Tensor had lost interest. Once again his head sagged onto his chest. His eyes closed. They all stared at him.

"You can't just leave it there," said Karan.

His voice came muddy. "I knew only of the flute, and it is destroyed. Perhaps there is more; perhaps someone found a way to bring gold afterwards. In Aachan it was accounted a precious substance, and rare-far rarer than here. I took no interest in gold after the flute. We should never have meddled in the forbidden knowledge. I should have refused. Inquisitiveness was always our downfall." The rambling voice died to a whisper, then swelled into a toneless cold that made them all shiver.

"That was what brought the Charon down on us in the first place. Aachan was not enough for us. We thought we were alone in the universe, and we were lonely. We looked beyond Aachan, desperate to find another sentient species, though we were well acquainted with the rules of life on our own world. Eat or be eaten, only the fittest survive.

"Xesper-Curse his name for all eternity!-found a way to look into the very spaces between the worlds. But just to look into the void changed it and left a track that led back to Aachan. Our world was hidden no longer. We found that we were not alone at all, nor fittest! The Charon came. Would that it were not so."

The silence stretched out to minutes. Llian opened his mouth, then closed it again. Karan knew what he was thinking. No one knew the Charon's origins, before they took Aachan from the Aachim. Tensor had revealed a precious snippet and Llian was desperate to find out the rest of the story.

Karan was not. The void was a nightmare of savagery, as far from her poor but placid life in Gothryme as anything could be. She had nightmares enough already.

"Nooooo!" Tensor gave a great bubbling moan that rang out above the wind. "All the troubles of the worlds have come from such meddling, and twice I had a hand in it. You cannot even dream what it will lead to. No more! You hold ruin in each hand."

He lifted his head, straining with his arms, his dark face darkening more with the fury of his exertion. He forced himself to his knees, but will alone could bring him no higher. Two of the Aachim came hurrying but he gestured them away, a savage sweep of the arm that almost had him down again.

"You, girl! We are in this together. Come with me. There is something that I must confess."

Afraid, wondering, Karan took his arm. They went slowly out into the storm.

PRECIOUS BANE.

Llian rose to follow them, dreading what Tensor might do to Karan in his despair. Shand dropped a hand on his shoulder.

"Stay, Llian! That's not your affair."

"I'm worried," said Llian, staring at the door.

"There is much to be settled between them. Tensor will not harm her. Besides, we need you here."

"Why?"

"To think through this proposition," said Mendark. "Come down the back, Llian."

"You would discuss such things in front of a spy?" said Yggur incredulously. "I don't trust him!"

"And I don't trust you," Mendark retorted. "We need what Llian knows."

The five of them-Mendark, Yggur, Tallia, Malien and Llian-went up to the other end of the cave. Selial looked up like a white-haired ghost as they passed, but made no move to join them.

"This plan is senseless!" said Yggur. "We don't have the skill or cunning of Shuthdar. Likely there are secrets of his trade that we can never know. And perhaps the flute simply can't be made here. It was forged on Aachan, remember."

"And once made, we may lack the subtlety to use it," said Tallia perceptively. "As Rulke himself did."

"Such things are often closed to the strong and the wise," said Malien. "Sometimes the operator must be rude and untutored, relying on intuition or a native talent; a sensitivity. But even that needs some training."

"So! The venture may not be possible," said Mendark. "Do we try, and risk wasting all our energies, when they might be better employed with more conventional defenses?"

"I say not," said Yggur. "The flute is the past. It can never be recreated. The wheel has turned too far and not back to its starting point."

"But we must have a weapon to use against Rulke," said Mendark.

"Then let us make a different one!" snapped Yggur. "This flute is a thing of Aachan, not of Santhenar."

"It is a thing of Aachan and of Santhenar," replied Men-dark, "for Shuthdar made it, and he learned his art here. Shuthdar was human, remember! One of us."

"No-still no!" said Yggur. "It's fighting Rulke with his own weapon."

"What can you offer us, Yggur?" Mendark said coldly. "You ever look to the past for security, employing the archaic way rather than exploring the new."

"That was behind our earlier disagreement," said Yggur with a flash of venom. "And one for which I will yet be paid."

"I doubt it!" Mendark's sneer told how little Yggur bothered him anymore. "You can't even master yourself now."

Yggur balled his fists. Llian looked from one to the other. Every day Yggur grew more alienated, more bitter, and Men-dark's evident contempt only made it worse. Yggur was terrified of Rulke, and Llian was terrified of Yggur. But Men-dark was not finished yet.

"The past has failed us! The Nightland is revealed to have been flawed from the outset; deliberately so. We must look to the future and make a new flute using a new pattern."

The fellowship of the company seemed irreparably broken. Tallia, however, was moved by an urge to conciliate.

