"Is she at home now?" Maigraith asked with sudden hope.

"I don't believe so. I heard she went to Thurkad a while ago." He looked downcast, evidently thinking that he had nothing useful to tell her.

"Have you heard of a place in the mountains called Carcharon?"

"Of course! It was built by mad Basunez. I could guide you there, if you wish," he said more boldly.

Maigraith considered, and the longer she did the further his face fell. He was so thin that he would surely not survive the winter. No, she said to herself, this man lost his arm in my service and now he has asked me for help. I cannot refuse him.

"You can guide me," she said. "But-"

"Oh thank you!" he cried, taking her hand and kissing it, then immediately letting it go. A flush crept up his throat.

"It may be dangerous," she said. "Have you heard rumors about that place?"

"They are everywhere, but here we have more important questions to worry about: what we will eat tomorrow."

"Have you family here?"

"No more, though there is a girl that I would take to wife, if she would have me. Janythe was my sweetheart before I went wandering. We had dreams of a cottage and children, but what use am I to her with this handicap?"

"You are still a man, and in my service now. Go and ask her!"

"After we come back," said Evenil, but she could see in his eyes that he no longer felt good enough.

"Here are three silver tars," she said. "Buy food for a week, if you can get it, and meet me here at dawn."

He did so, carrying a pack and another bag which held the sorriest grain, fruit and vegetables she had ever seen. "It is the best I could buy," he said, "and it cost all of a silver tar." He handed back the other two. "And I could find no meat at all."

"No matter," she said, handing the money back again. "I don't care what I eat. Keep this, there may come a chance to buy more. If necessary we can hunt."

At Evenil's side a sword was slung off a bit of rope. It was a short ugly thing with notches along its blade, and looked as if it had been used for cutting wood. It looked not much use even for that.

They set out toward the granite cliffs. Evenil must have sensed her mood for he said nothing at all, but he was very attentive to her every need, as he imagined it, pointing out the best route and the best stepping places on the way up the cliff path. Maigraith forbore to point out that she had crossed the known world more than once. He was doing his best to earn his hire.

They were crawling up the last part of the ridge, a knotted club of rock with steep steps cut into it.

"Above this," said Evenil, trying to steady her, though having only one arm it was sometimes at the risk of both their lives, "there is a round place with stone seats where they say mad old Basunez used to stage bloody spectacles for his masons."

"An amphitheater, on this miserable ridge?"

"That is the word. Amphitheater!"

"Then it must be the most dismal one in all of Santhenar." She pulled her cloak about her more tightly but the wind-the incessant wind-blasted right through it. It was a rare sunny day but the sun had no warmth in it and the wind was a wild, wailing, biting, aggressive thing-it hated them for their life and their warm blood and did its best to take them unawares and hurl them down into the gulf. It was almost mid-winter-hythe only a few weeks off.

They gained the amphitheater, made their way across it and peered over the shallow western lip. A narrow path carved atop the ridge crest wound down and then back up to a hideous nine-sided tower. Snow coated its helmeted brass and slate roof.

Carcharon was indeed occupied-two stick-figures, unmistakeably Ghashad, stood at the top of a stair by a pair of open gates.

Maigraith and Evenil huddled there all day, watching; a day of the most miserable tedium. The Ghashad walked up and down the steps; they paced around the walls; they changed every two hours. Occasionally other guards appeared, patroling in pairs on the walls or sighted through embrasures. What were they guarding?

Maigraith knew that this news would not be enough to satisfy Faelamor. She would have to find out, though the prospect was terrifying. And she had to look to the safety of her faithful guard as well, whose chivalry up here would be a hazard to both of them.

"I'm going up to the gate," Maigraith said as dusk approached. Tiny ice crystals sandblasted their exposed faces. "Stay right here; guard my back! There may be scouts out."

She could see, even in the failing light, that he knew it was an excuse. And he, a soldier once, was humiliated. "Do you obey my orders, Evenil?" she said harshly, thinking that she could not afford him up here. He was perceptive; he realized that too. He bowed his head.

