbled madly with the silks around his chest, looking to catch his breath. People scuttled away from him as he began to tug at his own hair.

"Help me!" he panted. He considered he might be overdoing it a little. "I can't ... I can't! I need to go home. I just want to go home!" He steadied himself on his hands and knees and hung his head, the oscillation of his spine exaggerating his heavy breathing. He let the sweat run down his nose and patter to the ground. "I'm sick ... let me go home. Please ..."

"You're not going anywhere," he heard a man say. The undertone of terror in his voice only served to mock him.

Tan cried up at him in apparent delirium, "Dingo? Is that you, Dingo? Oh, my dear friend, I'd know your brutish face anywhere. Help me. Please, help me." He inched closer, clawing the air, and the man kicked his hand away. It hurt. Probably left a bruise at least.

Cursing under his breath Tan cradled his hand into his chest and crawled towards the crowd with the jar tucked firmly under his arm. People shuffled back from him wherever he went and the men guarded their wailing wives. It seemed Rilv the Feral hadn't embellished his claim that High Farbans were scared of just about anything these days ...

He clambered to his feet and threw himself about, lost in feigned madness, clutched in his stumbling stupor. To the left the crowd parted in a wave of panic and he saw his opening. It was what he'd hoped for. Without hesitating a heartbeat he launched himself into the gap, knocking over an elderly woman cradling a rack of coloured glass orbs. Hissing smoke and screams filled the air as the orbs exploded on the ground, releasing whatever untold sorcery they'd contained. No time to even apologise. Run, Tan!

The masses beyond him bowled over as he barged past them and he began to feel the kick of adrenaline he'd evolved to trust. He trod on people's toes and bumped into their chests, only half meaning to. He crashed into a stall, sending its wares flying, as he ran as fast as the oncoming current would allow. The jar weighed him down, but he raced on with determination, his breath coming in bursts. He could waste no time walking when word would reach the Painted Guard at any moment. Monas would have approached them by now. If he collided with a guard along the way it would be as clear as day that he was up to something. Only wrongdoers ran anywhere in the desert.

He needed to lose the High Farban disguise. No time to find another. He glanced over his shoulder at the closing fissure of startled browsers, the sea of frowning tanned faces, and saw nobody in immediate pursuit. They were all too startled to act, the cowards. Daring to slow to a side-stepping jog he ripped the red silk from his head, face and neck, and untied it from his waist. The garment fell to the hot granite and he picked up his pace again, leaving his Farban skin behind in the throng. If only Tan had known to steal the common purple silk and not the damned red, he might have avoided unnecessary attention. How many had seen him go? His fleeting face-count had totalled sixty, maybe seventy.

Arriving at the main path he surveyed his surroundings and skidded to a walk, feeling far more noticeable in the little clothing he'd kept on beneath the silk. High Farbans did not receive bare chests well, nor the filthy, grey harem pants he wore to just below the knee. Far too much calf showing. They wouldn't permit his unslippered feet if they noticed them, either.

Pushing and shoving up the path he soon spied the Grand Market's only exit. Several of the Painted Guard stood sentinel to the golden arches, wearing dark green cloth underneath wine-coloured silk. Black patterns decorated the exposed brown skin on their arms, disappearing under lobstered gauntlets. Most of the men had fashioned their war-painted faces into a birdlike appearance, though dune wolves and vipers were more common designs amongst the Brotherhood. These few didn't worry him too much, despite their glinting lances and frames twice as wide as his own. He saw their youthful faces beneath the black patterns, noting the four barely had a decent line of facial hair between them. Footmen. Perhaps a year or two his junior and probably still undergoing martial grooming. They looked nothing more than boys in uniform, with inflamed egos and short of the knowledge to wield a javelin, let alone employ a lance in combat above a clumsy sweep. Even so, if word did reach them to search for a boy in red silk they had no reason to stop Tan. Did they?

