Mendark shook his head, but he could not clear the cobwebs that were slowly tangling and filming over all his senses. He knew that the creatures were just illusions that could not harm him. He tried to wave them away but his hands were feeble, uncontrollable appendages. The illusions struck at his head with their maces, then he went blind, choked on his tongue, his legs turned to butter and melted and he fell on his face in the dust.

The woman fled as though pursued by her own phantoms, not noticing that her book had fallen to the floor.

Mendark woke with another frightful headache, once more in total darkness. He couldn't move, at first. His body was failing rapidly now. He groped around for his globe but it was gone, rolled across the floor, and took ages to find. When he did so Mendark found that it was cracked, with a large chip out of one side. He touched it to life but the light was feeble, fluttering, occasionally flaring up to a splintered glare that made his head ache worse than ever, at other times dwindling to a spark in the depths of the crystal. He sat down, suddenly afraid. If it failed he would never find his way out.

He wondered who the woman had been. He had been on his guard, had surprised her, yet she had broken his defenses as if they were not there, overcoming him with illusions so strong that even he had not been able to protect himself against them. What had she come for? What if ...?

He prowled the room. The inscriptions on the back of each journal were in a script that he knew to be Charon. Though unable to read it, he recognized that the journals were numbered in order. He took one down, then another from a different section. They might have been year books, though not a single word could he decipher. He had no reason for taking any of them. His foot touched a small, slim volume lying in the dust, the book she'd dropped as she fled. He put it securely in his own pack.

Following the tracks, which cut straight through a labyrinth of corridors, Mendark soon lost all sense of direction. He was well beyond the area that he had earlier mapped. There was no dust in the air now. She was long gone.

Mendark followed the tracks, sometimes one set, sometimes two, for hours. They disappeared as he entered a section where the dust was scanty. Beyond he suddenly found himself in a bedchamber where the dust was untracked. It contained a low wooden bed, a cupboard on which sat a storm lantern and several books, all covered in dust. A desk on the other side of the room was also piled with books and journals. The bed had a red velvet cover. A scroll lay on it, or rather a piece of thick writing paper rolled up and held with a silver band. Beside it sat a small package wrapped in foil made of beaten silver.

Blowing off the dust, he unwrapped the package. Inside was a broad silver ring, beautifully inlaid with gold and platinum in swirling patterns like writing, though again in a script that he did not know. On the inside it was inscribed, in letters that he could read, Yalkara-Gyllias, and a symbol of eternity.

Opening the scroll, Mendark read a short message written in common speech, in silverpoint which had blackened over the centuries.

My dearest Gyllias, Would that I could tell you face to face, but you are still not back and I can wait no longer. Faelamor attacked me again and this time she was very strong. She dealt me a wound which may well prove mortal. My only chance is to flee back through the gate to Aachan. Beware Faelamor!

Alas, my work is not done! I fear that it will never be completed now. But I beg you, take the Mirror and guard it well, against the possibility that someone will come to restore the balance that Rulke broke with the flute. I have locked the Mirror. Its secrets are hidden to all save the One who has the key.

Take this ring, which I made with my own hands, of ore that I mined and purified here at Havissard, gold and silver and platinum all. It is the key to Havissard, and a form of protection against my enemy, and a token to give you heart in the darkness, to remind you of my undying love.

It grieves me to go this way, but go I must.

Farewell forever, Yalkara Mendark was not easily moved, yet he wiped away a tear. Whoever Gyllias was, it was a gift that had never been received, for Yalkara had passed through the gate and her protection had immediately sealed Havissard off for three hundred years. Well, it was of no importance now, save as a historical sidelight that showed her human side. It would interest Llian. He examined the ring. It was a beautiful thing, but had no power that he could tell. He rolled up the scroll, thrust it through the ring and stowed them both in his pack.

Returning the way he had come, Mendark eventually discovered the tracks again. Hours later, with the globe fading, he found himself outside the library, and later still, back at his starting point. Was this another illusion, designed to trap him in a labyrinth of the woman's own footprints? No, here they were, barely visible. They disappeared then reappeared, leading to another sparsely furnished bedchamber, back and forth in that place while his brain whirled with the effort of unraveling her path.

