Llian convulsed, biting his tongue.

Why do you resist? said Rulke. There's no point. Bring her to Carcharon, by coercion or by force. Don't make me send my Ghashad for you. Think what they will do to your friends in Gothryme.

Mendark had been out for a walk, pacing through the crusted snow as he tried to work out what was going on at Carcharon. Rulke was preparing something there, no doubt about it, but what? Mendark felt afraid, powerless, and the renewed body tired easily.

Shivering, he opened the back door a crack and slipped inside, heading for the kitchen fire and a warming cup of tea before bed. It was very late, past two in the morning. The whole manor was silent. He drank a bowl of stewed, bitter tea, unlaced his boots and warmed his feet on the stove, then set off for bed.

Passing Llian's room he heard a strange sound, like a combination of a chuckle and a cry of fear. Mendark froze with one foot in the air. A light was flashing and flickering underneath the door, far brighter than any lantern in Gothryme.

He lifted the latch ever so gently. The door opened a crack. Llian knelt on the floor, facing away, with his arms out in an attitude that could have been supplication or submission. Across the room an unlit candlestick flickered and flared. Mendark could see no details in the bright, but he did not need to. The room reeked of Rulke's aura.

Kicking the door open, Mendark sprang inside. The light flared so bright that he had to shield his eyes. He racked his mind for a counterspell or a charm of banishment. Finding one, he strained until his brain fumed and his eyes felt like they were boiling out of his head. From the light he sensed amusement. Mendark forced harder, something went snap behind his eyes and the light vanished.

Mendark realized that he was lying on the floor beside an unconscious Llian. He tried to get up but his limbs were paralyzed. The pain in his eyes grew ever worse. Forcing obedience down frozen nerve channels, Mendark gained the door. He stumbled off to bed and, despite his terror, could not get up until the afternoon.

The latch rattled. Llian did not look up. Whoever it was he did not want to see them. The door banged again and the bolt was shot from the inside. The back of Llian's neck prickled. He looked up, hoping that it was Karan coming to him at last.

"What did Rulke offer you?" Mendark asked coldly. He looked awful.

Llian almost fell off the bed. He had not even known that Mendark was in Gothryme. "What do you want?" His voice cracked.

Mendark gave a thin-lipped smile. "I want to know what you did in the Nightland. What you really talked about, what Rulke said and did, and what happened last night."

"I..."

"Don't even begin to lie to me. Old Wistan was right about you. More than once he cautioned me, when he wrote about your progress. Genius without ethics is a deadly commodity, he said. I only let you go so you could lead me to Rulke. What's he really up to? I'll have it out of you if I have to break you to get it."

Llian was devastated by the admission. I thought you were on my side. Can no one be trusted?

Mendark moved his hands in front of Llian's face, a truthreading of some sort, and Llian felt pain as if his heart was squeezed by iron pincers. The pain spread through his chest, shot up his arms, up the back of his neck and flowered at the base of his skull.

"Give me the truth and I will protect you. You know my word is good-compare me to the Great Betrayer. You Zain know better than anyone how he rewards his friends."

Mendark's spell waged war with Rulke's compulsion. Finally it was too much. Llian collapsed, unconscious.

Something was shaking his shoulder, waking Llian out of a sleep all the more glorious for being free of pain and domination. His eyes rolled around his head, focusing on his other nemesis, Mendark.

"No," he moaned, trying to take refuge under the pillow. "R-R-Rulke-" He convulsed, foaming at the mouth.

Mendark saw this as Rulke punishing an intransigent pupil and made his truth charm ever more potent. His face could have been carved out of one of the glaciers in the high mountains.

"What do you want of me? Will I never be free of you?"

"I sponsored you at the college for fifteen years," Men-dark choked. "Your meat and drink, your carousing and wenching. You owe me equal service-corrupted though you are."

Llian writhed. Mendark looked into his blank eyes.

"I won't let you destroy the twilight of my reign, Llian."

He set to with his hands and his spells until Llian was reduced to a blank-faced lump, but he could get no further. Eventually Mendark, in almost as much pain as Llian, was forced back to his own bed. He called for Tallia but she had gone out with Karan on a long ride and was not expected back until the following day.

Llian slept all day, if what he endured could be called sleep. That night Mendark came back for the third time. Llian had bolted the door but Mendark came in through the window.

Llian clawed away across the floor in his desperation to escape. Mendark ran him to ground in a moment. The torment began again and this time it would not end.

Karan returned late, but when she brought Llian's dinner tray she found the morning one untouched. Llian was asleep and did not stir. She thought little of it-he often ate nothing all day-and went wearily to her own mattress.

His visitors reappeared in the middle of the night. It went much the same as the previous visits, only worse.

The next afternoon Karan and Tallia were sitting beside the fire in Karan's sitting room. This was a smallish room that opened onto the courtyard by means of long windows, each of many small panes. On a clear day the high mountains could be seen but today it was snowing and a hard wind hurled flurries at the house. All but one of the windows were shuttered against the cold. The end window was unshuttered, lighting the place where they sat. Snow lay knee-deep in the courtyard.