"Listen, both of you! It doesn't matter who's right. Surely we must look at all approaches and find the way that best suits our needs and our strengths. If that be the flute, new or old, let us take it and put off the settlement until Santhenar be won-or lost beyond recovery."

Shand nodded.

"Very well, I will put aside my misgivings," said Yggur, though it was clear that he had not. "But where are you going to get the gold?" He gave a sideways flick of his staring eyes that seemed to say, "but this will not end the way you think, just see if it does."

Malien spoke from her crevice. "We Aachim must also take responsibility for our situation. Always we sought to delay the future by taking refuge in the past, just as you have done, Yggur. And too often we abdicated our responsibility, giving in to Tensor when we should have directed him. Our past is gone now; we have no choice but to make a new way in the world. And if we fail ... Well, what have we to lose? We will aid you, Mendark."

"How can you help us?"

"Small amounts of gold were brought to Santhenar. And we know how to work it."

"Really!" said Mendark, with a great gust of a sigh. "How is it that Tensor did not know?"

"Of course he knows!" Her voice dripped scorn. "Pitlis had a circlet of it that he wore about his brow. All the time that he was leader at Tar Gaam he wore it, and even after the fall, though not into exile."

"What happened to it?"

"Pitlis would have been careful with it. There was another reason why little gold was brought here-anything taken from one world to another is liable to transmute and become perilous to use. As with the Mirror, so too this gold. But if the circlet passed to another of us it is not recorded. We have ever felt that Rulke took it when he slew Pitlis at the gates of Alcifer."

"Maybe so, but Rulke did not have it with him when he was taken," said Llian, speaking up more boldly than in a long time. "I know those Histories well, and can even recite the inventory of his possessions."

"Doubtless he hid it beforehand," said Mendark. "The gold was one of the precious things we sought, even then. But gold is easily transformed and hidden. Besides, there was not enough to make a flute; not near."

"Though enough for a good start," said Yggur darkly, "and Rulke probably had more, since he knew the value of it better than any. What else do you know, Malien?"

Malien hesitated. "There was more-a small golden idol, brought by the second wave of Aachim to come to Santhenar. They came of their own accord, not as Rulke's slaves. The statue is a most ancient and precious thing, the heart of the Aachim of Nastor-a region in the north of Aachan," she explained. "It was kept in the library at Stassor, in the far east. Doubtless it's there still, though it's the grossest blasphemy to even think of using it."

"Was there any more?" asked Mendark.

"Not that we know of."

"Might the Charon have brought some?"

"Rulke and Kandor came with the first wave," said Malien. "They brought nothing."

"Why nothing?" asked Yggur.

"Because nothing could be brought the first time," Llian explained. "Save the flute, of course, but it could be said to have brought itself, since it opened the way. It is recorded several times how they came naked to Santhenar."

"And the second wave?"

"After the Charon had been here for some time-perhaps fifty years-and realized that the hunt for the flute would be a long one, they sent back to Aachan for aid," replied Malien. "So came the second wave, many of us, and a number of blendings of Aachim and Charon. But as a rule they did not share the long life of either Charon or Aachim. Most are dead without issue, for such blendings were generally sterile-mules!

"Separately, a host of Aachim came of their own accord. They found a way to bring certain small things that they treasured, ornaments or jewelry or small devices that were useful. That's how Tensor brought the Mirror here, I imagine, for he also came at that time. As did my people, but they certainly brought no gold. That's all I know."

"Not enough," said Yggur. "Why must it be Aachan gold?"

"It has special properties."

"But what use is it if we cannot obtain any?"

Llian's forehead had grown increasingly knotted as he tried to remember something, and now he burst out suddenly: "Maybe there is more! Yalkara had golden jewelry-a heavy chain, a bracelet and a torc. I've seen a picture of her wearing it. Now where was that?"

Shand gave a sigh, a long outrushing of breath. Llian looked at him curiously, then continued. "But was it Aachan gold? And did she take it with her or leave it behind, as she did the Mirror? The matter is not recorded."

"Why would Yalkara leave it behind if she valued it so greatly?" asked Yggur.

"I don't know," said Llian. "Why did she abandon the Mirror? Perhaps Yalkara lacked the strength to carry it through the gate, for it is said that she was badly hurt in her struggles with Faelamor. Perhaps the Forbidding made it impossible. Perhaps she no longer needed it."

"Those questions cannot be answered," said Malien. "But if you are resolved to attempt the flute, which I caution against, you must go to Havissard, whence she departed. It has never been plundered."

"Then we have two hopes," Mendark mused. "But the first is unlikely. Alcifer was sacked after Rulke was taken and has since lain abandoned. If anything precious remains there it is surpassingly well hidden. Besides, Pitlis's circlet will not be enough. Could it be blended with ordinary gold, I wonder?"

"No," said Malien.

"This is futile," Yggur said irritably. "There's no way to get into Havissard."

