The hallucination ended and Llian was back in his body, his brain swarming like an ant city, but ants whose innumerable feet had trod in acid. He saw Rulke stagger back, but after that Llian lost consciousness.

UNDER THE RUINS.

Karan woke in darkness. She shouted until she was hoarse and after that rapped on the dome for hours, hoping that the company would still be here. Even hoping, bitter irony, that Tensor could reopen the gate for her. But the hours tolled by like funeral bells and, finally, her knuckles bruised and raw, Karan had to stop.

Distantly she heard a roaring sound, then the sound of little stones rattling on the rubble above her. She caught a whiff of pungent gas. It was so hot! Karan realized that she was sweating, her shirt sodden where she pressed against the metal. That was strange, for Katazza was a cool place, high in the mountains. There came another earth trembler and rubble scraped against the dome above her. Something shifted underneath, separating the stones slightly. Suddenly she felt panicky with claustrophobia and began banging her head against the dome, harder and harder, until one blow hurt so much that it brought her to her senses.

A sulphurous stench drifted up through the cracks. Light began to grow around her-another day. She must have slept again. Karan probed at the rubble under her. Perhaps she could shift some of it.

She picked out the smaller pieces of stone, one by one, stacking them up in the empty part of her prison until it was nearly full. Her excavations exposed a larger piece of stone sitting over a gap between other blocks. If she could lift it there might be a way out. As she slid her fingers down beside the stone the tower shook again and the rubble shifted. Karan snatched her hands out.

The rumbling died away. She tried again. This time the stone moved, though not enough. In the dim light she studied the matrix of rock. If she could get this piece out, the space would be big enough to squeeze head and shoulders in. Did she dare? What if the rubble moved? It would be a miserable way to die, trapped by the head. Well, she was going to die if she stayed here, anyway.

Panic rose up again. She forced her fingers down into the rubble until they bled, gripped the stone and heaved. It moved slightly then stuck. She shook it, feeling her fingernails breaking. The tower trembled again, but this time she used the shuddering of the rubble to ease the stone past the others. With a mighty effort, up it came, revealing a larger space underneath.

Taking a deep breath, Karan looked down. It was light enough to see a network of spaces below, though no way to tell if they went anywhere. Putting her head right in, she rotated her shoulders into the gap and peered round the edge. The earth quivered a long way away. Grit sifted down into her eyes. Karan blinked it out, trying not to panic. The direction she was looking was choked up.

Turning the other way she saw in front of her a space between two flat slabs that extended for a few spans and, beyond it, what looked like the treads of a stair. If she could get that far she might be able to climb out. She withdrew into her cramped space, sucking her bloody fingers, taking deep breaths to overcome the claustrophobia that was building up again. It would be much worse down there. Did she have the courage for it?

The first part almost finished her, for though the space between the slabs was large enough, Karan found that she could not get her body around the corner into it. She almost fitted, but not quite, and her clothes kept snagging on the rough edges. She wanted to scream.

Karan pushed herself back out to lie in the cramped space under the dome. That felt nearly as bad now. It was so hot-she would have killed for a drink. Nothing to do but try again, or die here for want of courage. She was short of courage; there seemed no good reason to keep trying. Then I'd better invent a reason, she thought. She imagined that Llian had come through the gate and was lying helpless not far away, calling out for her with his dying breath. The image was so vivid that she saw him, his face contorted in a scream. It looked as if Rulke had his hands inside Llian's head.

"Llian!" she shouted and the rubble groaned in reply. It was enough. She took off her clothes, knotted her belt around the bundle and went down again, pushing it ahead of her.

The difference was just enough. With much scraping of breasts and shoulders, and not a little skin lost off hips and buttocks, Karan forced herself around the corner into the space between the slabs. There, in spite of the claustrophobia, she had to rest. It was hotter now, her bare skin in contact with the rock. She crawled on, negotiated the space between the slabs which was partly filled with rubble, and shortly found herself in a larger opening on the stair, big enough to stand up in. After her previous prison this was like a palace, though Karan soon realized that there was no way out of it either.

On one side was the curving wall, above were huge blocks of stone precariously perched one against another, and back the other way only the narrow conduit she had just crawled through. Part of the tower had fallen, evidently. There were cracks in the wall too; she could see out over the roofs of the fortress, all battered and broken, though many of the domes and minarets still stood.

The destruction was shocking. Karan wondered what had happened to her friends, but lacked the emotional energy to worry about them. She quickly dressed again then, sitting down to tie up her boots, noticed a hole in the wall near her foot, half-filled with rubble. It did not look quite right.

