He had not had a proper sleep since Mendark's arrival. He drifted into dreamland but his sleep was soon fractured. It was so cold in the bed. He reached out for Karan but she was not there. She had never come to bed.

That shocked him awake. Llian limped through the house and caught sight of a small shape at the open back door.

"Where are you going," he hissed into her ear, though it was all too evident.

"Carcharon!"

He clutched at her coat. "That's the stupidest thing I ever heard."

"What choice is there? There isn't one. How can I let him come down here looking for me? How can I flee? The Ghashad would tear the whole valley apart."

"What are you going to do when you get there?"

Karan hesitated. No, be honest with him, she thought. Now and forever. "I don't have a plan. I'm going to bargain with Rulke for your freedom."

Nothing Llian could say would make the slightest difference; her mind was fixed. Her strength frightened him.

"You're a fool," he said. "And I'm a bigger one. I'm coming with you."

"Don't be stupid; you wouldn't even get over the back fence, in your condition."

"I'm coming," he repeated, "even if you have to carry me."

She laughed until tears ran from her eyes, then wept just as long. She kissed him on the lips, sprinkling him with her dewy cheeks. "Go and get dressed; I'll wait for you."

"You've already proven that you can't be trusted. You can sit on the bed while I dress. And don't move!"

Grinning, she followed him back and dutifully sat while he got ready, layer after layer of wool, and over all a long down-filled coat and a cloak of waxed cloth. He had to rest when the job was done.

"Can you help me with my boots?" he asked hoarsely.

"What a pathetic pair we are," she replied as she bent down.

She filled his pack with dried stuff from the pantries. They fortified themselves with a bowl of soup each from the cauldron that hung over the fire. The fire was just ash and coals but she dug deep with the ladle and the soup that came up was scalding. It made them sweat in their winter gear. Llian suddenly found an appetite and took another bowl. Karan was busy at the table, scribbling a note for Rachis. Filling a large flask with hot soup, she buried it deep inside her down-filled sleeping pouch. Then they went out, into the snow and the wind, each terrified of what would await them above the cliffs in mad, desolate Carcharon.

CARCHARON.

This is the stupidest thing I've ever done," said Karan as they headed out into the snow.

From the look in Llian's eyes he was thinking the same thing. Suddenly they were as close as they had ever been. He took her hand; she thrust it into a wool-lined pocket. It was three in the morning. The night was overcast, like every night for the past month and more.

As they climbed over a stone wall Llian was struck by a feeling of having done this before. "This reminds me of the night we met, heading up into the mountains to a destination that only you knew."

She laughed. "If you only knew how I felt when you crashed down my steps. 'My name's Llian-I've come to save you,' you said, then knocked yourself out at my feet." She giggled at the memory. "And you were sick and sore that time, too."

"Not as bad as this," he said, squeezing her fingers, smiling at his own memories.

They took the path that led up the valley. The dogs barked but Karan shushed them to silence. There was a little soft snow and under that a hard crust from the thaw of a few days ago. Where the path veered up the northern ridge the powder had been blown away and they could walk easily on crusted snow. It was quite dark, but Karan's feet knew the path, well worn from so much coming and going these past weeks.

By the time they reached the top of the ridge Llian was staggering. Karan almost gave it away, but she could not get him home without his cooperation, and his will was like iron. "In life and in death I will never leave you again," he said, and after a short rest he felt able to tackle the relatively gentle gradient along to the bottom of the cliff.

Now each march lasted only a few minutes before he had to stop and rest. After an hour he was utterly worn out.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I can't go any further. Can I sleep for an hour?"

"Of course!" She brushed white flakes off his nose, for it had begun to snow lightly. "I just wanted to get well away from the house. No one knows we've gone, and Rachis won't worry. My note took care of that."

They camped in the lee of a boulder, spread a groundsheet and squeezed together into one sleeping pouch with the other pulled up over it. It was snug but warm. Karan held the soup flask to Llian's lips. A moment after he finished he was fast asleep.

