Surely telling that tale could harm no one. Rulke sat back with a smile, as with eager anticipation for what he would learn about himself. Llian was amused at the vanity.

"The tale, as we tell it, begins after the fall of Tar Gaarn and the death of Pitlis, designer of that great city as well as your own, glorious Alcifer."

"Ah, Alcifer," sighed Rulke. "How I loved that place."

"Alcifer was magnificent: a city vain and proud; cruel and predatory; majestic; perfect-"

"Cruel and predatory?" scoffed Rulke. "What a lot of adjectives you chroniclers use."

"The very epitome of the Charon, and so Pitlis had designed it. But the city was also a construct, and all its alchemists and engineers, scholars and toilers, and Rulke himself, made a living machine dedicated to a single end, the breaking of the Forbidding!"

"That's not the story the Council puts about," said Rulke.

"I'm telling the Histories," said Llian sharply, "not pandering to any Council or Magister."

"We'll see!"

"Or you either! The tale of Alcifer is a tragic one," said Llian, "for it arose out of one of the most elaborate betrayals of all-the fall of Tar Gaarn. That's how you became known as the Great Betrayer." He glanced at Rulke, whose face was impassive.

"Tell on, chronicler. Thus far you are close enough to the truth, save for the names you persist in giving me. How does your tale begin?"

"Picture a world grown desperate, devastated by the Clysm that lasted centuries and left Santhenar awash with blood. The roads were full of beggars but what was there to beg? The wealth of a world had been dissipated in war. A rich man was one who had food and a table to put it on.

"A terrible plague came. The cities vomited forth their terrified citizens but wherever they went they took it with them. Pestilence came in waves for a hundred years. Then Tar Gaarn fell, the last bastion of the free world, betrayed by Rulke. What remained of the world was squandered on an even greater extravagance, Alcifer.

"Rulke was pre-eminent. Santhenar, desperate. With war, plague and starvation half its people were gone. After the last Death the survivors could barely feed themselves. But much more than this was lost. Of its great libraries only Zile was left. The art and architecture, music and literature, even the Histories of Santhenar were wasted, and those who survived had more urgent tasks than to protect what remained.

"The surviving Council lacked the heart for it. Rulke came to them with an ultimatum.

" 'You will surrender all your devices and tools, your workrooms, archives and other secrets. Do that and you may keep your badges of office, and continue with all the privileges of the Council. Refuse ...' "

"He did not need to articulate the threat.

"The great Magister Rula was dying, the Council a rabble with a small core of talent: Yggur, Mendark and Tensor-"

"You're right about the rabble," interrupted Rulke, "including those three! Look at them: Mendark-more cunning than talent, but always looking over his shoulder. Yggur-brilliant but unstable. He looked down on everyone yet was so easily manipulated. Tensor was the reincarnation of Pitlis-a proud fool addicted to folly, unhinged by hate."

"And so they are still," said Llian, "but they put you here."

"Dishonorably! Go on, chronicler."

"Rula coached Mendark with her last breath-"

"I remember Rula," Rulke broke in. "A great Magister and a worthy opponent. I admired her!"

Llian was becoming irritated by the constant interruptions. "Don't you want to hear the story?"

"Your reactions, when I challenge you, tell me just as much!" Rulke said in amusement.

"I'll go on if you're ready?"

Rulke sat back, grinning.

" 'You must take over the Council,' said Rula. 'Only you can, Mendark. Alcifer is, in reality, a vast construct designed to give Rulke power over the whole world. We have no defense against it. Just exploring it has destroyed us.'

" 'What can we do?' cried Mendark, on his knees beside her.

" 'Find another way. Find a weakness in Alcifer. There must be one.'

" 'Tensor is already working on that.'

" 'There is one other chance. Exploit the rivalry between Rulke and Kandor. Kandor is on his way to Alcifer now. Use him-' Then Rula died, without further word."

Rulke was no longer smiling. "I cannot believe Kandor was involved."

"I don't know anything about that," said Llian. He continued.

" 'I cannot see any choice,' said Mendark. He was in the apathy that follows despair.

"Yggur was silent. 'Shall we submit then?' said Mendark. 'Is the misery of a tyrant's yoke worse than starvation and the utter destruction of Santhenar?'

"Still Yggur did not speak.

" 'For us, perhaps it is,' Mendark answered. 'But for the people of Santh, it might be better ...'

" 'Shut up, you pompous fool,' Yggur roared. 'There are no simple choices.'

" 'I am sick to my heart of war,' said Mendark. 'I would sue for peace.'

" 'Will you go down in the Histories as the man who sold a world into slavery?'

"The words stung, as Yggur, knowing Mendark's care for his reputation, even then, must have intended them to.