Maigraith crept along the winding path; a precipice lay to either side. For a few minutes at the change of each guard there was a chance to get close, for it was so cold that even the iron-hard Ghashad lingered in the shelter of the open door when one pair relieved the other. They still watched, but there was an opportunity. She moved as close as she dared, lying on the edge of the path well below the stair, concealed by the blowing snow as long as no one came down the steps.

No one did; eventually the guard changed and in the thickly falling snow she made it right up the steps and slid in behind a bronze statue of a mythical winged creature. From there she could hear the guards' talk. They were uneasy-perhaps they sensed her. She knew she would never get in through the doors, but spines and rods embedded in the wall offered another opportunity. She began to climb up toward a lighted embrasure near the top.

If the cold had been bad before, up here it was unbearable-the wind hunted like a howling pack and the metal rods stuck to her skin through holes in her gloves. She had to climb around the tower to reach the embrasure she was aiming for, and knew that she hung over the unseen precipice.

Reaching the embrasure, Maigraith slanted her gaze in, keeping out of the light. A big man moved into the line of sight and she knew him at once. It was Rulke, heading across the room. Her heart leapt from side to side; she felt weak, exposed, afraid. And drawn to him too, though that was madness.

Rulke whirled, staring at the northern embrasure as if something had startled him. He had sensed her! She ducked away from her window, the eastern one, and began to climb down hastily. Came a roar from inside-Rulke's voice. She swung from spine to prong, hurrying, taking risks with the icy metal, desperate to get around the corner before he looked out the window.

She heard an answering cry and knew that it was brave, foolish Evenil come to rescue her. In the lights from the open door she saw him running up the track with his blunt sword upraised. His tragic loyalty brought tears to her eyes. They would kill him in an instant. She moved more quickly but was too late. While she still hung four spans above the rock there was a short sharp battle on the path, but the onearmed man with the blunt sword was no match for their spears. One glided into his breast, he sagged down and was toppled over the edge.

Maigraith hung in the freezing cold until the guards had checked the path and gone back inside to report. Then she crept along the track to the point where Evenil had gone over. She found it easily enough, for there was enough light from the windows to show the snow blushing dark in a patch the size of a hat, where the spear had carved him. She looked down, trying to remember how steep it was here, midway between the amphitheater and Carcharon. Further over the slope was gentler, but here it was precipitous. Impossible that he could have survived. She could see in her mind's eye how the spear had plunged into him. He would have been dead before he fell.

She squatted there for a long time, mourning her guard. He had served her to the best of his ability and this was his reward. Nothing she could do about it. Faithful Evenil was gone.

Maigraith could have gone back and slain them on the step, but what would be the point? Her melancholy duty was clear. She must take the news to Janythe, Evenil's sweetheart whose hand he had not dared to ask for. There would be no cottage and no children now. Sick at heart, Maigraith headed back down the mountain.

It snowed all the way home. Maigraith arrived back in Dun-net after an exhausting, slow trek to find Faelamor waiting for her. She had failed to recover the book. Moreover the Faellem had still not come. Faelamor was in a shocking mood, terrified that they might not be coming at all. She had tried to raise them by means of a link but had not been able to get back the merest whisper.

"Well, what did you learn?" Faelamor snarled.

"It is Rulke!"

"You're sure? How can you be sure?"

"I climbed the wall of the tower and looked in at the window. I saw him clearly. I've seen Rulke before, remember. I recognized him at once."

Faelamor was, if anything, even more furious than before. "Fool!" she shrieked. "What if he saw you? He needs your kind just as much as-" She broke off, staring right through Maigraith as if she had just realized an awful possibility. "Why?" she said in a whisper. "Why did he go to Carcharon when he had all Shazmak at his disposal?"

"I have no idea. Carcharon is a powerful place. Maybe-"

"And it's a place that's positively impregnated by a certain family. "Basunez! Galliad!" She grabbed Maigraith by the jacket and shook her. "And who owns Carcharon? Who lives just a step away? Who is a sensitive and a triune, surely just what Rulke requires?"

"Karan," said Maigraith weakly for lack of air.

"Tallallame, Tallallame, your fate rests on the one which is three." The proverb had been old before Faelamor had left her world.

Faelamor released her, stumbled backwards and sat down abruptly on the snowy ground. Maigraith walked away to the river, wondering what the proverb meant.

