Innkeepers also tended to want to know the business of their customers. "They are well enough," Llian said. "I see that the war has passed Tullin by."

Torgen had picked up his axe but now he laid it down again. "Not completely. The fighting didn't get this far, but Yggur's soldiers did, and your friends the Whelm came back last spring. I gather they have a different name now. The soldiers terrorized us for a day or two. The Whelm found nothing either-what is there to find in Tullin? We've been losing people for years, but since the war we've regained them, and more, fleeing from Bannador and the east. There are more travelers on the roads than I have ever seen. Last summer we even had people sleeping in the stables. A good year for business; though I'd rather we had an ordinary year and no war. Still, that's the way of it in Tullin. People come and people go, but we're always here."

"I'd hoped to find Shand back."

"He went in mid-winter, at the beginning of the war. There was word of him in Thurkad, and he wrote to us from the north; some outlandish place I can't remember. He said he might not be back for a year. But that's Shand. We know him and we don't worry. We miss him though." Heaving a huge log onto his shoulder, Torgen headed up the path.

Llian stood reflecting for a moment, then stacked his arm with as much wood as he could carry and followed slowly. He dumped the wood in the box near the kitchen stove and hurried down for another load, catching the innkeeper just before the woodheap.

"I have more recent news of Shand, if you would like to hear it. He left us in Flude at the end of summer."

"Flude? That must be a foreign place, I dare say."

To the folk of Tullin even Chanthed was a foreign place, so Llian took no account of that.

"Very foreign! Flude is nigh on three hundred leagues away as the wind blows, on the great island of Faranda."

Torgen blanched as if Llian was talking about the dark face of the moon. "Well, you're alive to tell about it, so maybe it isn't quite as deadly as the tales say. Still, you'd know all about that. You can tell your story after dinner. Everyone will want to know what old Shand is up to. And if it's good enough, maybe I won't charge you for your bed. Now, that reminds me of something. Oh yes! The last time you were here you were looking for a woman lost in the snow ..."

He paused so long that Llian could almost hear the gears creaking in his brain. "I found her," Llian said, "but that tale would take a fortnight. Still, I have plenty of others."

Thus far he had told his tale to no one (excepting at Chanthed, but that was his chronicler's duty), respecting Mendark's demand that the matter be kept secret. But he missed telling very much and was delighted to be asked. There were plenty of stories about Shand that would cause no damage. He would give them the best tale that had ever been heard in Tullin. He needed to, else they would depart penniless.

As they carried their loads, another thought occurred to Llian. "How long has Shand been here?"

"As long as I can remember. He was here when I was a boy, when my grandfather kept the inn. He's always been here."

"But where did he come from before that?"

The innkeeper gave him an enigmatic smile. "Don't know as how Shand would want me to talk about his affairs," he said, and picked up his axe in a dismissing way.

Llian gathered another load of wood and went back inside. Winter was already setting in up here, a month earlier than last year. Even in Chanthed there had been a few flurries of snow, but here it was thick and deep, and the road that wound its way west down the mountain to Hetchet was already closed by deep drifts. No one had come that way for weeks.

"Shand isn't here," he said to Karan, after dumping his load of wood beside the fire.

"I know." She was sitting at a table by herself, staring at the flames. The other customers, after a brief hello, had realized that she was not in the mood for chatter and had gone back to their drinks and their gossip.

"Are you upset?"

"I knew he wouldn't be," she said without expression. After a stiff silence, Llian took their packs upstairs then wandered over to the counter.

Karan was not thinking about Shand at all, though she had been disappointed to learn that he was not here. Since meeting the beggar she had been feeling jumpy and the further up the mountain they went the more uneasy she had become. The mystery in the library was another part of it. She had many memories tied up in this place, or at least its neighborhood: her first meeting with Llian; but one of her worst nightmares too, the climax of the weeks she had been hunted by the Whelm.

But that was then, history. Now was different, not only because they were close to Shazmak and the Ghashad, but for another reason that she could not articulate, a foreboding that grew ever stronger. The terror she had succumbed to in the Nightland was coming back; a dread that she could not fight against, that induced blind panic in her, that had made her abandon Llian there. Karan was afraid that she would do the same again. She felt as if she was losing control of herself once more.