" 'I will try anything-' Mendark said.

"Yggur cut him short. 'Even the Proscribed Experiments? Would you essay even that?'

" 'That is taking recklessness to a folly.'

" 'So you don't have the courage!' Yggur sneered 'You won't give your all for your country and your world.'

" 'I don't know how.'

" 'I do,' Yggur replied.

"At that point Tensor came running in. The only survivor of the previous Council, for months he had been working through Pitlis's plans and notes for Alcifer, searching for any weakness.

" 'There is a flaw in Alcifer!' Tensor cried. 'Pitlis made some tiny changes to Rulke's designs and these were never discovered.'

" 'What will the effect be, when he uses his construct?' asked Yggur.

" 'There's no way of telling,' Tensor replied. 'Probably nothing, unless-'

" 'What?' cried Mendark.

" 'Unless we help it along somehow.' "

Rulke was right up on the edge of his seat now. Llian wondered what he was hoping to learn.

" 'How?' asked Mendark. 'We'd have to be right there, and ...' He stared at the other two.

" 'Yes,' said Tensor. 'We would have to use the Proscribed Experiments!'

" 'No!' cried Mendark. 'Rula was the greatest Magister of all time, and it killed her. I'm not up to it.'

" 'Nor I,' said Tensor. 'Nor any of our Council, save-'

"They both turned to Yggur.

" 'I might agree,' said Yggur, looking down his long nose at them, 'were things desperate enough. But it would be a terrible risk for me. I would not attempt it without support.'

" 'You'd have it,' said Mendark.

" 'Total support,' said Yggur imperiously, as if he found them inadequate.

"Finally the scheme was ready, the bait prepared, taking advantage of Rulke's only weakness that they could-he was proud as exemplified by magnificent Alcifer. It meant more to him than anything. The Council disguised themselves and rode to Alcifer like a gale. On the way they could feel the fabric of the world distorting as Rulke began to test his city-construct.

"He grasped the levers, compelling the whole of Alcifer and everyone in it, the living construct, to his will. He directed all its force against the shimmering wall of the Forbidding. At once it bulged outward, a great tumor pressing into the void. And if it were not for those tiny changes Pitlis had made long ago he would have broken through. But at the last moment the tumor turned inside out and pinched off a fragment of the void."

The smile had faded from Rulke's face. His eyes burned into Llian. "Go on!" he snapped.

"Yggur began the Proscribed Experiments, the first, less dangerous, summoning part. Rulke took the bait, still suspecting nothing. The pressure was intense, on all of them. He came further. A slight unease prickled him, and he sought the reason for it. The pressure increased. Almost there, and Yggur began the second, very dangerous, capturing part.

"Suddenly one of the Council broke, and another. The carefully built structure began to totter. Yggur felt the horror clawing at the shell of his mind. The Experiments had failed. " 'Withdraw,' he screamed, panicking under the terror of possession. The Council broke apart and scattered, trying to save themselves.

"Then the scorpion struck-Rulke was inside Yggur's head, clawing and rending. Yggur's mind rebelled against the unspeakable horror of possession. He went into foaming, raging, thrashing insanity.

"Only Mendark did not falter. There was only one way out of the disaster, a terribly risky way, but he took it. He reached into Yggur's mind and trapped Rulke there. For hours they struggled together, but Yggur's madness confused Rulke, and he broke first.

"Mendark had just strength enough, with a last desperate spell, to force him into that tumor, severing his control of Alcifer. The tumor collapsed to a bubble, the unbreakable prison of the Nightland that touches everything and nothing equally. So Pitlis had his revenge after all.

"And out of that arose Yggur's great hatred of Mendark. But that tale has never been told. Not the full tale, anyway."

Rulke's face was thunderous. "That is a lie," he roared, striking the table so hard with his fist that it tipped over. "A vile deceit."

Llian leapt out of the way. "I didn't make the tale," he squeaked. "I merely tell it the way it has been told for a thousand years."

"A pox on your Histories!" said Rulke, carmine sparks flaming in his eyes. "How can anything you say be trusted when this is such a lie? My name has been stolen from me."

"Where is the lie? Tell me that at least."

"Damned if I will!" roared Rulke. "Only this! I did not fail. I was betrayed and the woman I was to pair with, an innocent, was destroyed. As treacherous an act as has ever been done on this world. Only in her defense was I taken."

Llian was well aware of Rulke's own reputation for deceit and treachery, but he seemed genuine. And if he was, there was a great lie in the Histories. Who would have done such a thing?

For a moment they were allies in their outrage. Other aspects of the Histories came to mind, things that had always seemed wrong or inexplicable.

"If it is so, I will make it my life to find out," Llian said softly into the silence. "But not for you, Great Betrayer that I know you are."