Karan had a ledger on her knee and a pencil in her hand, one minute working furiously, the next gazing dreamily into the fire or through the window. Someone passed along the veranda, unidentifiable under their heavy coat. Tallia was sitting at a small table on the other side of the room, playing a game with counters on a seven-sided board. Something wailed above the wind.

"What was that?" asked Karan, scratching her neck with the pencil.

"Just the wind," Tallia replied. Nonetheless she rose in one swift movement and went out.

Karan could not concentrate on her work today. Since her return home everyone had slaved just to survive, and she had dreamed of having the time to work on her designs. Now she had the time, but no matter how she put the world out of mind it kept coming back. And Llian too. Sometimes she heard him cry out in the night, for his window was below hers, but he did not call for her and until he did she would not go to him; only lie in her cold bed aching for him, yet trying to block him out.

She hadn't seen him awake since Mendark had come back from Carcharon, Karan realized. He'd always been asleep. The last time she'd spoken to him was three days ago. Since Mendark had come back! She dropped the pencil. How could she have been so blind? And she had closed down the monitor over him.

Just then there came the most horrible shriek. She sprang up, scattering pencil and papers. Tallia flung the door open.

"Come quickly," she cried, running out again. "It's Llian!" she shouted over her shoulder. "It sounds like he's having a fit, but the door's bolted."

Their shoulders struck the door together and it burst open. Karan pushed past Tallia. Llian was lying on his side with his knees drawn up and his fists tightly clenched. A gaunt Men-dark stood over him like a condor tearing at its victim. Karan could sense a strange aura-Rulke again.

"How dare you," she said softly.

"You don't even know what's going on in your own house," he raged. "I've almost killed myself trying to break him of Rulke."

Karan looked from one to the other. "Why wasn't I told?"

"You weren't here! Rulke has come to him the last two nights, that I know of, but it began long before that." Men-dark staggered and had to sit down. "How could you be so negligent, letting him get to this state? How could you not see what is going on under your nose?"

Karan was mortified. "What have you done to him?" she whispered, looking down at Llian with tears in her eyes.

Mendark abruptly sat down on the chair. "I tried to break Rulke's compulsion; force it out of him. But it's not working. Rulke's too strong."

"You're killing him," Karan wept.

"A small price to pay," Mendark said stolidly.

"You-" She choked, then leapt up and seized a heavy poker. Tallia restrained her. "Get out of my house and never come back!" Karan screamed. "Come on my land again and I'll kill you."

Mendark was too worn out to argue, or fight. Contemptuously, he pushed past Karan and went out. "Tallia," his harsh cry came down the hall.

"I'm staying!" she shouted back.

Llian lay absolutely still, his eyes closed. Karan took his wrist in her hand. His skin was clammy and cold; the pulse fluttered as light and as fast as the wings of a butterfly.

"I don't know what to do," she wept. "What's Mendark done to him?"

Tallia knelt down with her hands clasped around Llian's head and her ear to his temple, as if listening to the ticking of his brain.

"Mendark believes that Llian made a bargain with Rulke in the Nightland, and was forced to forget it."

"Do you believe that?" asked Karan, tormented by her own inability to decide and desperate for some support.

"I ... I've an open mind," said Tallia. "There's something not right here." She bent over Llian again. "Mendark's spell hasn't worked." She looked up at Karan's white face.

"Can you do anything?"

"It's too strong for me. And there seems to be something else-something that goes against Mendark's work." Tallia strained until her hands shook. "I can't find it. It's hidden in some way." She released Llian's head and stood up. "It's beyond me. It must be-"

"Rulke!" said Karan.

There was no healer in the town, but even if there had been, what healer would know what to do here? Malien had gone up into the mountains with the hunt and might not be back for days. Nothing could be done until she returned.

Llian convulsed so violently that he flung himself into the air. One fist struck Karan in the stomach, knocking her backward into the wall. Her belly felt as if it had been belted with an iron bar. Llian rose to his knees. His mouth was wide open, one hand clawing at his face, the skin tearing beneath his fingernails. The other hand wrenched at his hair till a clump came out, skin and all. His mouth was open, twisted as if about to scream, yet nothing came forth but a horrible gurgling whistle. Foam-flecked slobber ran down his chin. His legs thrashed.

Karan grabbed his arm but in this madness he was far too strong for her. His hard hand caught her across the side of the head, sending her reeling into the table, which toppled over. Llian clawed at his skull. He seemed to be trying to plunge his fingers right through his head, to pluck out some barbed torment.

Tallia put her fingers against the base of his skull and pressed hard. The noise stopped at once. His eyes slowly closed; his hands fell to his sides. He would have fallen had she not held him under the arms.

"Take his feet," Tallia said to one of the faces at the door. Nutan the gardener grabbed his feet and began to back into the other room, his tiny bedroom.

"He'll never get better in there," said Karan hastily. "Bring him to my room."