So far, so good. The first pair of guards paid him no heed, though the third noted his bare feet on the approach and glared in the way pompous High Farbans reserved for the poor. The fourth gave him a hard stare and Tan noticed his knuckles whiten around the shaft of his lance. Tan raised his hand to his brow as though shading his eyes, peering up at the arch. Two seven-headed sea serpents - for which the Farban capital took as an emblem - wound around each other forming the arc, their coiling backs decorated with tiny turquoise and lapis scales.

"Exquisite detail," he said in a lazy Farban accent as he squinted up at it. The clipped vowels of the northernlanders rang through. "Quite beautiful. The best I've seen on my travels. Built in the Era of Atonement, was it?" In truth he cared little for art or Farban history, but hoped his feeble little act at least veiled the colour of his eyes. The guards had no reason to suspect Fen Kithvas the sick kuzorocari in fact had blonde hair underneath the silks, and so only his blue eyes served to betray him. And the jar. To heck with this thing.

The guard grunted disinterestedly, though Tan felt his eyes follow him as he walked down the slope towards the gates in the lowgrounds. He needed to get back to the ever-expanding slum village of Gamlakh in wait for him outside the gates of the city, and then to track down Dingo.

On his way downhill he trotted down the alleys between white clay houses. A thief's natural habitat. Left here. Then immediate right. In the event that he might be caught he'd hidden his possessions in a disused milk urn outside a home that its occupants had vacated for sale. His belongings linked him to his trade name, the Fetcher, the boy with a six figure bounty for his capture. Left again.

Arriving at the vacant house he found the urn untouched and his clothes inside, bundled up as he'd left them. He slipped into his white cotton shirt and rolled up its loose sleeves to the elbow. He'd left his knife belt with Dingo since the laws enforced in Farba'al Mar did not permit sharp edges within its walls, save the lances of the Painted Guard. He did succeed in bringing a few other tools and trinkets, however, as they didn't seem to pose a threat to the delicate High Farban sense of security. He removed a coil of wire from the urn, an Odeise lighter, and a small pouch of coins he'd plucked from beneath a man's waistcoat after slyly bumping into him. Last, he retrieved his red and orange desert-scarf, enveloping a beautiful pendant and chain. He hung the latter round his neck, the metal an icy fingertip on his breastbone, and draped the desert-scarf around his jaw. He dared to release a sigh of relief; he felt like regular Tan again. He was the Fetcher, and those who knew him recognised him for his orange scarf.

He put the lighter and the wire in his pockets, feeling completely unarmed and vulnerable without his knife-belt. The sooner he could slip back into Gamlakh the sooner he could rid himself of the seven-thousand marakgel jar of vile tasting powder and the many people who now wished him tied to a post to die.

Tan calculated his odds of escape ... and they didn't comfort him. Not only was the Guard looking for a thief, but for one of the northernland folk, and Tan fit both descriptions. He didn't like to rush his decisions, although he must do something soon. If he had any sense he'd wait until the moons loomed into view and sneak out the gates under the cover of darkness. How he'd pass through two thick steel doors without permission from the gatemen remained vague for now, but he'd managed it before when circumstances had been different. A stealthy night-crawl seemed the most promising option this time, though a window of opportunity still presented itself for him to sneak out now before messengers passed his description on to the guards at the Inner Gates. It would be a huge risk, but he had to face it: he'd been flirting with misfortune from the moment he arrived.

Leaving Farba'al Mar during the day was potential suicide, anyway. High Farbans punished theft with a slow demise, and they probably enjoyed spectating; he shuddered at the thought of the Guard tying him up in the desert to perish now he'd almost tasted success. Shara would marry that tight-arsed astronomer for sure if he died. Do as Ilimaco Monas said and don't push your luck, Fen Kithvas.There are too many people searching for you.

People, Tan realised, who didn't know what he really looked like beneath the stolen silks. But even if he left now he knew he'd stink of thief. He looked to the milk urn and the answer slapped him in the face. He lowered the jar inside it and peered in, relieved the urn was so deep and narrow that he couldn't see anything at the bottom at all.