What had happened to the indomitable will that had driven her halfway across Meldorin? It was not there anymore. Since Chanthed she had come to dread the nights, and Llian was no help at all. After his success at the college he was quite caught up in his Histories again. She had never seen him look so contented.

Karan watched him go, hurt that he had not sensed what she was going through. How could he have escaped from the Nightland unscathed while she was put to such torment? He went up to the group at the counter-a deliciously plump and pretty woman of middle age called Maya (the wife of the innkeeper), her even prettier daughter and two customers with their backs to her.

Soon Llian was the center of attention. He was telling a yarn, smiling and waving his arms in the air. Everyone at the bar burst out laughing. The young woman ladled hot wine into bowls and sprinkled green and yellow herbs on top, as was the custom here in the autumn. Llian carried his bowl in one hand, inclined his head to his companions, took a long and noisy sip and said something that made the others roar with laughter. Maya, who had started to the other end of the counter to serve another customer, looked back then moved away reluctantly. Others drifted across and soon most of the inn surrounded Llian, laughing gaily as if they had known each other for years. The shy daughter was staring at him, but each time he caught her eye she looked away and blushed. The poor girl was smitten.

Karan felt lonely, quite left out, one part of her wanting to join in, the other contemptuous of their levity when the world was in such a state. Drinkers! she thought with disgust, looking down at her own bowl. She loved proper wine, the rich purple vintage from the lowlands of Iagador, but this stuff was thin and sour. Moreover the herbs gave it a floral taste which clashed violently with the other flavors.

She took another small sip, gagged, surreptitiously spat it back into the bowl and pushed it to one side. Looking up she saw that Llian's eyes, and the eyes of everyone else at the counter, were on her. One of the men nudged his companions and laughed, and the others echoed him. As Llian turned away she saw that even he was smiling. Karan knew that it might have been anything that amused them, yet she felt her cheeks grow hot, sure that they were laughing at her. Abruptly she got up and, storming upstairs, threw all of Llian's things out into the corridor. Bolting the door she crept into bed, pulled the covers around her neck and lay there, brooding.

So reluctantly had she entered into this relationship with Llian. His every approach she had rebuffed, not because she hadn't cared for him, but rather that she'd cared for him too much, and the wrong way. She had idolized Llian the great teller, but Llian the man, when she finally met him, had been another thing entirely-clumsy, foolish and quite ill-at-ease with life outside his college. She had derided and maligned him at every opportunity, but it had done no good. Even his stupidities in Shazmak, almost a year ago, had not been able to turn her off him. Her reaction then had been all the more violent because of what she felt for him.

She lay staring up at the smoky ceiling boards, smoldering. A long-legged brown spider was repairing a web that ran from the ceiling across to the fireplace. She watched it moodily.

But what did Llian feel for her? He had gone beyond himself for her on that terrible journey to Sith, and in Thurkad too. When first she heard his voice through the wall at Katazza, and touched his hand with her own, she could have died of bliss. But the past few days had renewed the barrier between them that had been built by her failure in the Night-land, and his dealings there, whatever they were. She felt miserable, lonely and afraid.

Pinching the lamp out, Karan lay in the darkness watching the firelight flicker on the wall. Occasionally there was a roar from downstairs, doubtless the vulgar guffawing at one of Llian's more uncouth stories. She dozed, woke, put more wood on the fire, dozed again.

Karan was woken suddenly from a restless sleep by the door rattling. It was Llian, heaving at the latch. The fire had burned low again-it must be well after the middle of the night. He didn't seem to understand that he was locked out. Seemed to think that the door was stuck; seemed to find it funny. He gave the door a thump and fell down with another roar of laughter. This would probably go on all night if she didn't do something.

Jumping out of bed, she stormed to the door and pulled it open. Gathering all her misery and frustration, Karan flung it at him.

"Go away, you disgusting drunken pig!" She slammed the door in his face and crept back into bed.