They carried him out, through into the keep and up the stair. Llian was not heavy but he was awkward to carry. They laid him on Karan's broad bed. He was in a terrible state. There were three gouges on his right cheek and one on his left, from which the blood wept. Skin was crumpled up under his fingernails. His hands were bloody; in one he still clutched a clump of brown hair. He had bitten his tongue in three places, so that he dribbled blood, and his left leg was locked so rigid by cramp that it could not be straightened.

"What is it?" Karan whispered. "Has he gone mad?" If he had, it was not like any madness that she knew of.

"I don't know," said Tallia, shaking her head. "You'd better tie him up."

Karan sank down on the end of the bed with her head in her hands. How had Llian come to this, to be tied down raging and foaming at the mouth like a rabid dog? Had she helped to make him this way? And what stupidity had made her close down her link? If she hadn't she would have known something was wrong days ago.

She stroked his hand where it lay limp and pallid on the coverlet. She untangled the clump of hair. It was all bloody at the roots, a ragged piece about the size of her thumb-nail. Karan burst into tears.

Tallia found some soft cord, the kind that was used to tie up a dressing-gown, and tied Llian's hands to the head of the bed. He did not rouse. Karan had stopped crying now but sat listlessly at his side.

"No time for that," said Tallia briskly. "Make yourself useful. Rub his leg until the cramp goes."

Karan was glad that there was someone to give the orders. She lost herself in memories as she massaged the muscles of Llian's calf and thigh-they were as tight as wire-and gently worked his leg until at last the muscles unbound. How she longed for him, just to lie with him, skin to skin, warmth to warmth, touch to touch. When that was done Tallia tied his legs as well.

I've not seen anything like that before, Tallia thought. What can he possibly do that Rulke wants so badly? "Watch him," she said to Karan and went out, closing the door behind her. They took turns sitting beside his bedside that night. Llian lay still for hours, as though in a deep sleep. In the middle of the night he thrashed and shrieked, shouting incoherently, but soon lapsed back into unconsciousness.

Llian woke. It was night. Instantly the imperative was in his mind. Bring her. Bring her!

He resisted, made himself mute, stubborn as he could be when he did not want to do something. But his resistance was of no account, broken in seconds by a pain in his head so terrible that it felt like his brains were boiling. He tried to claw at his head, straining at the cords, but Tallia had tied the knots cunningly and they held him secure. Still he writhed, contorting himself to the limit of his bonds. His face twisted, he made the same terrible sounds as before, then slid into unconsciousness again.

This went on through the long night. Karan tried everything-herbs and drugs as they had in Gothryme, or could obtain from the town-but they had no more effect on him than tea. Tallia had many skills and strengths, but none that would permit her to look inside Llian's mind and identify what it was that so tormented him. He kept nothing down but a little broth. Karan knew that the torment would eventually kill him.

He began to thrash again. She would have given anything to end it. Her anger and bitterness had evaporated. Karan knelt over him, weeping, pressing him down with her small body as he bucked like a wild horse. Her tears spotted his twisted face, then he plunged off a cliff into sleep.

It was morning again. Tallia was watching him now; Karan slumped in a chair before the fire. Tallia had never seen her looking more worn. She was exhausted too. Someone came in with tea. When Karan picked up her bowl her hands shook so much that the liquid slopped all over the table. The bowl rattled on the marble as she put it down again.

Later that morning Llian roused enough for Tallia to spoon hot broth into him, but he did not recognize either of them. His eyes turned in on themselves and he went back into the darkness.

"Tallia, please help him."

Tallia held out her hands. "This is beyond me," she whispered. "Mendark's spell forces against Rulke's compulsion and I can't remove either. It's the conflict between them that's doing the damage. You could try giving him a sleeping draught each time the fit begins; perhaps that will give him the rest that he needs. I'll go and get Mendark. I'm sure he's only gone as far as Tolryme."

"You won't!" Karan said fiercely. "I'll never trust him again as long as I live."

"Once he lifts his spell, Llian will be back to what he was before."

"I don't want him back to that! I want him whole again."

"This may kill him," said Tallia.

"And so might Mendark," Karan said angrily. "Every one of my instincts about him has been true."

"Look!" said Tallia. "I know that you have been under a..."

"Don't Look me," Karan exploded, facing down tall Tallia, who retreated before her fury. "You're not doing Men-dark's work either. Go away; leave us alone!"

Llian rolled against his bonds and gave a heart-rending groan.

"Very well," said Tallia with pursed lips, and went out. Then she put her head back around the door.

"There is one way you could try, if you dare, though it would be a terrible risk for you."

"I'll try any remedy but one," said Karan.

"Try to reach him through a link. You may be able to get in under the compulsion and the spell, to wake him. Otherwise I'd say he will not last the week. But don't do it at night-time."

A link! She would try it. But that talent had always been difficult, not to mention unreliable.

The following day Tallia looked in every few hours. By the afternoon the sleeping draughts had done some good; Llian appeared a little better.

"Have you tried to link yet?" she asked.

"Yes, but I can't reach him."

The next time Tallia checked, mid-morning of the day after that, neither Karan nor Llian was there. Llian must have improved considerably, she thought, to be up and about. At lunchtime she asked Rachis where they were.

"Karan and Llian went out early," he said. "They won't be back for a few days."