She levered out several of the larger chunks with a piece of metal lying on the step. There was a hollow space inside-the place where one of the spring cables had run up the inside of the spiral, had she known it, and as the tower collapsed the tension had pulled the broken cable up out the top.

Extracting the rest of the rubble, Karan found a smooth hollow slightly wider than her shoulders. Below was choked, but the way up looked clear for as far as she could see. She began to climb.

It was a hard climb for the inside was smooth, but the coiling passage allowed her, by pressing hard with hands and knees, to get up it. Twice she became stuck and claustrophobia almost made her scream, then finally she saw daylight above. Her head popped out the top. Karan looked over the edge. She was high up: it was a good seventy or eighty spans down to the base of the tower. She was on a cluster of stumps, what remained of the twisted cables of stone, still standing though tilted a long way from the vertical. A long way below, other shards of wall stood up, between which hung an improbably suspended arc of stair. What had been the inside of the Great Tower was a rubble-choked ruin. Beyond, at the western edge of the plateau, a red-hot paste of rock was ebbing out of the rift.

The climb down looked nearly as bad, even for a climber as accomplished as she was, for she had no climbing aids at all. But in the end, not as bad as it appeared, for the destruction had ripped most of the tiles off the outside, leaving a ridged and grooved surface that was quite easy to cling to.

It was nearly dark by the time she reached the bottom, crept across the rubble-littered paving and into the half-ruined fortress. She made her way through the halls to the part where the Aachim had lived. There she found water and a small stack of food packages where formerly there had been a huge number. Someone must have survived the fall of the tower and set out across the Dry Sea. Let it be Shand and Malien, she thought. She fell on the food like a wolf.

After that Karan inspected herself in a mirror in the bathing room. It revealed a bloody mess covered in dirt which sweat had caked to mud. Her eyes were starred red where their little veins had burst in the gate. Her trousers were worn through at the knee.

What would Llian think if he saw me now? she thought wryly. Then, damn him, he never takes any trouble over his own appearance. The thought of Llian, unkempt but endearing, brought tears to her eyes. The image of Llian on the floor with Rulke looming over him brought the tears down in floods.

Later, to her immense joy, she found her traveling pack where she had left it before she climbed the tower. She took out clean clothes, went to the cisterns, bathed, washed her clothes and her hair, and made herself as presentable as her indifferent facilities allowed. Then she scoured Katazza, even crawling back over the rubble of the tower in case Llian had somehow got through.

Karan did not find him. She did not really expect to. She had abandoned him, her only love, in the Nightland. Fled in mewling terror. And the Nightland was collapsing. He might be dead already.

All the next day she searched; the ruins of the Great Tower again, and the countless rooms of Katazza too. And the rest of the plateau, in case the gate had moved and he had come out nearby, or his body been released into the middle air. Nothing did she find, no trace. Then Karan truly despaired.

He's gone and I must bear the burden of it. I should have protected him better. Either Llian is dead or he remains in the Nightland where sooner or later Rulke will seduce him to his own purpose. How could Llian possibly resist him? I know I could not.

She had been too afraid for herself, at Rulke taking control of her mind, at being driven mad again. Rulke had woken memories she had tried to forget for half a year; of Emmant; of her madness; of the Conclave.

She had been too eager to believe ill of Llian; had judged him on no evidence at all. How easily Rulke had fooled her. He had done it to drive a wedge between her and Llian. To divide, as he had always divided his foes.

She sat down on the steps outside the broken tower. There was no way of knowing how long ago the company had departed. Perhaps time flowed differently in the Nightland. She judged that she had been there only a few days, yet there were no tracks here, even on soft ground. They might have been gone for weeks. Not months though, for the height of the midday sun was little different from what it had been at the time she'd climbed the tower.

A breeze sprang up, drifting papers across the paving stones. She idly picked one up and recognized the writing-a scroll made by Tensor but overwritten by Llian. Karan ran after the others, knowing how important they were to him. After some searching she tracked the papers back to their source and found his bag, jammed under the edge of the dome by its thongs. She had to cut them off to free it. Inside was his precious journal, in which he had begun to write the first draft of the Tale of the Mirror. Flipping through the pages brought back memories of their time together, so strongly that it was unbearable. But the journal might be all that she would ever have of him.

The next day passed as tediously as the first, and the day after. Karan had not felt so lonely in all her adult life. To go or to stay? Either way there were perils. By now the Dry Sea would be a furnace. Even taking the short way of Mendark's, it would be impossible alone. Unless she could catch up to them, she must remain here until the winter. Another two hundred days, and Rulke could come after her at any time.