The anger was gone. She felt terribly sad. She should go out straight away and set it right before a little problem turned into a big one. She must, before it was too late. But she could not; did not.

Karan's words had little impact on Llian, but the cold ferocity with which they were offered did. She'd always had an ability to strike him dumb with her anger, and this time she had tried harder than usual. He scrambled to his hands and knees, his good humor evaporating. In truth he was hardly drunk at all, just euphoric with the success of his tale. Gathering his scattered goods he went quietly into the next room, which he found to be empty. It was so cold that he got into bed fully dressed.

He was used to Karan's moods and her need for solitude; more used than she was to his need of people and boisterous company. Even so, she could hurt him. He knew part of the reason for her anger, but he was innocent; they had not been laughing at her at all. Still, her temper was violent but soon over.

There was no fire and no quilt on the bed, just two threadbare blankets. He clutched them about him, lying fully awake in the cold night, suddenly realizing that he was waiting for something to happen. The wind had come up. The shutter near his head rattled once or twice. The wheel turns, he thought, remembering the night in Tullin a year ago when Karan had cried for help in a sending. It could have been this very room. Yes, it was: the fourth on the right, at the top of the stair. The wind had rattled the shutters that night too, though then there had been rain followed by snow. Tonight, just snow.

Llian felt the presentiment strongly now, and an overwhelming sense of deja vu. Something was building up. Was it Rulke, or just Llian's own pattern-obsessed mind making recurrence out of no more than chance?

The shutters rattled again and for a moment he imagined himself back a year, dozing in his room. He could almost hear the slow crackle of the fire, the rain on the roof, the slow dripping on the hearth. How naive he had been then. He looked back to that time, that Llian, remaking the night from his perfect memory of it as if rehearsing the events for a telling. Recreating his own frame of mind, that callow young man he had been a year ago, so full of himself and his heroic fancies. Reality was colder, dirtier, more brutal and totally unforgiving. What a crass, vain dreamer he had been. He dozed.

Suddenly the fire was crackling, slowly dying on the hearth. There was a downpour on the roof. It was as real as a year ago; it was! And what was that rhythmical, rising and falling tone in his head? Was Karan trying to send to him, again?

In the next room Karan slept uneasily. She was dreaming, and perhaps something of Llian's year-ago dream passed back to her, touching that link she had made between them long ago in Shazmak. The night's duress had woken it again. She dreamed herself into his mind-meanderings and was shocked to find herself alone on that cold mountainside of a year past, in the wind and the rain.

Her camp was a knife-edged ridge, falling sheer to the right, steeply to the left, and rising up just as steeply before her to the plateau and the ruins she was making for. While the moon was out she'd felt that she hung on a spire that touched the vault of the sky, a dizzying, awesome feeling, but the thick clouds quickly covered it again and she clung to the topmast of a ship in a storm, tossed one way then the other in the darkness.

Now the wind rose, blowing more strongly than she had ever felt before; at any moment she might be blown right off the ridge and flung across the sky like a rag. What if the Whelm came at her here? They were close, but how close?

Karan gripped a vertical blade of slate with her good hand. She could not defend herself here-to stand up was to be blown away. Was that a shadow moving below? The moon was gone again; the wind peppered her with sleet. Her fingers were frozen lumps. Oh, for a fire! No wood; no courage! The moon peeped out once more, and briefly the lower fall of rock swarmed with shadows. Even after it disappeared again they danced in her eyes. She rubbed her gloves across her face, trying to rid herself of the demons. She was so tired that she could have slept standing.

Karan stirred in her sleep, reaching out for the comfort of Llian's solid back, but he was not there. How lonely she was.

He was not there! Had never been there; she had not even met him. Surely she dreamed awake, clinging to her spur of rock, a romantic fancy built on someone she had seen just briefly. A magical tale told at a festival, a teller who had wrung her young heart with his tale. He had looked at her as he told it, and in her mind she'd felt that he spoke just to her, that he reached out to her alone. That was the dream. She could almost feel the warmth of his body, then the shrieking wind tore it away.

