Vanhe was well pleased. The desperate gamble had succeeded beyond any expectation. Even now his people were spreading the tale through the city and couriers galloping to the quarters of the empire.

"You could not have done better save by ridding us of Thyllan. He will always be our enemy, for he has no capacity to serve, only to lead, pathetic failure that he is." He turned to go.

"Vanhe," she cried. "Will you go to Bindy's mother?"

"That is one of my sadder duties," he said.

"And provide her with a pension, or employment."

"Of course. She will be taken care of."

She closed her eyes, feeling aftersickness coming on her strongly. It would be worse than ever this time.

Two days she tossed in her delirium, prey to terrible dreams and bouts of sickness, but on the morning of the third Maigraith woke to find herself better again, though weak and her shoulder very sore. The last time she had slept so long was after Faelamor took her out of Fiz Gorgo.

Vanhe appeared as soon as he heard that she was awake. "You were magnificent!" he said, the smile almost creasing his bullet head in half. "I'm sorry I doubted you. The tale has gone right through the city and won you a million friends, for all that you are a gangia, a foreigner. Thyllan has never been liked here save by renegades and opportunists."

Maigraith gave a wan smile. "Then my work is done."

"It's just started! My army is solidly behind you and the Fourth will swear to you tomorrow, if you can walk far enough to review them. Thyllan's forces are already breaking up-we'll have no trouble from them now. But outside Thurkad little has changed and the Ghashad may even come down with more fury, to counter you before too many flock to your banner."

"They don't want to counter me," said Maigraith. "They want to take me to Shazmak, to make up for their previous failing."

"They'll have trouble getting through my guard!" said Vanhe. He unrolled a map. "Now we must look to the empire, Maigraith. No matter how miraculous the rumors, to the rest of lagador you are just a hope that is far away. Bannador suffers cruelly."

"Poor Karan," said Maigraith. "She loved her land dearly. I often wonder what happened to her. Well, you gave me power and I plan to use it. Put it about in Bannador that Karan Fyrn is my particular friend, and if necessary I will lead an army to liberate her country."

He looked startled. "An ... interesting strategy," Vanhe said. His voice went cold. "Though of course such campaigns require careful thought, not mere whimsy."

He reminds me of my place, Maigraith realized. I am to be a puppet after all. Suddenly feeling too weak to resist, she fell back on the pillows.

"What more do you demand of me?" she whispered.

"For the time: only to rest, gather your strength, learn the art of command and listen to our spies and advisers. We have much work ahead of us: pushing back the Ghashad, countering their deceits, rooting out their spies, re-establishing our own. But we are skilled at that. What we don't know is what they will do next. How will they proceed? How can we counter them? These are avenues for you to consider."

"And Thyllan?"

"He's fled with a handful of retainers, One-Thumb among them. Thyllan is sorely humiliated, but a man of much persuasion. A pity you allowed him to live."

Nothing is ever good enough, she thought. Just like Faelamor. "Death is your trade, not mine," she said sharply.

"So it is, and I apply myself to it. Meanwhile there is a great deal for you to do if we are to wage war, in Bannador or anywhere else."

Maigraith said nothing. She would go to war if she had to, though what could be more terrifying than to have command of an army, to know that the lives of hundreds, even of thousands, rested on her whim? Worse still, that any mistake would be measured in lives. She did not have the strength to think about that.

THE VAST ABYSS.

It was a glorious spring day in Katazza, the mountainous island that once lorded it over the Sea of Perion, as Kandor had made the sea his backyard and commanded all the lands around in commerce and in might. But the jewel of Perion was no more, dried up and gone long ago, leaving an abyss choked with slabs and bergs of salt, with vicious shards of congealed lava and boiling sulphur springs-the Dry Sea! The surrounding countries were desert. Kandor's empire was gone to dust. His unparalleled fortress city had lain empty for a thousand years, yet its astounding towers, built of plaited cables of stone faced in white and lapis, stood unchanged. The Dry Sea was the most watchful guardian of all.

Orange sunlight streamed in through the open embrasures, catching every mote in the air like a speck of purest gold. A lovely afternoon breeze stirred the motes to a playful dance, a careless rapture. But inside the highest chamber of the Great Tower the company were spent. The conflict with Rulke had hurt them terribly, despite their apparent victory. The burst of elation that came when they all strove together, and seemed to overpower him, was gone. Rulke's foretelling and his arrogant disappearance had put paid to that.