Karan did not sleep, just lay there thinking and fretting until the growing light of dawn showed a field of round boulders thrust up out of the snow, with black shadows behind. Before them was a pile of boulders as big as a temple. A big-eyed owl blinked at them from a hole in a tree.

She woke Llian. "We'd better get on, if you can manage it."

The brief sleep had wrought miracles. Before the wintry sun rose they reached the base of the cliff and began the climb. It was painfully slow, but easy at first, even with the snow, for the cliff sloped back into the mountainside and the Aachim had cut new steps in the stone where necessary.

"Did you tell Rachis where we were going?" he asked, as they rested two-thirds of the way up. Llian's leg was worrying him. He looked up at the remaining third of the cliff path, which was very steep and narrow, with trepidation. Far below, the chimneys of Gothryme were fresh with smoke.

"Of course not, and why would he think this way? I made no urgency of our trip, so probably he won't tell Tallia unless she asks about us. She fell out with Mendark over you but I suppose after this news they'll follow us. Let's get on."

She gave him her shoulder and they made their halting way up to the top of the cliff. Karan had ample time to reflect on the stupidity of this journey. Llian looked like death again. What could possibly be gained from it?

It was mid-morning before they finally reached the top. Before them the forest of Gothryme stretched beyond sight to north and south, while to the west it clad a slope cut with steep gullies. The mountains towered white beyond that. They looked back but there was no sign of pursuit.

The snow was deep and soft here, the walking hard going. They did not hurry. Carcharon was not a destination that one hurried to. Llian's rest stops grew longer and more frequent, but by the evening of that short day they had reached the furthest side of the forest.

There was a small lake on the up-slope side, just inside the margins of the forest. It was called the Black Lake on account of the color of its waters. Surrounded by tall trees on all sides, it must have been fed by a warm spring, for it was not yet frozen over. A small stone pavilion stood beside the waters, so old that even the granite of which it was built was crumbling, though its roof, a series of metal spires, was intact. The side against the water had a balustrade of stone but most of the balusters were broken. Nearby was a pier and a set of stone steps that led down to the water. A tiny dinghy had once been tied to a brass ring there. They camped inside the pavilion, sitting on the steps and toasting bread at a small fire. The remainder of the soup was enough to satisfy them both.

"I often came here when I was a child," said Karan, looking around her. Llian did not answer: he was already nodding where he sat. She helped him into the sleeping pouch and folded his cloak for a pillow. Karan was restless; there were too many memories here. On the other side of the pavilion she leaned on the stone rail. The surface of the water was like a black mirror, so still that the reflected stars were as clear as in the sky above.

The stars were out! The overcast of the past months had cleared. Was that an omen? If so, for whom? She walked out onto the pier and sat with her feet dangling over the edge, looking down into the water. She wondered idly if a surface so clear and dark as this one might not also be used as a seeing mirror. If so, this one surely ought to speak clearly to her, if only she knew what to ask it.

The moon was three-quarters full, and a great deal of the dark side was showing, but it was only fleetingly visible through the tall trees. How well could Rulke really know Llian's mind? They'd only had those few days together in the Nightland. Could he sense how near they were? Did he know they were coming? No way of telling that until the middle of the night. That was when his visitations appeared. Well, she had the poppy syrup for that need.

The map had confirmed what she already knew; what her father had told her. There was a secret way into Carcharon. She leaned there idly, musing. The folly of her actions was quite clear to her, but it was her own life, and she would harm no one if she failed-no one save Llian. She put that out of mind for the time, steeping herself in the sounds of the forest and the stillness of the lake. The last time she'd been here was on the way to Shazmak, when she was twelve. The time before that, her eighth birthday. Karan remembered it quite distinctly, and not only for the birthday, the last happy time of her childhood. Just two days later her father was gone, beaten and left to die on a windswept ridge in the snow not far from here. A brutal, senseless crime; he had carried little of value. But he was lost forever. She shivered and turned to the sleeping pouch.