No longer could she think that thought, dream that dream. She was too cold and too afraid. She must never allow herself to give up. How could the Whelm be this close? On the snow she would have seen them half a league away. These must be phantoms, delusions drawn out of her tormented mind like waking nightmares.

Then, just as her courage was coming back, the clouds parted above her and the moon shone brightly down on her pale face. Moon? But it was too high in the sky, too large, too red and black. Was the dark face of the moon glaring down at her too? No, more like the giant, carmine-eyed figure of her dreams. More like Rulke watching her!

A moan rose in her throat; she could not keep it down. But she must! Karan knew that if she cried out the terror would feed on itself and she would be lost. She put her finger in her mouth and bit it as hard as she could. Pain cut off the moan and the eye faded, the light dimmed, the moon waned. Then out of the corner of her eye she saw the shadows dancing, and the terror, which had just hidden in the dark spaces of the room, returned more strongly than ever.

Llian's pendulum was swinging from the present to the past as well. He kept dreaming, waking again-one minute in this room now, the next in last year's room then, and somehow linked to Karan's now and her then dreams as well. Fleetingly he saw her where she huddled on that ridge, and knew exactly how she felt. He had clung at the same spot a day later, as he followed her to the ruins.

But the eyes, which were a symbol of terror to her, were familiar to him. He suddenly remembered what Rulke had made him forget-their talk in the Nightland, and the outrage they'd both felt that the Histories had been corrupted. And what Rulke had offered, knowledge that no other chronicler had access to. In his half-dreaming state Karan's terror now seemed self-indulgent. Why could she not see? Rulke was their friend. There was no danger from him, only a wonderful opportunity. Rulke could give him everything he had ever dreamed about, and more: things that he had never been able to dream about. And for practically nothing in return.

"Aahhhh!" The cry came right through the wall. It was Karan. But when he tried to get up he was punished with pain like a spear through his brain. Everything was too hard. He lay down again. Karan will be all right, something sighed in his brain. I'll take care of her for you.

Karan sat up abruptly, the blankets sliding off her bare shoulders. Her finger was bitten so badly that it bled, but she knew nothing about it save that she'd had a terrible dream. She was wide awake now, or thought she was. The foreboding grew more terrible and urgent. What was Llian doing? It felt like her trial in Shazmak, when she had read her dream back from him and told it to the Syndics. Only now she was dreaming his dream. But Llian was dreaming a lie and dragging them both to damnation.

She tried to get up but could not; awake or asleep she must keep traveling that dream. How has this come about? the conscious part of her mind wailed, while the rest of her was on that windswept ridge, watching the flitting shadows and the clouds slowly parting above. The moon-the eye-glared down at her: cold, manipulating, treacherous. Bending her to its will.

No, I will not! But at the same time her other self was raising her hands to keep away the terror, seeking, crying out for a friend ... No, that was yet another time, when the Whelm had come for her near Name and she had made the fateful link to Maigraith that had betrayed them all. Was Rulke trying to force that link from her again?

Llian's dream of a year ago began to dissolve into two parts. One part was himself in this room in Tullin, dreaming that he was at the festival, telling the greatest of the Great Tales, the Tale of the Forbidding. The other part was with Karan on the mountainside, and she was crying out, "Help me! Help me!" He reached out to her slowly, and more slowly, and yet more slowly still, as the telling reached its climactic phase where the mad Shuthdar, surrounded by his enemies, capered on the high tower, cursed them and blew that fateful blast on the flute that sent the whole world spinning into madness.

Karan caught the dreaming and it wrenched her heart, for it was the tale and the teller that she had yearned for ever since the Graduation Telling. He brought it to a triumphant conclusion and her heart went out to him. And the dream went out from the now-Karan in Tullin to the then-Karan on the ridge, and she cried out in desperation and wonder and hope, "Help me; help me!" and to her joy the answer came back, "Where, where?"