The tracks doubled back to the library, then one set went a different way, to a room where the plaster had been removed and a stone taken from the wall. He put his hand in the cavity, feeling a tiny prickling that disappeared almost immediately.

Mendark choked on bile. He wanted to break holes in the walls, to topple the towers of Havissard and watch them smash on the ground. The gold had been here, but it was here no longer. The woman had it. If only he had come here first! If only he had not lain helpless in the basement for a day. He could have wept. To have traveled so far and lose it by so little.

The regrets were useless, his great dreams now an embarrassment. No point in him even being here. Devastated, Men-dark took out the black opal spheroid and the seven-piece ring, set them up in a suitable place and tried to touch the opal to life. It did not respond; it was utterly dead. He fumbled with the seven parts of the puzzle ring, but it was lifeless metal too. His brain could not imagine how to put it together, much less that there was one unique solution that would open the way out of here. After hours of frustration he realized that it was hopeless. He'd have to find another way out or stay till he starved.

The wall lights did not work here. Sitting down wearily in the dust, Mendark searched in his pack for food, then touched the globe to darkness to preserve what remained of the light. What would he do when it failed? Exhausted, he made a meal of dry bread and cheese so oily that it had begun to drip in the heat, washed it down with stale water, lay on the floor with his head on his pack and slept.

He slept indifferently, troubled by strange dreams, and after only a couple of hours roused himself and continued. The globe ebbed down to a glow so dim that it barely illuminated only the tips of his fingers, and he had to walk crouched down to see where he was going. When even that light failed he tore the sleeve off a dirty shirt, twisted it into the form of a torch, smeared it with the oily cheese and struck sparks into it. After many attempts it began to smolder. He swung the torch around his head until there was a dull red glow, no more than his enfeebled globe had given out, barely enough.

Hours he stumbled on, eking out the light. The shirt and the cheese were consumed and he was halfway though a spare pair of breeches when he discovered that the air was cool on his cheek. Following this path, stopping every so often to reassure himself that he was not mistaken, Mendark eventually entered a scullery. The breeze was coming from a chute that must have been used to dispose of kitchen wastes. A way out, perhaps. Or perhaps a trap that he would never escape from.

He crawled into the mouth of the chute, slipped and began to slide down a steep, greasy tunnel. He pressed the toes of his boots against the sides but it made no difference. He couldn't stop! He shot round a shallow bend toward a ragged light.

Mendark realized that it was the remnant of a wooden hatch that had once covered the outlet of the chute. His arms were trapped by his sides; he couldn't even protect his face. He struck the hatch head first, smashing the wormy wood to fragments. A nail scored his shoulder, he plunged through something that stretched like rubber, opened just enough to let him through and snapped closed again. The ring having opened the way, the protection spat him out. Now he was flying through the air, arms beating like the sails of a windmill. It was a long way down; Mendark had time to imagine his fate-impaled on a tree or smashed against rocks. Then he saw that there were dense bushes below him.

Mendark thumped down into brambles that had not been disturbed for centuries. He slapped his hands over his eyes as the wicked thorns tore his clothes to shreds. The whole center of the thicket sank down like a funnel under his weight, a hundred thorns gouged him, then he stopped, hanging upside down in the middle of the brambles. Dusty leaves rained past his face.

Everywhere he looked there were thorns. Blood ran in rivers down his arms. He wriggled, sank a little further down then stuck fast. No matter what he did it had no effect.

His brief flight had shown that the brambles extended all the way along the base of the wall and down the slope as far as could be seen. They were old, vastly intergrown, with evil hooked thorns and brittle powdery gray leaves that shook down with every touch. Their dust itched abominably.

By concentrated effort Mendark managed to twist the pack off his back, but when he reached inside, his bread fell out and the water bottle nearly followed it. The vertical sun beat down like the heat of a furnace, but the breeze did not even stir the leaves down here.

Mendark tied the nearly empty bottle to his belt. He felt around carefully for his knife, mindful that if he lost it he would never get out. Still hanging like a bat he hacked hopelessly at the wrist-thick bramble canes that enclosed him on all sides.