Now aftersickness resulting from their profligacy with the Secret Art was exacting its toll. Only Shand had any life in him, but he felt like plunging out the window. Rulke was free! What use anything anymore?

Karan and Llian were gone, lost somewhere in the gate, and the gate was dead as stone. Only Tensor could remake it, but the once-noble Aachim lay a twisted ruin on his stretcher. His face was swollen, his eyes mere slits staring unblinking at the ceiling. Every so often a shudder wracked him from head to foot.

I let you down Karan, Shand thought miserably. Scanning the room, he realized how badly his companions were suffering. There was work to do. Maybe it would help to keep despair at bay.

Yggur was stretched out on the floor, long as a pole. Lank black hair hung over his face like a kitchen rag. His complexion was waxen and covered in droplets of sweat, and he sucked in the air as though he could never get enough.

"Selial needs help more than I do," he panted, as Shand took his hand.

She was crouched on the stairs outside the broken door, heaving, trying to rid herself of a failed life. Her eyes were dead. Shand tried to lift her up but she gave a feeble moan and scrunched herself up into an angle of the wall with her arms over her head. Her nerve had broken-she'd not had the courage to stand up against Tensor and the result was all around her. She would never get over it.

Shand hurried to the next casualty, anxious to complete his work here. A thousand steps below, Malien and Tallia lay abandoned with their injuries. What must they be going through?

Osseion, huge dark warrior that he was, seemed unharmed. Aftersickness had not touched him, but he looked dazed, as if he just wanted to lie down and sleep.

Shand bent over Mendark. The Magister pushed him aside, climbing to his feet unaided. He was suffering as much as any of them, but he hid it so well that Shand could hardly tell. Mendark was not down at all.

"Selial!" he roared. "Bring your healers; attend to Tensor; make a stretcher for Malien. The rest of you, get packing! Be ready to leave in the morning. Osseion, make our gear ready." Then he moderated the tone of his voice. "Yggur, get up. We need you!"

Yggur jerked. Failure had sapped him of confidence. He was prey to a vast terror, that Rulke would return more powerful than ever and possess him as he had done before. Yggur would do anything to avoid that. He got up like an old man, yet he obeyed the summons: hesitant; much shaken; much reduced. Part of his memory was gone, from that time before he stepped into the gate at Thurkad to when Mendark reached into his mind and did something.

"What happened to me?" Yggur asked, shaking his head in a futile attempt to clear it.

"When Rulke possessed you an age ago, he must have left a hold in your mind that has festered there ever since, weakening you and making you fear him."

"I have had terrible dreams," said Yggur, still shaking.

"They're gone now," Mendark said soothingly. "I broke the hold."

Yggur looked puzzled.

Shand watched this exchange in silence, wondering. The previous roles of Mendark and Yggur had been reversed. Yggur was down but Mendark exultant. The conflict seemed to have burned out of him all self-doubt resulting from the year's failures.

Shand was too exhausted to worry about it. Plagued by his own shortcomings, he threw himself into his work. It did not help-the morbid thoughts about Karan were as strong as before.

"I'm going to see to Malien and Tallia," he muttered.

The rest of the company followed. Several floors below they met Tallia coming up. A broad bandage was bound around her forehead, crimping in her long black hair. Her dark skin looked drained.

"What happened?" she asked.

"When the Aachim blasted their way in you were knocked down by a piece of stone."

"I meant, up there."

Shand explained. "How is Malien?" he asked.

"Sick and sore, but in surprisingly good spirits."

Many stairs later, they entered the ruined chamber that had been Tensor's workroom. It was an odd-shaped space, having the form of a nine-leaved clover, with a carved stone fireplace in each of the bays. The hearth of one of the fireplaces was now a circular hole that led into darkness. Down all the way to the rift, presumably, for the Great Tower had been built over that fuming fissure-one of the most powerful places in all Santhenar to work the Secret Art. Tensor's pavilion, the fateful gate, was a pile of rubble. They set him down beside it.

Shand found Malien on the floor outside, some distance from her blankets. At his footfall her green eyes fluttered open. Her red hair was full of white dust.

"What have you been doing?" Shand asked gruffly, lifting her with an effort. "Crawling about on a broken shoulder. If any of your patients did that ..."

"I had to know what was happening," she said, trying to smile. Pathetic though it was, her courage warmed Shand's heart.

"We didn't win, but we didn't lose either. Rulke has fled, back to the Nightland we suppose. Karan and Llian were forced through the gate before that. We don't know where."

