"I miss him. Enough of that," Wistan said abruptly. "Now, how can I help you? Will you stay for a while? You must tell us the complete tale at the festival."

Llian looked to Karan. "I'd give anything to stay, but I've got to get home," she said.

"I can't; not this year," said Llian. "The business of the Mirror is far from finished, and Mendark does not want it put about. It'll have to be next autumn. I'll come back when it's all over and do my best to make a Great Tale of it"

"That's too far away!" said Wistan. "What if you never return! What if-" The old man stared into the distance. Llian knew that he was thinking about his own death, surely not that far off. Wistan did not want to die without seeing the tale properly set down, to the everlasting glory of the college and, let it be said, himself. "What you have seen already must not be lost."

That was an imperative that Llian could not deny. Wistan called for food and wine, and summoned two scribes. Llian told everything that had happened since he left Chanthed, save for the meeting where it had been decided to attempt to remake the flute. That secret was not his to reveal. The telling took all night and the following day, and two long days after that, and scribes recorded it in a shortened hand, to the extent of twenty-four scrolls each sixty pages in length.

"It is not very satisfactory," Llian frowned after he had checked and amended the scrolls, several more days" work. "Nothing like a tale. But better than nothing."

"It is a wonderful tale," said Wistan, his eyes shining. "A Great Tale in the making, and a great honor for you and the college."

The scrolls were put in a locked cupboard until Llian should return, or to be opened in the event of his death.

After that Llian begged for the privilege of using the library again, and was given a special pass. He could not quite believe that his banishment was lifted, could not put himself in the place of an honored visitor, after so long thinking himself a failure and an outcast. He still felt himself to be the feckless youth who had been thrown out a year ago.

Karan was woken at dawn by a twinge in her wrist, the one she had first broken when she fought Idlis's huge dog last autumn. She felt that she should remember something. Outside they found a dusting of snow in the gutters, months before it was expected here.

While they were eating breakfast at a streetside table she realized what it was. "Llian, it's my birthday!" she sang out. "I'm twenty-five today."

Without a word Llian kissed her hand and ran out to the kitchen.

Karan, briefly alone, reflected on past birthdays. Last year she had woken with Idlis's whelp standing over her. She had only escaped by thrusting her fist down the dog's throat and choking it to death, though she'd been cruelly mauled in the process, and her wrist broken. Later she had shared her chocolate with Idlis in his agony. That was so long ago that it was hard to imagine any longer. A whole year had gone by and she was still buried in the affair of the Mirror, with no expectation of ever getting out of it.

Llian staggered in bearing a great two-handled mug of hot chocolate the size of an urn, covered in whipped cream in a variety of colors, grated nutmeg and shavings of black chocolate. "I know you love chocolate," he said, putting it down in front of her with a bow.

How much was all this? she wondered, licking cream off a vanilla bean before placing it on the side of her plate. Chocolate cost its weight in silver, she'd learned once when she'd thought to buy some.

The day passed in a whirl as Llian carried her from one of his favorite places to another. It was a wonderful carefree day, one of the best of her life, when all her troubles receded into the background. And as they strolled back down the hill for lunch, Karan carrying a spray of irises, they ran into Thandiwe again. Karan did not feel the least bit jealous now.

"Thandiwe," she said, "I was hoping we'd meet again. What is the news of Bannador? I've been away a long time and I'm worried."

"I haven't heard anything about Gothryme," said Thandiwe. "But I know the lowlands suffered terribly in the war." The tales she told made Karan feel more helpless. She wished she hadn't asked.

"I've got to go to the library," Llian said, clutching his belly after a long luncheon banquet in his honor. "It's why I came to Chanthed. Do you want to come?"

"Not really!" said Karan. "Not if you're going to spend days poring over incomprehensible documents."

"It won't take long," said Llian. "I know what I'm looking for."

Karan raised a sceptical eyebrow. "And that is ...?"

"It's got to do with the Tale of the Forbidding, my original quest. Remember when Faelamor quizzed me about it in Katazza? She wanted to know who was the first to go into the burning tower-she couldn't disguise it. But as soon as I told her, she pretended that she wasn't interested any more."

"So, what are you looking for?"

"The drawings made at the time by the war artists. A dozen armies were there and every event was recorded. I'm going to check all the drawings again. Something puzzled me before, but I never got the chance to investigate it properly. Some of the numbers seemed to have been changed."

Down in the archives he checked each of the paintings and engravings. Several showed Yalkara wearing her gold. So that was where he'd seen it before! He began on the drawings, untying the tapes of one packet. The papers sprang out, all crumpled up where they had been stuffed in carelessly.

Llian was furious. "Who would treat such precious things so badly?"