The now-Karan wept with anguish. This was much more than a dream-look what it had led to before. Her link to Maigraith had been captured by Rulke, used to wake the Whelm to their true identify-Ghashad-and set in motion the holocaust. She had opened that box. How much worse would it be now that Rulke was free? In her mind's eye she could see the now-Llian sitting up in his bed, reaching up to Rulke, and the other Llian of a year ago looking up in terror, trying to shield himself. And she saw the Karan of a year ago (the images repeating and disappearing and merging into each other as if seen in a pair of mirrors) protecting her face with her hands. This was not at all what she'd imagined when she made that first sending for help, a year ago.

Karan's dream blurred into Llian's. Had he sold himself or was he compelled, overpowered? Whatever it was, she had to break it now. Perhaps if she used the link cunningly enough she could snatch away Rulke's control. Karan tried to sense her way into Llian's dreams but instantly the whole world-view tipped upside down and began to revolve sick-eningly. Her head spun, her view of Rulke suddenly changed. He was great and majestic and wise. She should follow him. Why did she struggle?

No! Rulke was trying to compel her through Llian, using her own link. Karan tried to snap the link but it was now like a rigid cable joining them together. She could not break it! Rulke was far too strong, much stronger than he had been in the Nightland, for they were close to Shazmak here, where a legion of Ghashad waited to do his bidding. Then she realized that even if she did break the link she would be abandoning Llian again. She would have bought her freedom with his soul.

To do anything at all was hard-Rulke's will was utterly dominating now. Come to me, come to me! he sighed, his very voice a seduction. I can give you what you most desire.

I'm coming, I'm coming! she sang back to him, forcing herself to think of nothing else. Don't dare think or it will give you away. But Karan could scarcely think anyway, for the voice was so overpowering that she must follow wherever it led.

Karan fell out of bed. No time to dress, not even capable of thinking of clothes, she forced herself against air that felt as cold and thick as tar, her only drive to stop this before it went to its inevitable, deadly conclusion.

She stumbled to the door, shaking her head, trying to clear the dream/dreams from it while the honeyed voice sighed across the link. Struggling with the door, her thoughts were so sluggish that it was a minute before she remembered that she had bolted it. She wrenched back the bolt. The dream was quite horrible now. The Llian from last year and the Karan on the ridge, sad phantoms of yesteryear, were fading. In his room Llian stood on unsteady knees, reaching out with both arms like a prodigal son to his father. The great figure rose from the stone chair, broken chains glistening at its feet. The air began to swirl lazily in toward the center of the room, making a whirlpool with Llian at its center.

"No!" she cried softly, running the few steps to Llian's door, praying that he had not locked it when he went to bed. Why would he? Tullin had seemed the safest place in all Meldorin.

You fool! Oh, you stupid, stupid fool; you're doing just what he wants.

The door opened easily and she fell in, tripping over Llian's gear inside the door. She crouched there, looking up. The dream and the reality superimposed, blurred, shifted separately-the one seen from where she stood, the other as from the far side of the room.

An image of Rulke formed slowly in the center of the room. She could tell that it was just an image because there was no rush of air as there always had been through a gate, and the image was translucent, wavery. Llian looked rapt, like an acolyte about to receive the first of the great secrets from the master. How could she stop it? The dreams of then were almost gone, merging into the reality of now, no longer needed. Whatever Rulke had wanted set in motion was flowing now of its own accord. But what did he want of Llian?

The dreams winked out but the compulsion that flowed from Llian was as strong as ever. She had to break it before Rulke crystallized in the room or he would have them both. How? Under the bed she spied an old chamber pot of thick porcelain, thin gray stripes and a heavy handle. In a single movement she picked it up and hurled it at Llian's head.

He did not even look around. The heavy object struck him on the side of the head, beside the temple. One minute he was reaching up and the next he toppled slowly over and lay still. The pot rolled off the far side of the bed and smashed. Karan felt a brilliant flash of pain in her own head, a moment's empathy for Rulke's own pain as the link was abruptly severed. The empathy bothered her. The apparition vanished at once.

"Liannnnnn!" she wept, thinking that she'd killed him.