A day went by. Mendark lay still. His body had failed him. He could feel it coming apart inside. He longed for death, but not this humiliating failure that would undo his life's reputation. The Histories could not show him like this-he would not allow it!

One last cast! he thought. Dare I try to renew myself one final time? Even in the best of circumstances renewal was hazardous. But here, with no food or water, no support, no tools or devices, the consequences could be hideous.

But I must! For myself and for Santhenar. Slowly, painfully, he began the rejuvenation spell for the last time.

OFFICIAL.

CORRUPTION.

Fifty days!" Tallia said. "Well, that gives us time to look for Stiletto, and I can visit my family too."

Osseion, Tallia, Rustible and Pender were taking breakfast together in the shade of a sail, for the sun was up before they were and it was already hot. Beautifully hot and sticky, the climate she'd grown up in. Osseion was carving pieces from a whole fish cooked in a fiery red sauce, a splendid specimen that from blue lips to rainbow tail stretched the width of the table.

"Not at the breakfast table," said Pender with a shudder as Osseion reached for the eyeball.

"It's the best bit," said Osseion. He popped it out with his thumb, held it up between thumb and finger then flicked it into his open mouth. He chewed for a while, took the eyeball back out, examining it ostentatiously, licked off a bit of red sauce then rolled it along the back of his hand. Pender gagged on a piece of bread and boiled egg.

"Stop teasing him!" Tallia laughed.

Osseion allowed the eyeball to fall through the gap made by the missing finger, caught it neatly in his other hand and popped it back in his mouth again.

Even Rustible, stolidly packing away the fish as if it was his last meal, gave an amused snort. He was a messy eater, his shirtfront spattered with red sauce and strands of fish intestine.

Pender, who was drenched in sweat, turned his head away. He had not been surprised by Mendark's disappearance. "He's a secretive one, eh!" he said to Tallia, recovering enough to spoon down half a dozen soft-boiled eggs. They had been living on hard tack for weeks but the spicy fare of Crandor did not agree with him. "Well, I've got plenty to do this month if you haven't."

Tallia raised an eyebrow.

"While you were busy in town yesterday I had several approaches," said Pender. "Cargoes down the coast of Crandor as far as I want to go. I also have some private dealings that might make both our fortunes."

"As long as they aren't the kind that could lose our heads!"

Pender rubbed the bristly stump that joined head to body, looking unhappy.

"How far do you want to go?" Osseion interjected, mopping sauce off his plate with a slab of bread as long as Tallia's forearm.

"Roros, Guffeons, Gosport-perhaps even as far as Maksmord if the winds are with us. There's buckets of money to be made here, and a cargo to be found for the journey back home."

"I'll go as far as Roros," said Tallia, "where my mother and father dwell. I wouldn't advise you to go much further, Pender, or you'll never get back in time."

While Pender's crew loaded cargo-spices, coconut, smoked clams and a miscellany of other freight-Tallia went back to the Customs House to enquire about the five remaining boats on her list. After lubricating the tongue of a junior clerk with a few silver coins, she confirmed that three had home ports in Crandor-Ivory Cutter, Cutlass and Stiletto-though a quick flip through the docking records did not show any of them calling here in the last half year.

"I'd be careful if I were you," said the customs clerk, an earnest, spotty youth.

"Oh!" said Tallia.

"It may not be too healthy to ask too many questions."

"Why is that?" asked Tallia, but then the Customs Master returned from lunch. A great, wallowing woman with sagging dewlaps and tiny eyes, she looked like a born bureaucrat.

"What do you think you're doing?" she bellowed. "Those records are confidential."

Though Tallia knew that was not the case, she did not argue. The woman wanted a bribe, a much larger one than she'd already paid to no avail. Not planning to waste any more money here, Tallia merely bowed and went out. That turned out to be a mistake.

Next morning they continued south down the coast, stopping at several small ports on the way to Roros, capital of the rich southern province of Crandor. Roros was a rich old city, larger even than Thurkad. Draped between two hills across a meandering floodplain, it was a city of canals and a thousand bridges, with a waterfront that stretched for a league. After some trouble, for it was also festival time here and the waterfront was packed, they found a berth. Pender hired a team of divers to scrape down the bottom, which was covered in weed and barnacles. They waited for customs to come aboard, leaning on the rail, watching seagulls feeding on scraps in the water.