Malien swayed in his arms. "Did no one try to stop them?"

"Who can stop Karan when she decides to do something? We were ... a little short of courage. It happened too quickly. I tried and I failed. Tensor attacked Rulke. I fear he will never walk again."

"Take me to him!" she cried.

Osseion and Shand carried her in, setting her down beside Tensor. She found the sight of him quite shocking. The withering fury she had previously shown toward him was gone. "Poor, foolish man," she said, laying her hand on his brow. "Just look at you. When first I met you, callow girl as I was, I thought you would be the greatest Aachim of all time. Alas, you have a fatal flaw, Tensor."

Tensor did not acknowledge her. Malien sighed. She pitied him now, and for Tensor that was worst of all. "And Selial, Shand? What of our leader?"

Shand just looked at her.

"She's broken, hasn't she?"

"I'm afraid so."

Malien grimaced as she tried to rise. "Fix me up, Shand. It's up to me to lead the Aachim now, out of the worst peril we have faced since the fall of Tar Gaarn."

"You'll do what you're told!" he said, making a bed for her beside Tensor. "You're not to get up today, or tomorrow." He walked away, shaking his head. "Though how we're going to get you two home I do not know."

With Malien injured, Asper was the only healer among the Aachim. He was a good-natured man with spiky black hair and pupils like black lozenges across his yellow eyes. Asper set to work on Tensor. Shortly Shand added his own hands to the task. They stripped Tensor naked, washed him with wet rags and inspected him all over. The huge frame was powerfully muscled, the chest and thighs those of a wrestler, but one side of his chest was stoved in, his arm dangled uselessly and his whole skeleton seemed to have been pushed out of line.

"This is strange, Asper," said Shand as he worked on the splintered ribs.

"What?" Asper squatted back on muscular haunches, brushing hair out of his eyes with the side of a bloody hand. He had quite beautiful hands, with the characteristic extremely long fingers of the Aachim, twice the length of his palm.

"The shape and number of his bones don't seem right."

Asper laughed. "We are not made as you are, do you not know? We Aachim have our own ..." he searched for the right word " ... race? Tribe? No, that is not right. We are our own species. Close to you, yet different."

"I knew that. I had not realized just how much you differed from us."

The first aid completed, Shand had all the time in the world to worry about Karan and Llian. What had Rulke said? Did they know where the gate has taken them, they might have been less willing to enter it.

"Where did they go?" asked Malien. "Has Rulke sent them back to the Nightland?"

"I don't know," said Mendark. "That's not the most important question."

"Then what is?" Shand shouted, so afraid for Karan that he felt like screaming. That would not serve with Mendark. Though not an unkind man, he was a schemer, and it seemed that he had seen an opportunity in this disaster.

"What he wants them for," said Mendark softly. "What are we to do about that? And about him?"

"Let's work out where they've gone," said Tallia, "then we can try to bring them back."

"No!" said Yggur, and though he tried to prevent it, a muscle in his cheek spasmed.

"What's the matter with you?" snapped Mendark. "I've set you free."

"And I intend to stay free," Yggur ground out. "I'm not giving him another chance."

"Had I known that it would turn you into a mouse," sneered Mendark, "I wouldn't have bothered."

"You can never know what it's like," whispered Yggur.

"Bah!" Mendark turned to Shand, putting on a smile that looked genuine. "What say you, Shand, my old sparring partner? What if Karan and Llian are trapped there? Should we even try to rescue them, or is the risk too great?"

"Seal the Nightland!" said Yggur in an inexorable voice.

"We'd better make sure he's in it first," said Mendark.

"Of course we must rescue them," said Shand.

"I agree," said Mendark. "Moreover, whatever our feelings toward Karan and Llian-and I care for them too-Rulke is the enemy. If he wants them we must thwart him."

"What if it's a trap?" said Yggur, the nerves twitching in his cheek again. "Maybe they're just bait, to entice us in after him."

"Perhaps," said Mendark. "Or maybe he really does need them. What say you all?" He looked around at the circle of faces. "Do we try to bring Karan and Llian back, or do we run and hide? Better run fast and hide well, if we do."

"We try," said Malien, and one by one the others echoed her.

Mendark raised an eyebrow to his adversary.

"Damn you!" said Yggur. "Of course I'll help-you can't do it without me. But you won't succeed."

"Suppose we do. Or if we fail. What then?" Shand asked.

"Make a gate to carry us back to Thurkad," said Men-dark.

"Can we?" asked Malien.