She must go at once if she was to catch them. But Karan did not want to go. The platinum dome lay half-on, half-off the side of the fortress. She lingered lonely in its shade. Beneath its shelter she and Llian had become lovers, a happening of almost mystical significance for her. The memories made her feel very sad. The night drifted down as softly as her lover's caress. She could not abandon him. Karan wrapped her cloak around her and, holding the journal against her breast, at last she slept.

'TIS AN OLD

RAT ...

Rulke recovered before Llian did. He stood staring down at the chronicler, who looked young and defenseless-but then Karan had seemed that way too. Would the reading that he had just done actually show true on Llian, a Zain with all their heritage of resistance? Rulke took no chances, going down on one knee and examining Llian more carefully. There was still something that puzzled him about the Zain, something strange and rare.

He wished that he knew more about this one, but information was his weakness now, as before the Nightland it had been his strength. All he'd had was that brief meeting with the Ghashad in Thurkad, and at that time Llian had been no more than a name, of the least interest.

Rulke needed spies desperately but those channels were long gone. After he was put in the Nightland only the Ghashad remained loyal, but time turned their service into a ritual, all but useless, and in the end even they forgot. He had woken them but they were only a shadow of their former selves. How long would it take to build it all again? Much more time than he had. The world had changed enormously in a thousand years but most of that time was blank to him. His enemies, as they were today, were enigmas.

Llian could help to remedy that. He knew many of them, and as a chronicler he had the right to talk to anyone. Not a perfect spy but a very good one. And he knew the Histories. That was the first thing Rulke wanted from him.

Yet that inexplicable strangeness bothered him. It was just a minor niggle, and there were many other things to think about. Surely Llian posed no risk. No, better be sure! Putting his fingers to Llian's temples, Rulke made the examination once more. Yes! Llian had a rare form of the Gift, the resistance to the spells of the Aachim that Rulke had given the Zain two thousand years ago! Somehow the stigmata did not show in the Nightland. This put a different complexion on things. What could he, Rulke, do with this one? There were still blank parts of Llian, but no one could be known perfectly. He was satisfied that his compulsion would work.

Such an important spy needed what protection he could give him, for the road from Katazza back to Thurkad was perilous. What could he use? The Nightland was made of intangible stuff that would not pass through the gate. Ah! Rulke sensed the imprint of a charm. Llian wore a chain about his neck, from which hung a small jade amulet, a good-luck charm given by his mother when he was sent away to Chanthed. It was the same amulet that Faelamor had enchanted for Emmant so that he could control Karan, though Malien had removed that enchantment long ago.

Unhooking the charm, Rulke tossed it to one side. Then he spat in his hand and out of that stuff fashioned another amulet, identical in all respects. He put it back on the chain, tucking it into Llian's shirt.

"Well, Llian my lad, that's the best I can do. If someone stabs you in the back it won't save you, but it will give you an edge in luck. Though I wouldn't advise you to press it too hard at the gaming tables. Now," he said softly, "when I call, will you come?"

Llian did not move, though his eyes flicked beneath their closed lids. He made a gurgling sound in his throat; foam dribbled out the corner of his mouth and ran down his cheek. He shook his head.

"If you support me I will give you everything you desire," said Rulke, as softly as before. "Wealth undreamed of, the love of beautiful women ..."

"I care nothing for such things," said Llian thickly, and not entirely truthfully either. His head lolled on his shoulders, but after several spasmic lurches he succeeded in lifting it and stared Rulke full in the face.

A huge smile split Rulke's face. The courage and boldness delighted him; there was something to this one, as to the woman. What a pair they made. "Wake, Llian!" and he was himself again. "What then do you desire? Tell me and you shall have it."

"I want Karan," said Llian.

"So do I, chronicler!"

Llian felt a stab of impotent jealousy. No one could compete with Rulke. "She's mine!" he said fiercely. "Mine, not yours."

"She's not your property," said Rulke. "She can give herself to whomever she pleases. Besides, she betrayed you; abandoned you."

"It was all a dreadful mistake," said Llian. "The gate pulled her in."

"She accused you of betraying her, Llian. Then she left you behind. Deliberately!"

Llian's faith in Karan was undermined. "Maybe she did. But I still want her safe."

"As do I, chronicler. Believe me, Karan is very important to me. If I was able to get her back I would have done so already."

"Why don't you go after her?"

"In my state, even if I could control the gate, going through it would probably kill me."

"Then send me back," Llian cried, clutching his hands against his breast.

Rulke grinned mirthlessly. "Nice try, chronicler! Do as I want and I might consider it." He glanced up at the ceiling, and Llian did too. Now almost as clear as glass, through it strange constellations could be seen in a blue-black sky. "If you don't you will stay here until you freeze. So you'd better name what I can give you."