"You do me wrong, chronicler," Rulke replied with quiet dignity. "Everything I have done has been to ensure the survival of my species. What nobler aim can anyone have?"

Llian was silent. Rulke's every action since they'd met had been in self-defense. Rulke was noble, he could see that now. He almost believed him. Another question mark over the Histories. "I will find out for myself, and for the beauty of the Histories as I have always known them to be-for pure, unvarnished truth."

"Perhaps there is more to you than I had thought," Rulke said, putting his rage to one side. "Have I found the only honest chronicler in Santhenar?" He regarded Llian thoughtfully. Perhaps he did not need to corrupt him at all. Better yet if Llian would do what Rulke wanted of his own accord. He could answer truthfully when Mendark and Yggur interrogated him. What a wonderful joke!

"I also have papers dealing with this matter," said Rulke, overcome by a fascinating new thought. "I am thinking that I might give them over to you so that you can write the true tale. And if you do that well enough, next I may let you tell the whole history of the Charon since we came out of the void. What do you say to that, chronicler?"

For a moment Llian could hardly breathe. He felt as if he had been snatched from the rack and offered a kingdom. He opened his mouth but could not speak. Remember that he is called Great Betrayer. Great Betrayer! I wonder what his price would be?

"I cannot pay your price here. That must await my return to Santhenar. But shall I give you an advance?" whispered Rulke. "To show good faith?"

Llian found it impossible to hide his eagerness. He put a hand over his mouth, sure that he was drooling. He gave a jerky nod.

"Here's something that you cannot know," said Rulke, putting his mouth to Llian's ear. He spoke for a minute, and his breath sent shuddering thrills through Llian.

Llian's eyes went wide. Such knowledge he had to offer!

"Just the merest trifle," said Rulke. "So, what do you say?"

The temptation was unbearable. Maybe he could have the reward without paying the price. Karan, the company, his duty to Mendark, all were forgotten in his lust to know. "I think ... we may be able to do business," said Llian. He felt a wild, almost sexual thrill. He'd done it now. No going back!

Rulke smiled. "Good. Remember what you have just learned. Because a thing has been said, or a name given, does not make it true. You must make up your own mind."

"Be sure that I will. The Histories are truth to me."

"That is as well-I have no use for liars! Now you may eat and drink." Pulling the cover off the tray, he passed it to Llian.

The tray contained food totally alien to Llian's experience, for though it looked like shreds of meat or cubes of fish or slivers of fowl, it was light on his fork and fell apart in his mouth as if woven of cobweb. There was other stuff there too, that may have been vegetables, shavings so fine that they were transparent, and the pieces put back together in the shape of different objects: one a fan, another an open book, a third a fluted scallop shell. The flavors were so subtle that he might have been eating perfumed air, after the spicy Aachim food that Llian had grown used to. In between the courses he sipped from a vase of shiny black liquid-it was cold but light and hard to swallow, and its fumes rose straight to his head like spirits of wine.

Finally there were little bite-sized dainties like clusters of crystals growing on black marble: one resembled radiating plates of pink gypsum like desert roses; a second, flat stubby prisms of borax as white as icing sugar. There were feathery balls of hair crystals like fluffy bunnies' tails; fans of green malachite needles intergrown with blue azurite; brown siderite like clusters of maidens' breasts; red corundum; shiny cubes of black galena; and many others that he could propose no names for. Each had a flavor and a bouquet like a flower essence, though he recognized none of them. They were gorgeous, though in spite of their solidity each melted in the mouth like fairy-floss.

"The sole part of our culture that we brought out of the void," said Rulke, watching him eat, "though of course they can never be more than a shadow here."

When Llian was finished, Rulke went on. "I am going to put you into a trance. You will stay in this state until you've told me the Histories of the time I've been in the Nightland. Sort through your mind and tell me everything significant that happened in that time. And your Tale of the Mirror, too." He moved his hands in the air.

Llian's eyes went blank. Rulke gave a sigh that carried the weight of a thousand years of imprisonment. "'Tis an old rat that won't eat cheese! You will answer my compulsion too, when the time comes. Had you not compromised yourself I could never have done it. But your unconscious mind knows that you are willing."

Llian did as he was bade, speaking until he had run out of things to say, but as soon as he exhausted one topic, Rulke had another question, and another. Every so often the Charon brought more food, or held a mug of the black liquid to Llian's lips, then he continued. At the end of the day he was reduced to a croak. Rulke laid him on a couch, tapped his forehead and Llian fell into sleep. He began to sink into the couch. Rulke pulled him out with a wry curse and solidified the couch at the expense of the adjacent wall, which vanished into fog, while the transparent ceiling above it sagged down like crepe rubber.