Morning came, and Llian woke first. There was fog in the forest and mist on the lake, a mist that hung low over the water and cut the black to silvery gray. The sun was coming up behind the trees. Karan slept soundly, her arms wrapped around him, just her red hair sticking out of the pouch. Their campfire was still burning, sending a wavering thread of smoke up into the mist. She must have stayed up late. He was inclined to let her sleep, but the smoke might have already warned their enemies. He shook her by the shoulder.

"Karan, wake up!"

She came awake at once. "What's the matter?"

"The fire's still smoking."

She cocked her eye at it. "That was careless," she agreed. "Amazing how quickly you lose your bushcraft. I would never have done that a year ago. But I don't think it can be seen-the smoke's spread out before it gets above the forest. Still, we'd better be on our way, just in case they have a patrol down this far. Put the water on, will you. I'm just going to have another five minutes."

At their halting pace it was the best part of a day's walk from the Black Lake to Carcharon. On the other side of the forest the path diverged from the way to Shazmak and took to a rocky ridge so steep that they had to go up the first part on hands and knees. The track was icy and the wind blew incessantly.

Their trip up the ridge was agonizingly slow, with constant stopping for Llian to rest. He was very tired and weak but would not give in. Karan kept watch for the chase that must surely come, almost hoping that they would be prevented from going further, but there was no sign of pursuit even as they turned up the steeper ridge on which stood the frigid folly of Carcharon.

Now the path became a winding track along the very top of the ridge, like the road up to a fairytale castle. Stepped as if the ridge top had been carved across by successive cuts of a plane, it was narrow and fell steeply on either side into deep gorges choked with boulders.

"I can't think of a stupider place to build a fortress," said Llian. "Why didn't he put it down there?"

"Because this was the best place on Santh for the Secret Art, and nothing else mattered."

"But what must it have cost?"

"Not relevant."

They crept on.

"Karan," said Llian unsteadily, a long time afterwards.

"Yes?"

"You remember how I used to be terrified of heights?

She squeezed his hand.

"Well, I'm not anymore. Just terribly, terribly afraid."

She laughed and he did too. "That's a great improvement. Do you want to rest."

"Let's go a bit further."

Here the track was wider, but the broken steps were icy and littered with shattered rock. The fall on either side was precipitous, though layers of rock cropping out of the side of the ridge made ledges here and there. The path grew steeper as they climbed a thickened part of the ridge. It was late afternoon by the time they reached the middle of the bulge, a knotted fist of rock with veins of white and red.

"Above this the path is overlooked by Carcharon," said Karan. "We can't go any further until it gets dark."

Llian's face was pale and pinched. He could not take his eyes off Karan, hungry for her trust and affection. All the while she held his cold hand.

While she was puzzling out the secret way into Carcharon on the little plan, Llian went on all fours up the steps to the top of the knob and saw before him a flared-out ridge top about the size of a playing field, into which had been carved a small amphitheater with stone benches. On the lower side of that a ridge path led down and up again. The tortured rock layers here were blood-red, purple and black, and networked with writhing quartz like veins in an eyeball.

Just an arrow's flight away, Carcharon was more grotesque than he had imagined. The top of the ridge had been cut into a sloping plane, and there Basunez had built an ugly tower of nine uneven sides. It squatted at the lower end, surrounded by an elongated wall that ran up the hill and back down the other side. The structure looked like a sinking row-boat, the stern pushed down by a huge tower.

The tower was built of glassy-smooth gabbro, a striking violet-gray in color. Its walls were covered in clusters of projections: rods and hooks, vitreous spheres and opaline spines like those of a sea urchin. But the clusters were distributed oddly, in no conceivable pattern, and the wind alternately sobbed and shrieked through them. The tower was capped by a spiny helmet of brass, with brass arches sweeping over the walls, and the spaces between the arches were filled with green slate. The lines of wall and tower curved oddly, without grace, harmony or proportion.

