"I'm not; I can sense how unhappy he is. Please, can't you use your influence?"

"Poor Llian," said Lilis, laying her scroll aside. "He was so kind to me. You must be able to help."

Nadiril put up his hand and Karan helped him to his feet. "Let's pay him a visit."

There was utter consternation when Nadiril appeared at an obscure basement gate of the citadel with Karan and Lilis, asking to see Llian. He could not be refused, of course, but a Whelm sentry raced off in one direction, and one of Men-dark's guard in another.

"Wait here, if you please," said the other guard.

Nadiril pushed him to one side. "Take me to Llian's cell at once," he said in an icy rasp.

"He's not in the cells," said the guard. "He's been put in the lower dungeons."

Nadiril went as rigid as a poker. He marched past the guard, a vast man who could have snapped him like a twig, but the fellow stepped smartly out of the way.

"You can't-" said the other guard, a Whelm.

"Be damned," Nadiril roared. "Out of my way!"

Karan was amazed. She followed beside Nadiril, almost running to keep up with his long strides. Suddenly he did not seem to be frail at all. They went down and down, into a stinking basement. The guard ran beside them.

"Help me! Let me out! Help me! Let me out!" came the hopeless cry from the first cell. Nadiril looked disgusted; Karan was profoundly shocked. Lilis wept.

Just as they reached the third grating Mendark appeared with a troop of half a dozen. Footsteps clattered behind them and from the other direction Yggur's soldiers came running, a squad of twenty led by two Whelm. They stopped just behind Nadiril with their spears at the ready. Yggur limped up behind them.

"What goes here?" he demanded of Mendark.

"I would ask the same of you," Mendark replied.

"I wish to see the condition of the prisoner," Nadiril said in a voice like a breeze stirring wheat husks. "Open it!"

"He stays!"

"Open it!"

Yggur gestured, one of the Whelm unfastened the lock; another brought the ladder. Karan snatched a lantern out of the guard's hand and literally ran down the ladder.

"Oh, Llian," she cried when she saw him, his hair and clothes saturated with rotten sludge. He was shivering. She put out her arms but he would not come.

Llian was hideously mortified that she should see him so foul and degraded. He had thought himself into a state where it was just him against the world.

"Don't touch me," he whispered.

"Llian," she cried, standing like a statue with outstretched arms.

A cockroach crawled out of his hair, waving its feelers in the air. "It's too late," he said to the wall. "You should have come a long time ago. I don't want you now."

"I couldn't. Yggur wouldn't let me in."

From above Yggur's harsh voice came down. "Come out, Karan, or remain!"

"Damn you," she screamed, shaking her fist at him. "I will remain."

Llian spun around. Each torment was worse than the one before. To have Karan sharing his degradation would be worst of all. He had to get rid of her. "Go away. I don't want you and I don't need you." Putting his hands on her shoulders, he thrust her toward the ladder.

"You have until the count of three," cried Yggur.

Tears sprang to her eyes. "Llian, what has become of us?" she wailed, then climbed up without looking back. At the top she pushed past Yggur, knocking him backwards with her shoulder. "I'll see that you regret this."

Yggur laughed. "You can't even pay your taxes. You'll be on the street 'ere spring."

Mendark said nothing, but he watched Yggur and Nadiril suspiciously, as if they were in league together.

"I've seen enough," said Nadiril. He took Karan's elbow. "Are you satisfied now?"

"Satisfied?" she whispered.

"Come! We can do nothing here." He bowed to Mendark and to Yggur, took Lilis's hand in his other hand, and went slowly back the way they had come.

Outside, Karan sat down in the gutter with her head in her hands. Wet flakes of snow settled in her hair. "This is a nightmare. I don't know where to turn."

Lilis sat down beside her. "Come and stay with us. Nadiril will help you, won't you, Nadiril?"

He was still as a tree, deep in thought. "What? Yes, of course. Come to my villa. It is quite comfortable, by Thurkad standards. I'll send someone for your things, and Llian's too. We must talk."