When she was gone Faelamor said to herself, "The balance has tipped right against me. Rulke was bad enough by himself. With the triune he will be invincible." She sank her head on her arms and rocked back and forth for a few moments, then sprang up again. "I was right about Karan the first time. I must finish her. I should have done so long ago.'

DINNER WITH.

NADIRIL.

In the evening Nadiril appeared at Llian's cell with a parole from Yggur. "Come with me," he said. "We have much to talk about."

They went down to the waterfront of Thurkad, to an inn which had private dining rooms. Nadiril was greeted with a bow so low that the doorman's bald pate touched the floor, then they were led to a large room on the second floor. There was a glorious fire. Small-paned windows looked out over the harbor, though presently the view was obscured by sleet whirling against the glass. An aged waiter lurched in with a menu as long as his arm. Llian looked at the prices in alarm, surreptitiously feeling the sad little coins in his pocket.

Nadiril laughed, a rustling sound like the leaves that blew along the streets of Thurkad. "I'm paying. Order the best of everything, if you wish. It all tastes the same to me, but it gives me pleasure to see young folk eat."

Llian had not had a decent feed in days. He ordered soup, a platter of appetizers and, to follow, the second-most expensive dish on the menu. Nadiril selected the wine to go with each dish. When the first wine appeared, a small jade flask containing a luscious yellow vintage so strong, sweet and thick that it could have been a liqueur, Nadiril fixed Llian with a flinty glare and said, "Now tell me your tale; omit not the least detail. And take my warning to heart. I can read truth from falsehood as I read a book. Give me nothing but truth, as you know it and as you have been taught as a chronicler."

"Truth is what I am searching for," said Llian. "But my tale will take all night."

"You have other appointments?" Nadiril asked with a wry grin.

Llian also managed a smile. "I don't receive many invitations these days."

"Then begin!"

Llian began. A good while later the soup arrived, a honey-colored consomme made from prawn heads flavored with saffron, with wafer-thin slices of marbled egg floating on top. It was gorgeous, but when it was gone he was hungrier than if he had eaten nothing.

By this time he was standing in the dock in Shazmak, telling his tale to the Syndics. We have heard the evidence of Llian, and it is truth as he knows it, Selial had said.

"Ha!" said Nadiril. "I see what Karan did, and it has never been done before. An astounding talent. I must speak to her about it."

"The Syndics did not pick it," said Llian.

"Pah! People are books to me. You are not tempted to lie to me are you, Llian? I wouldn't advise it."

Llian caught a glimpse of the hard edge beneath the kindly face. However, the idea of telling even a fib to the great Nadiril was beyond his ken.

"Good! Go on."

They cleansed their palates with eggcups of water of lime, a misnamed drink if ever there was one, for afterwards his breath made the candles roar.

Llian continued. Shortly the ancient waiter returned, staggering under a tray as wide as a wheelbarrow.

It contained appetizers too numerous to mention. There were nuts glazed with hot ginger or cardamom or bitters; a bowl containing a spray of crisp noodle-sticks in the colors of the spectrum; a side-dish of prawn heads, probably those that had been used for the soup, the empty shells packed with minced walnut, grape and herb stuffing, and beautifully arranged with the long red feelers crossed to make diamond patterns against the white plate. In the center of the tray was an octagonal plate containing raw chacalot cut into perfect cubes, and around the plate were ten dipping bowls. One was filled with olive oil and one with chilli oil; one with rock salt, one with garlic slivers, one with hot bean paste, one with lime pepper, one with crystallized molasses, one with green mint and purple basil in vinegar, one with flaked toasted almonds and the last with mustard seed. And there were many other dishes, spices, sauces and pickles on the tray, some so strange that Llian could not imagine what they were made from.

"How does one approach this?" he wondered, pointing to the chacalot dish.

Nadiril smiled. "Take one of these leaves in your left hand, thus," he said, shaking off drops of water. "With the silver tongs, so, select your piece of reptile and dip it in the sauce of your choice-I prefer the lime pepper-then place it in the middle of the leaf. Then, still only using your left hand, fold the leaf into a neat little parcel and pop it in your mouth."