Llian climbed back down. "He must have been quite mad," he panted.

"He was, and the family refused to help him. We do not serve madmen. The greatest has a duty to the least, and the least to the greatest, but that does not extend to fools or follies. Duty is not blind in Bannador."

"How did he ever get it built?"

"He brought in masons, carpenters and laborers from down below. The cost was unbelievable. Many of them died on the job, and on his death our house was bankrupt. It took five generations to pay back the graspers and even now we remain poor, for all that we have a lot of land."

"Can't you sell some of it?"

The look that Karan gave him suggested that he was as mad as old Basunez.

"Sell land? Sell land?"

Llian changed the subject hurriedly. "Why here of all places? A handful of besiegers could starve him out."

"That wasn't a consideration, as I've already explained. Basunez was a scholar and the ways of the Charon were his special interest. As he grew older this interest became an obsession. He believed that the powers of the Charon came from secret knowledge, and that if he could find out their secrets he could have their power. He also believed that there were nodes of power, places where the nature of reality was different and the Secret Art could be made to work better than anywhere else."

"Like the rift below Katazza," said Llian. "And the gates of the ancients, which could only function in certain rare places."

Karan was not interested in the details. "Anyway, right or wrong he believed that a most potent node lay here. He built Carcharon to take advantage of it. And certainly there is something about the place, for whenever I came here with my father I could feel it. An eerie shrinking and wrinkling of my skin, and a prickling inside my scalp. I can feel it now. I've not felt it anywhere else." Not like this anyway, she amended silently.

The clear morning turned into a wild snowy afternoon, the wind to a gale howling among the rocks. That would provide enough concealment to get near, they hoped. Meanwhile they stayed where they were, for there was no place on the ridge better sheltered than where they huddled. The wind sandpapered their faces with snow grit. It was not unlike a salt-storm in the Dry Sea, with the heat replaced by cold.

Karan looked up at the sky, veiled now by thin hurrying cloud. Llian took off his gloves to warm his nose with his hands. "What's inside Carcharon?"

"The tower, storehouses, woodsheds and other small buildings. There's a water cistern on the western side, cut into the rock. We might poison that, if we had poison, and if we did that kind of thing. And a door leading from the tower into the yard, of course. That's all I can remember."

Llian touched Karan's shoulder, having no idea what she had in mind. "Well!" he said. He was tense, afraid, vulnerable. The more he thought about where they were and what they were doing, the more ridiculous it seemed. Then a sudden biting pain wrenched him and left just as suddenly. He felt for a second the way Shuthdar must have felt in his hideously twisted body before the end. Just a reminder, but it stiffened his resolve. Nothing could be worse than that.

It took away all Karan's uncertainties too. She held him until it passed. Briefly the sun touched her anxious face, then the rushing clouds closed again.

"Take this," she said, bringing out a little flask. "But just a tiny sip or it will make you sleepy."

"What is it?" Llian asked suspiciously.

"Poppy syrup."

"Put it away! I'm going to need all the wits I can muster. So how do we get in?"

"There's always a secret way with us, even out of Gothryme. Rulke may have found it, though Basunez was very cunning. If he hasn't, we'll give him something to think about."

Llian snorted.

"Don't underestimate the importance of surprise," she continued. "We must make him think that we are worth something, and yet he must be sure that we are no threat. He must underestimate us."

"Very well," said Llian. "But when we reach the place, let me go first."

Karan went still. This was so unlike Llian. He was usually so careful of himself. Despite all her vows, a little suspicion rose. Why would he want to go first? No! She thrust the suspicion behind her.

He knew what it meant, her silence and stillness. "Karan, listen! What worse can he do to me than he has already done? When I step into Carcharon it will be a relief, whatever happens next. But why should he have you so easily? If I fail... promise that you won't come out unless I fail."

"You have some specific scheme in mind, then?" She had not been able to think of any plan.