A good many hours and one deluge of slops later, Llian was dozing fitfully on the floor when he was woken by the grating above him being opened. A light appeared. Silhouetted in the opening was a bony outline that he recognized as Vartila. A rope ladder was flung down. He climbed it awkwardly, not knowing what to expect. At the top, two Whelm hauled him out, exclaiming disgustedly at his condition and his stink. Osseion and Torgsted lay on the floor, as still as sleep.

"Where are you taking me?" he asked plaintively.

They laughed. "To your fate, chronicler!"

The laughter had an ugly ring to it. Llian knew real terror now. As far back as the Dry Sea Yggur had wanted him killed, to get rid of the threat that he saw in him. The guards led him along corridors that he was unfamiliar with, then out the back of the citadel toward a place with high walls that he knew to be the execution yard.

"No!" he cried, struggling hopelessly with his shackles.

The Whelm laughed mirthlessly and jerked at his chains.

THE EAR.

The miserable gray light told Llian that it was not long after dawn. It showed the execution yard, a narrow and cramped space forty or fifty paces long but only ten wide. It was surrounded by walls so high that the sun never reached the bottom, and the walls and flagstones were covered in oozing moss. There were sets of manacles all along the long walls, a viewing platform at one end and an execution platform, a dais of gray stained stone, at the other.

A Whelm whose name Llian did not know thrust him sprawling into the yard. He looked around at the dreadful place, the manacles, the stained rock.

"Look up," the Whelm chuckled.

Llian did so and wished he hadn't. The top of the wall bore a single row of gibbets which went all the way around save for the space directly above the viewing platform. Mechanically he counted his way along the row. There were twenty-six gibbets, all but one with an occupant, and some of the bodies had been there so long that he doubled over, retching bile.

"One to go, eh!" the fellow said. "That'll be you in an hour. Better finish your tale quick, chronicler."

Llian groaned. He was utterly helpless. He swung around, aimed a kick at his tormentor and fell over. The Whelm laughed again, a sound like lead pellets falling through an hourglass.

"Dangerous prisoner," he said, pushed Llian backwards against the wall and snapped the manacles over his wrists. "Wait here," he leered over his shoulder. "Won't be long now." Then he went out, crashing the gate of the yard behind him.

Wait here! The humor was so pathetic that it brought tears to his eyes. He wasn't going anywhere ever again. Lucky that old Wistan had talked him into putting his tale down. I wonder if it will be called Llian's Tale when I am gone. Hardly likely! The Tale of the Mirror, that's what it should be called, but I suppose someone else will take the credit for it now. I wonder what my friends will make of it? I wonder what Karan will think of it. But the thought of her was unbearable.

Llian struggled against his manacles but only succeeded in chafing the skin off his wrists. It began to rain, then the rain turned to sleet, a normal Thurkad winter's day. More than once he heard shouting in the streets outside, as if a riot was going on. Nothing unusual about that either, in Thurkad. No one came for him. He was freezing. He had only the twenty-five corpses for company, and a crow that perched on the cranium of one of them, prising at an eyesocket. But it found nothing-those morsels were always the first to go. Llian put his hands over his eyes to block out the sight; it would be pecking at his, tomorrow.

The day wore on and before the end of it he was trembling from hunger, for the food in his dungeon had been so disgusting that he had eaten nothing for days.

In the afternoon the wind picked up. The corpses began to dance, to sway and twirl and flop their limbs back and forth. The puppet dance: it would be him tonight. And if his friends could not, or would not, pay the cost of the rope that had hanged him he would dangle there till the flesh was picked away and the bones fell down.

The corpses were now swinging their limbs about most animatedly, and almost as if his thought had been heard one fell, the body and the head separately, thudding on the flags not far away. The horrid sight made him weep for whatever poor fool had incurred Yggur's ire. He wept for himself too.

Not long after that there came a great commotion from the street. Llian could hear people shouting and running, but the sounds were muffled by the high walls and he could not make out what was happening.

The day dragged on, the sun finally setting without his ever seeing it. Night fell in the execution yard, and such a throng of ghosts came out that they had to jostle and elbow each other out of the way so that they could stare at him. They seemed to find Llian a very singular fellow, but they felt no compassion for him. That is not an emotion ghosts are capable of feeling.