Llian felt unbearably tempted. Don't start on that road, he thought. Not a single step.

"You ache to know, don't you?

Llian did, more than anything in the world. Abandoned, betrayed, trapped in the Nightland for eternity, now desire for what Rulke knew burned him. He would do anything for it.

"Just say what you want," Rulke whispered, and even that was a seduction. "Where's the harm in that?"

"I want three things," Llian said, licking his lips. "But I will not bargain with you for them. I am Zain! Warnings about you are burned into every cell and every atom of my being."

"Tell me," Rulke repeated. "I may give them freely."

Llian hesitated. Even to articulate his desires to the great enemy could be a form of treachery. But after all, he had made no promises, nor would he. Something for nothing, if Rulke answered truthfully.

Behind Rulke, one of the walls popped like a bursting bubble. "Better be quick," said Rulke.

"I want the truth about what happened in Huling's Tower after the flute was destroyed," Llian gabbled out. "Who killed the girl there, and why."

"I cannot tell you-I never found out."

"Then I want-" Llian halted, feeling guilty already. "I want to know what Kandor told you. He wrote to you about the matter not long before he died."

"You have indeed been thorough!" said Rulke. "But we never had that meeting, for he was killed on the way. I suspect that he was murdered to prevent our meeting. His papers must be in Katazza though."

"Murdered!" cried Llian. "Who killed him?"

"I was imprisoned here before I could find out. I thought it was Mendark, or Yggur, or one of the Aachim. That is to say, one of my enemies, not one of his. But on the other hand, Kandor was paranoid-he even accuses me in some of his writings. And after I took Tar Gaarn, every one of the Aachim had reason to destroy me, had they not reason enough before that. I had papers on that too."

"They will be in Thurkad," said Llian, "in the citadel archives. That's where I first learned about Kandor."

"Well, that puzzle I leave to you. Kandor is long dead and I have my construct, far ahead of the flute and any other device ever made. Who cares what silly secret he discovered? Kandor was always one for trifles. He had no vision, and even if he had uncovered the flute itself, who would be so foolish as to use it after all this time? By now it would be deadly-just like the Mirror that your friends think to be such a treasure. Just how dangerous, they will find out, if they ever try to use it!"

"Where in Katazza?" cried Llian. "I've looked already. It could take a lifetime."

Rulke grinned. "You want it all handed to you, don't you. When I was young I knew that whatever I got, it would be through my own efforts. Still, the murder of any one of us is of surpassing interest to me too; I'm glad you raised it. Now, where did Kandor keep the things he most valued? Here is a clue: in a place subordinate but fundamental. I leave it to you to work it out, for I believe that part of Katazza is still standing. What is your next question?"

"The key to unlocking the Mirror of Aachan."

"I don't know what you mean."

"Faelamor said that it was locked by Yalkara, but that she, Faelamor, had a key back in Thurkad."

"I know nothing about that either. I have no idea what Yalkara did with it. Tell me, what has she been up to lately?"

"Lately?" Llian said in amazement. "Yalkara is long gone."

"Gone!" Rulke gripped Llian by the shirt. "Gone where?"

Was this betraying his friends? Surely not. Yalkara's departure was common knowledge. "The Histories tell that she used the Mirror to find a flaw in the Forbidding. She made a gate and passed back to Aachan more than three hundred years ago. You did not know this?"

Rulke staggered, then found a seat and sat down on it with a thump, staring through the ceiling at the stars. The luminous mist swirled up around him, blurring the construct into a featureless shadow.

"You're worth more than I thought, chronicler. I have been ... cut off, here. The greatest event of the past thousand years and I had not an inkling. My need for knowledge is indeed desperate. So, there is a way through the Forbidding. Everything decays over time. That is very interesting. Perhaps my compass has been too limited. And your final question? What is it that you want most of all?"

Llian hardly felt guilty at all now. "You already touched on it-the secret script of the Charon. I want the Renderer's Tablet-the stone that contains the key to the script."

Rulke's face darkened. "You ask too much. The Tablet is destroyed. I broke it myself, burned the fragments to lime and scattered the powder across the ocean. That tongue is all that we brought out of the void. None but the Charon may ever know it. You shall not have it." But then he reconsidered. Why not promise him that, he thought. Even if he got it, by then it would not matter.

"Why not?" he said. "When I am finished my work the script will be redundant; only the chroniclers will be interested in it. And why not have the Tales of the Charon told by the greatest chronicler of the age?"

He glanced at Llian, to see how he was reacting to the flattery. It was difficult to tell. "Well, master chronicler, I'll think about it. In the meantime, tell me my tale. At least, that tiny part where I was betrayed and cast into the Nightland."