"I wish they'd get a move on," said Tallia, impatient to see her family.

The customs inspection was brief and efficient. Immediately afterwards Tallia went down to the Customs House to continue her search. She met with a friendly reception until she mentioned the boats she was looking for.

"We guard our privacy here in Roros," said the officer. "Why do you want to know?"

"I'm looking for a sailor," Tallia replied, "on behalf of his daughter, who is from Thurkad."

"Sailors!" sniffed the woman. "I would advise you to look elsewhere."

"I'm a citizen of Crandor and I know my rights," Tallia persisted. "The docking records are public information."

"Not in Roros!"

Tallia patted her pocket, the first step to offering a bribe, usually the quickest way in her country. "Perhaps we can discuss this privately," she said in a low voice.

To her amazement the officer reacted aggressively. "Are you trying to bribe me?" she said so loudly that all the clerks looked up.

"Of course not," Tallia said hastily. "I just ... never mind. Thank you."

Back at The Waif she told Pender the story. "I don't like it either," he said, munching a sandwich gloomily. "There's something funny going on here."

There was a lot to do, so the crew went on with their work and thought no more about it. Tallia went into the city. At dawn the next morning a long sleek boat with a yellow sail cruised past, its captain scanning their vessel with keen interest. Poniard was written in gold letters across the stern.

"He seemed to like what he was looking at," said Osseion.

Pender spat over the side. "Corsair or sea robber, or smuggler," he said. "Don't attract his attention-he's as fast as us; maybe faster. How are your family, Tallia?"

"Well, apparently, though they're all out of town on a family holiday." She sighed heavily.

Half an hour later the same ship came back. This time there was no doubt that the skipper was inspecting them carefully.

"I don't like the look of him," said Rustible.

"Cheeky devil," Pender said. "I'll have to take extra precautions. There goes my profit. No wonder shipping costs are so high here."

"Are we ... carrying anything special, Pender?" Tallia asked carefully.

"Soon won't be," he muttered.

Just then a customs officer reappeared, checked their papers carefully, cocked an eye along the vessel and said, "Come with me if you please, captain."

Pender waddled off behind him, sweat bursting out of the back of his neck. Before they had finished their breakfast, another customs officer, a woman almost as tall and dark as Tallia, though rather meatier, appeared on the gangplank.

"Tallia bel Soon?"

"I am."

"I would be grateful if you would accompany me to the Customs House. Please bring your papers and seal, if it is convenient."

Despite the politeness, Tallia was alarmed. It was an order and would be enforced ruthlessly if she did not cooperate. But then, this was her country, and she knew the procedures well.

She gathered the required articles and went down to the Customs House. "There is an irregularity?" she asked.

"We take our duties seriously in Roros," said the woman, which might mean anything or nothing.

Pender was sitting across a table from the first official, the ship's papers and cargo manifests spread out all around. Tallia sat down beside him. He was sweating profusely.

"Black Opal is on our list," said the man. "She is known to have been a smuggler of illegal substances."

Pender gave Tallia a reproachful glare. She knew exactly what he was thinking. I told you Black Opal was trouble, eh! Told you that we would be harried and hindered and maybe put in gaol just because this boat has a bad name.

"That was long before our time," said Pender. "We bought her legally from customs in Ganport. She is The Waif now. Look, the papers are signed and stamped. The change of name has been properly registered. Here is the seal of customs, and here, that of the Ganport Harbor Master. Everything is in order."

"We have never heard of Ganport," said the woman. "And papers are easily forged, a matter that we will come back to later." She stared coldly at Tallia. "You admit that this vessel was once the Black Opal?"

"Ganport is a fishing port about a hundred leagues north of Thurkad," Pender said, answering the first question.

The woman consulted a huge register of stamps and seals from all over the known world. "I can find nothing for Ganport."

"Surely customs comes under the Registry of Trade, in that country?" said Tallia.

The two officials whispered to one another, consulted various charts and maps of ports and turned more pages while Pender sweated. Eventually they agreed that the stamps were valid. Then another difficulty arose.

"Tallia bel Soon! I recall that name in a dispatch," said the customs man.