Llian began loading his leaf with half a dozen pieces of chacalot, each well steeped in a different condiment. The folding operation proved to be more difficult than he had thought, and mixed sauces dribbled down the front of his shirt.

"It is generally thought to be poor etiquette to combine flavorings in the one leaf," said Nadiril, with a twitch of the lips. He handed Llian a napkin. "I tell you this just for future reference, you understand, since I care nothing for such whimsical conventions. Resume your tale, if you please." He leaned back in his chair, his eyes never leaving Llian's face.

Nadiril had taken only a few mouthfuls, though he sipped his wine with evident relish. The main meal came and went, huge crayfish in a voluptuous sauce. They had such beautiful carapaces, brightly colored in greens and blues and reds, even after cooking, that Llian could scarcely bear to crack his open. He ate every morsel, licking his fingers clean at the end, but a minute later could not have told what he had eaten, he was so involved in the tale. Karan and he were crawling through the caverns of Bannador now.

Around midnight the dessert appeared, an astounding confection: a spiraling tower of iced cream, molded jellied fruit and toffee balls each filled with a different liqueur, all woven around and around with threads of brittle toffee, and topped with creeping glaciers of red and yellow puree, winter strawberries and gellon. It was so delicious that Llian was forced to break off the tale until he was finished. With it appeared another bottle of wine, this one a purplish black with an astringency that contrasted sharply with the sweet fragrance of the dessert.

Llian picked threads of toffee from between his teeth. "You are not ... tired?" he asked hopefully. Nadiril's questioning was still razor-sharp, but Llian's head was spinning. He had slept badly of late.

"I sleep only a few hours a night, and if I don't get it, it hardly matters."

The tale continued, all the way to the Great Conclave in Thurkad. Coffee came with a sweet fortified wine so rich that Llian again had to stop talking till he had licked the last drops from the rim of his bowl.

"Leave the bottle," said Nadiril to the aged waiter, who was yawning behind a swollen-knuckled hand. "And another pot of coffee, if you please."

That did them until well into the early hours, by which time Llian's tale had reached Katazza, where Tensor was working on his gate. Llian was beginning to flag badly.

"Ah," said Nadiril. "This I am especially interested in."

He questioned closely as the tale unfolded, and at the end of it, when the gate was made and Llian's final collaboration with Tensor told, he fixed Llian with a penetrating stare. Llian felt more exposed by this kindly old man than he ever had by Yggur's merciless interrogation. "This does not reflect entirely to your credit," said the librarian.

Llian could not meet his gaze any longer. He lowered his eyes, red in the face and thoroughly ashamed. "No!" he whispered. "I was too curious. I would have done anything."

"It is good to truly love your work, but the chronicler must remember that he is also a man and owes a duty to his wife, his family and his people."

"I have no wife," said Llian stonily.

"Of course you don't. I know everything about you. Tell on."

More coffee, and that did them till dawn scattered pink petals across the sky beyond the harbor. Llian was still in the Nightland, for that was a topic of surpassing interest to Nadiril, and he questioned almost every sentence.

"All in all, not entirely to your discredit," he said, when the gate had spat Llian back into Katazza. "I see that you have told me a pretty good swag of truth. But what did Rulke do while he had you in that trance? That's what we must find out. Come closer."

He did something with his hands. Llian slid smoothly into a hypnotic state, and, sometime later, out again. The sun was well up. "I shall have to think more about this," Nadiril said. "I'm sure there is a way to penetrate this veil. Now, what say you to breakfast? This telling is hungry work, I imagine."

Breakfast appeared, porridge with a golden brown well of syrup and butter melted down through the middle, and a huge pot of tea. The tale moved more quickly now, for the trip back to Meldorin had been relatively uneventful, and before the tea was finished Llian was in Tullin dreaming nightmares about Rulke.

Again Nadiril questioned him keenly, but there was much that Llian simply did not know about that night, and at the end of it Nadiril said, "There is also something here that I don't understand. I can see that it will cost me another dinner or two to get to the bottom if it. Still, the price of truth was always high. Continue!"

Llian finished off the tale and Nadiril's frown grew deeper as he heard of Llian's treatment by Shand and Karan.

"Hmmn. A fine tale. And I believe it too, more to the point. Most of it," he amended.