Llian was deathly white save for a dark bruise on the side of his head and a curving gash where the side of the pot had caught him. The gash ebbed a small amount of blood but it soon stopped. Suddenly all the anger, all the bitterness, all the feelings of betrayal were gone. He was as much used and abused as she was. How could he possibly resist Rulke? No one could. She leapt up on the bed and took Llian in her arms, cradling his cold head against her breast. Perhaps it was better that he be dead than what he would have become. Perhaps it was better.

He shuddered. Karan put her hand on his throat and felt a pulse beating. She slid down in the bed, pulling the blankets up around them both, holding him tenderly, trying to warm him, oblivious to the curious faces at the door, the innkeeper and his wife come to see what all the fuss was about. Evidently just a lovers' tiff, and they would pay for the damage in the morning. The two went away again.

The room still had an unpleasant feeling, a presence. Karan did not dare close her eyes for fear of seeing that image again. Surely if she dreamed it, it would let him back.

She had to get Llian out. Karan could just lift him, with his feet dragging. She staggered up the hall, rolled him onto her bed and folded him into the covers.

Llian lay still as death all night, and just as cold. The room was dark but she did not dare leave him even to light a lantern. Pulling him onto her, Karan settled his head between her breasts, giving the warmth of her body to him. Absently she caressed him, only moving when she could bear her cramped position no longer. She was too fearful of her dreams to sleep. Rulke was abroad with his construct and Llian was overcome. She was all alone, twenty leagues from anyone who could help her. The company were divided and scattered across the earth; even if they could be trusted.

She had to tell someone, but if she did it would be betraying Llian to almost certain death. There was no solution.

Sometime after dawn, as a dim light began filtering in through the shutters, Llian's unconsciousness passed into a deep, still sleep. His breathing became a little deeper, a little stronger. At last she let go. Karan slept too.

TAR GAARN.

Tallia!" Mendark called, a few hours after The Waif had set out from Flude.

Tallia was standing at the bow, staring into the swell, dreaming of Crandor. Her long black hair streamed out behind her in the wind.

"Tallia!" he shouted.

She turned, wiping spray off her eyelashes and forehead. "Yes?"

"A packet came in last night from Nadiril at the Great Library. Some more information on Havissard. This letter was with it. It's taken quite a while to arrive."

Tallia sat down out of the wind to read. The letter was written in a beautiful hand, though a rather ornate style that had gone out of fashion a century ago.

Guffins 18, 3099 The Library Zile My dear Tallia, If you receive this, please write back with your news. Both Lilis and I are very anxious about you. Now to your quest. I have initiated enquiries, even as far away as Thurkad, using up a good deal of Lilis's ransom money in the process. I am saddened to discover how much it takes to buy a customs officer these days. In my time it could be done for a handful of coppers. What a wicked world!

As you recall, Lilis said that her father was taken by a press-gang seven years ago. It was a fast boat with a red sail and a name like Cutter or Dagger. Unfortunately those are popular names for boats. I attach a list of a dozen that visited Thurkad at that time, and their home ports as set out in the customs registers.

I suggest you pay particular attention to the last seven, all from Crandor and other eastern lands (see Lilis's letter, and mark how well she's learned her lessons).

And Tallia, beware-pressing sailors is a capital offense in most ports; this boat is doubtless a pirate, or smuggler!

Your friend Nadiril Tallia turned the page. Written on the other side, in the same archaic style but a more rounded, childish hand, was a letter from Lilis.

Dearest Tallia, I can't tell you how happy I am. I have been working very hard on my lessons, and Nadiril is pleased with my reading, though he still thinks my writing is TERRIBLE!

You would not believe what marvels I am learning. Nadiril is teaching me the catalogue, though to tell you the truth, Tallia (and I hope he does not read this bit over my shoulder), it is in rather a MESS. I am working hard at it but there is so much to do.

I've missed you so very much, Tallia, that sometimes I cry at night for fear that you are lying DEAD in the middle of the Dry Sea. I have read everything about that horrible place. Just the thought of it makes me shiver. But you are so strong and clever and brave, I'm sure you will be all right.

I must finish this, for Nadiril keeps reminding me how expensive paper is. I've remembered something about the day Jevi was kidnapped. The men who took him had dark skins like yours, and spoke the same way that you do, so they must have been from the east.