They were a bitter lot, these gaunt specters-not a one had been executed for a proper crime, as far as he could tell. Llian begged and pleaded with them for aid but their ghostly hands could not even catch a snowflake, much less undo these manacles thick as anchor chains.

Well after dark, Llian became aware that the sky was lit in several places, buildings burning. A cluster of ghosts drifted up to the top of the wall, laughing and pointing, but they did not share with him what they saw.

Outside all was quiet now. He had grown tired of their constant bickering and whining. The specters recollected their own miserable lives and deaths over and over, but the agonies of their companions were too tedious to listen to.

"Go away!" he screamed, and that sent a stir through them like a breeze through washing. Eventually they tired of him and did go, and then Llian was sorry. The ghosts were much better company than the corpses.

"What can I do?" wailed Karan. Llian's agony was bouncing back and forth inside her head; she couldn't shut it out. Maintaining the link-monitor over him for so long was exhausting as well as emotionally draining.

Nadiril blew the steam off his cup. "Yggur will be rid of him as soon as he gets the chance."

"How could anyone be afraid of Llian?" said Lilis.

Nadiril strung his chain of logic together. "Remember that Yggur was once possessed by Rulke, who left a hold there that was only removed by Mendark in Katazza. If Rulke has possessed Llian in the same way, which I doubt, he might be able to cross from him to Yggur. The only way for Yggur to protect himself is to kill Llian."

"Isn't there anything you can do?" Karan cried.

"I don't know. I am old, and not strong."

"Do you have ... Powers?" asked Lilis.

Nadiril chuckled. "I do, but none so great that you need whisper about them in so melodramatic a way. I am no necromanter like Mendark and Yggur. We are weak vessels alike, myself and Karan and you."

"But you are cleverer than any of them," said Lilis stoutly, sitting by Jevi's side near the fire. "And Jevi will help us, won't you?" She looked up at him.

"Of course," he said, pulling her close.

"I would not put him in that sort of danger so soon after you got him back," said Nadiril.

"Then you can't get Llian out!" Karan said hopelessly.

"No, I can't."

"Can you get me back in there secretly?"

"Possibly, but you can't get him out either. He's guarded by professionals."

Karan sank into black despair.

"But you can do something, can't you?" piped Lilis, who knew Nadiril's ways by now, and his habit of saying no more than was asked of him.

"I left an ear on the wall by Llian's cell," he said in tones that were almost apologetic.

"An ear?" said Karan. "What are you talking about?"

"A device that listens for me. It will tell me if anything happens down there. See, here is another." He took a small piece of folded leather out of his pouch. It was like a tiny donkey's ear, complete with hair.

Lilis was fascinated. "And this tells you what the other ear hears?" She put it to her own ear. "I can't hear anything."

Karan sat up. Nadiril laughed. "Do ears speak now? Of course not. For that you need a mouth, with lips and tongue." He brought another leathery object out of his pouch, this one like a miniature donkey's muzzle, and set it down on the table.

Lilis bent her own ear to it. "I still can't hear anything," she said.

"That's because no one's making any noise down there."

Karan and Lilis stared at the mouth but it remained obstinately silent. A servant came in with lunch, which they fell upon, for it was well into the afternoon and they had gone out without breakfast. It was simple fare, bowls of soup thick with vegetables, brown bread and cheese to follow. After that they were sitting by the fire, sipping bowls of custard-yellow mil, when a faint donkey voice brayed behind them.

"Help me! Let me out! Help me! Let me out!"

Karan leapt up, spilling mil all down her trousers. The mouth was speaking, though the donkey lips did not move. Underneath that she heard the flapping tread of a pair of Whelm.

Nadiril creaked to his feet. Lilis stared at the mouth in wonder. From it came a tinny bang that must have been the grating crashing open. "Come up!" said a squeaky voice, half-donkey, half-Vartila.

"Look at him," said another Whelm. "What a disgusting wretch! He stinks."

"Where are you taking me?" came Llian's plaintive voice.

Footsteps tramped away down the corridor. "Help me! Let me out! Help me! Let me out!" wailed the mouth, then it spoke no more.

"Where have they gone?" cried Karan.

"I don't know," Nadiril said. "Will you get my cloak, Lilis?" Lilis came running back with it. "Wait here," he said to Karan.