"Someone in rather a hurry," Karan guessed.

"These are the original sketches made by the artists in the field. All the engravings and paintings were based on them." He went through the sketches one by one, finally stopping at the set that showed people preparing to attempt the ruined tower. "It's never been clear who was the first into the tower after the flute was destroyed. There are so many different versions of the story." He stopped suddenly, frowning at the drawing in his hand. "The numbers don't agree with the catalogue!"

Karan laid the sketches out on the floor, holding each up to the light to check the faded numbers, then putting them in order. Finally she put the pile down carefully, searching the benches and the floor.

"What's the matter?"

"Oh, nothing. There's a couple missing, is all."

"Probably pushed to the back of the shelf," said Llian. "They were all here when I looked last year."

Karan searched everywhere. "No, two sketches are definitely missing."

Llian went through the pile. "That's strange! They're the ones whose numbers seemed to have been changed, last year."

They stared at each other. "Who was here last?" Karan asked.

Putting everything back, they ran out. Llian spoke to the warden of the archives about what they'd found. She consulted the register.

"Only three people have looked at these papers recently," she said. "You did, a year ago, not long before your great telling, and again just after. Wistan did too, when he checked the proofs of your tale."

"I think I can guess the third," said Llian in an aside.

"A visitor with a pass from the library at Tellulior, a university city in the southeast. She was here last summer."

"What name?" Karan and Llian asked together.

The warden squinted at the register, took off her glasses and put them on again.

"Kekkuliel," she said. "A small woman-I recall her now. Golden skin and eyes, and pale hair."

"Faelamor!" said Karan in Llian's ear. "Evil news."

"Thank you," Llian said to the warden. He took Karan's arm. "Let's go somewhere where we can talk."

At the back of the library they sat down in an empty room. "Why did she take those drawings?" Karan asked.

"They told her something-maybe who first went into the tower-and she didn't want anyone else to find out."

Karan shivered, confronted by a mental image: Charon and Aachim, Faellem and old humans, all with their competing devices and their gates, bringing war and bloody ruin upon the whole world.

"What can we do?" asked Llian.

"I don't know. Who can we trust? Maybe we should send to Yggur in Thurkad."

"No!" cried Llian. Yet he knew it was his responsibility to take this news to Thurkad. Mendark must soon return from the east.

They told Wistan what they had learned. "Leave it with me," he said. "Though I can't even send a message at the moment. There's not a skeet left in Chanthed. The war wiped them out."

In the morning Llian and Karan set out for Tullin. Looking over her shoulder as they departed, Karan saw the lovely Thandiwe staring morosely after them.

Just outside the uphill gate they went past a legless beggar sitting in the shade of the wall. His face was covered in sores and flies.

"Alms, lady," he wailed. "Alms, for pity's sake."

Karan felt in Llian's flabby wallet. She came up with a silver tar, a small fortune for any beggar, and even for them, but the poor man looked desperate. She held out the tar, not knowing that it was the last.

The beggar snatched at it, then his pus-filled eyes touched on Llian. With a cry of rage he smacked the coin out of her hand. It rang on the stones at the edge of the road, before it disappeared.

"Curse you, Llian!" he shrieked. "Curse you until the earth bleeds and the black moon rots to pieces."

Llian stared at the beggar open-mouthed. "Turlew!" he cried. "What happened to you?"

Wistan's former seneschal, who had attacked Llian on the road to Tullin last year, spat on his trouser leg. Llian sprang out of range.

"I lost my job because of you. Wistan threw me out of town. Then the war-" He thrashed the stumps of his legs then went on in a gangrenous voice, "I have only one thing to say to you, Llian. Enjoy your success while it lasts, for it won't last much longer. Soon you will not have a friend in the whole of Santhenar. Your very name will be a curse, and before the coming hythe you will wish you were as happy as Turlew the beggar man!"

Llian seemed unfazed, but Karan could feel the flesh freezing all the way down her back. "Come on!" she said, dragging him away.

They hurried up the road. After they turned the corner, Turlew dragged his stumps across the gravel. He searched among the stones and thistles until the light faded, but the precious silver coin could not be found.

That night they camped in the hills above Chanthed, among the gellon trees not far from the place where Llian had spent his first night out of the college almost a year ago. Most of the copse bore only shriveled, blighted fruit, but on one single tree the fruits were so ripe that they were bursting, their sweet juice oozing out to form clumps of sugar crystals which attracted bees by the thousand.

Llian seemed to have forgotten the beggar's curse. He had literally been bouncing all day. It made Karan feel grumpy.

"What are you so happy about?" she asked as he ran back and forth, piling up wood for the night's fire. Llian was normally a slacker when it came to camp duties.