"It is protected," said Shand. "It cannot be taken by strength save by breaking the foundations, and they are socketed deep into rock. The only hope is from beneath, through the mines."

"The Histories tell that Yalkara reopened the silver mines of Tar Gaarn after that city fell," Llian explained, "and they became the foundation of her wealth, as they had been the basis of the wealth of the Aachim before her."

"But they were abandoned after she departed," said Shand, "and will never be opened again. The pumps failed and no one could repair them. The lower levels are flooded to the depth of a hundred spans."

There was a long silence.

"Do what you want!" said Yggur, now quite agitated. "I'm going back to Thurkad. Unruly people! My empire must be falling to pieces without me, especially with Thyllan lurking just across the sea. I left Maigraith there-abandoned her. How she must be suffering without me. And the Ghashad must be curbed-at least, I must make it harder for them to prepare the way for Rulke. Though how that can be done now that they have the resources and defenses of Shazmak ... From Thurkad I will send people to Alcifer." And even to Stassor, he thought, and seize this precious statue if no other way can be found. The Aachim are failing and eventually even Stassor must fall into ruin. Better that it come into my hands. "But Tar Gaarn and Havissard," he went on aloud, "are beyond me."

"I have long thought that Havissard would be my destination," said Mendark, "and while I was in Zile I searched out the old maps. There's nothing for me in Thurkad now." He directed a ferocious scowl at Yggur, who could not see it. A look that said: not yet. "But if the one who knows Tar Gaarn better than any were to come with me ..."

"Why do you ask, Mendark?" said Shand. "I'm going back to Meldorin with Karan and Llian, and from there, home to Tullin. The gellon will be ripening by the time we get there. You and I have nothing to say to one another. I told you that twelve years ago, if you remember ..."

Mendark turned away. "I had not thought of you as a coward," he said contemptuously.

Shand shrugged away Mendark's words. "As I was going to say, if you had let me finish: I will make a map for you. No, better still, Yggur and I will make a map together. Yggur!" he gestured, and to everyone's surprise Yggur unfolded his limbs and sat down with Shand. Soon they were chatting as if they had been friends for years. Shand seemed to be able to get on with everyone, save Mendark. He drew on an old scrap of parchment while Yggur corrected him.

Only then did it occur to them to wonder what had happened to Tensor and Karan. Hours had passed since they had gone outside; the brown daylight had long faded from around the edges of the canvas. The wind had died down. All was still. And then a great cry of agony cleaved the silence.

CONFESSION.

Karan and Tensor found themselves in a hostile, poisonous world. A world of shrieking wind, choking dust and thick air that seared nose, throat and lungs. Tensor stood shakily outside the canvas door while Karan adjusted his face cloth. She gave him her shoulder and they set out, walking ever so slowly along the canyon and up the side of a shallow ridge.

They labored up to a place of fantastically shaped pillars and caverns, buttresses and gullies carved out of the salt. It was layered brown, red and yellow, and the wind had fretted the softer layers away so that a variety of unlikely objects were formed-here a block with the layers resembling the pages of a book; there an outjutting point tapered like the snout of a rodent, even to the trace of whiskers on one cheek.

Karan had time to look closely at these sculptures, so painful was Tensor's progress. Whatever the damage that Rulke's blow had done to him, and none but the Aachim knew how bad that was, it had twisted his back and hip, and the whole of his left side from knee to shoulder, even his left arm hung limp and useless. Only the remnant of that once great will forced him on, blocking out the pain of his twisted frame and torn sinews. But yet he said nothing.

The last part of that climb, into the teeth of the wind, was the worst. Karan's eyes flamed before the end of it. They came stumbling onto the flat top of a peak of salt, the tallest around, and the wind caught her cloak so that it billowed like a sail, lifting her off her feet. Tensor's fingers dug into her shoulder and his weight pressed her back down, and the gust passed.

"Will you sit?" she shouted. Nearby a flange of rock salt stood up to the height of her shoulders, breaking the wind.

His voice came dry and rasping, the sound of one block of salt being rubbed against another. "If I were to sit I might never rise again."

Yellow clouds rushed across the white plains and once more their world was obscured in dust. Karan looked longingly at the shelter, braced her legs against the wind and closed her eyes. Tensor stared unfocused toward the east until his eyes were raw and crusted.

"Endure!" he said. "Endure."

She did not respond, there being nothing to say.

"You are the only hope now," he went on, apparently to himself. "They cannot know where they are led, and will not be told. Only you can see the pattern now. Endure!"

The squall passed; crystals of salt glittered in the air like mica falling through sunlight. Then the sky cleared suddenly and Katazza Mountain stood before them, its pinnacles touched to red by the setting sun, seemingly only a day's march away: mighty; impregnable; fallen. Taking a pebble out of her pocket Karan put it in her mouth, but her mouth was as dry as her hands. Though she sucked at it, no moisture came. Brushing salt dust from her cheeks, she sneezed.