"You can't know what it's like to be Zain-an outcast."

"You're right," she said, on hands and knees, gloomily striking flint into tinder. It refused to catch. "I can't!"

"The college was half my life-more-but I never felt accepted there. Not even after the Graduation Telling, when I was made a master." He knelt down beside her and began to fan the smoldering tinder with his journal.

"You'll blow it out," she said irritably. It generally took Llian half an hour to get a fire going.

The fire caught in a blaze that raced up through the kindling. He hurled logs on top.

"Careful!" she said. "You'll put it out again."

In a minute the fire was roaring as high as her shoulders. "But now," said Llian, "to have an honored place at the college-you can't know how much that security means to me. I've not had any since I left home."

Karan knew that she should be feeling glad for him, but her own unease had been growing ever since the discovery in the library. "Then I don't suppose you'll need me anymore," she snapped. "I dare say Gothryme will prove too rustic for you, with all the delights of Chanthed beckoning. Perhaps you want to be the next master of the college."

Llian started. "You're being silly," he said, but just for a minute Karan saw that longing in his eyes.

He'll leave me for Chanthed! He's getting bored with me. Karan kept on. "I saw her great cow eyes on you this morning."

"You didn't see mine on her, though!" He changed the subject. "What are your plans now?"

"I have no plans," she said in a faraway voice. She had her chin cupped in the palms of her hands. It was a clear night and rather cooler than they were used to. Llian edged a little closer to the fire. "No plans. Just dreams and hopes of home. But ... Bannador was one of the first places to be invaded, and Gothryme lies between Thurkad and Shazmak. Maybe home isn't there any longer. We are an impatient and rebellious people, Llian, and it gets us into trouble. I'm afraid for my country."

"We'll soon be there."

"I can't bear it," Karan said mournfully. "I hope Shand is in Tullin. I miss him."

This was a different Karan again, one who shrank from difficulties. The return to Meldorin had brought back problems over which she had no control; could have no control. And as well, though she said nothing to Llian, last night she had felt again the touch of those dreams that had so troubled her before the death of Selial. What did Rulke want with her now? Yet she was not really surprised. Ever since the Night-land she had been expecting him to appear. A part of her seemed to be looking on, half in awe, half in horror, at what must come. The beggar's curse was just another brick added to the load.

At first it had just been a touch, a fleeting presence, as though Rulke was checking on her. Reminding himself that she existed, and that he had a power over her.

And perhaps that was another reason for her reluctance. With every step of their journey she felt that they were coming closer to him, returning to his domain. And every night after that her dreams were stronger, more immediate, more real.

DREAMSCAPES.

Four days later they were laboring up the track to Tullin through unseasonably heavy snows. "I wonder what we'll find there," said Llian, warming his hands in his armpits. "How has it survived the war?"

Karan was too immersed in her own worries to reply. They turned around the angle of the ridge and there stood Tullin, embedded in its dimple near the top of the hill, looking exactly as it had done the year before, save that the snow was deeper. The chimneys of the inn were smoking merrily.

"I like Tullin," said Llian. "I've looked forward to coming back for ages. Better pray for good weather though-we can afford one night only."

"I hope Shand is here," said Karan.

They squelched up the path. She thrust open the heavy door of the inn and put her head into the great bar room, where the fire blazed. There were several people at the bar, locals with leathery skin and slow voices. Behind the counter was a shy, black-eyed, rosy-cheeked girl that she recognized as a daughter of the house.

Karan went across to the fire, nodding to the customers. Though she had been here a number of times and knew the innkeeper and his family, recent events had shaken her confidence and she could barely find the strength to talk to people. She stood at the fire for a long minute, warming her fingers at the flames, then took a deep breath and turned around. To her discomfort Llian had not followed her in, but she took her courage in her hands, went up to the bar and said hello.

Llian had gone straight on, through the kitchen and down the stony path to the woodheap. Someone was chopping wood. He half-expected it to be Shand, but coming around the pile he found that it was the innkeeper. Torgen looked up, frowned momentarily then smiled.

"Llian of Chanthed!" he said, rubbing a flattened nose. "Llian the exile! Though perhaps I am presumptuous, since Chanthed is where you've come from. You were here a year ago, before the war. We saw you coming up the road." Putting down the axe, he shook Llian's hand.

Llian was pleased to be remembered, though doubtless he had been spoken about more than once, and it was an innkeeper's duty to remember his customers.

"You went in rather a hurry the last time," Torgen reflected.

"Oh!" said Llian, suddenly worrying about things long forgotten. "I trust the coin I left was enough."

The innkeeper laughed. "Judged to a nicety, if I recall. But I was not alluding to that. I trust your affairs are in better order than they were then?"