"Here we are." Karan pushed open the door of Rulke's bedchamber. "Everything about gates is a risk, particularly going through them. I'm famished. I'm going to look for water and something to eat. Are you coming?"

"My ankle's really sore; I think I'll stay here."

"Good idea." She set off.

After a while Llian felt better, so he limped through the nearby rooms, mentally noting everything for his tale. Going into the next room he stopped abruptly. It was the alarming machine he'd seen before. The light was brighter today; now it was unpleasantly familiar. A complex device: alien curves of dark metal, ominous bulges, curious levers and projections-a construct! It was the thing he'd seen in Karan's dream that night long ago, when they had fled from Sith in Pender's boat. Llian had no idea what it was for, but there was an ugly practicality of shape about it that was menacing.

Llian put out his hand to touch the construct, the hard, blue-black incomprehensible surface of it, but his hand went straight through it. He jerked his hand back out again. It was not there! Rulke had made it, complete in his mind, but yet it lacked physical form. Maybe such a thing could not be formed in the Nightland. He walked around the construct, wondering, but it surpassed his understanding.

He touched it again. Again his hand slipped into it without any resistance. Curiosity overcame his fear and he put head and shoulders in. For an instant his senses were disconnected, then the inside of the construct sprang out at him, illuminated by a dark-red light that was unnerving. Everything was fuzzy, slightly out of focus, so that when he moved his head it made him dizzy. He saw two oddly curved seats, a variety of levers, knobs and glassy plates on which colored lines danced-and everywhere, more complex shapes and improbable devices than on the outside.

Something sighed on the other side of the room-he sensed a presence behind him. Karan had been quicker than he'd expected. He said over his shoulder: "Did you ever come across anything like this in Shazmak?" His voice rang with a thousand echoes.

The laughter was rich and deep, so deep that the room seemed to vibrate in sympathy, the construct to waver at the edges. His whole body shivered too, and the hairs on his arms stood up. Llian jerked his head back out, became disoriented, instinctively tried to support himself on the construct and fell straight through it.

THE CONSTRUCT.

Master chronicler!" said Rulke in a low, amused voice. "Do you tell me you've not come across a construct before? What did they teach you at your little college?"

"That you're a monster!" squeaked Llian, trying to look like a shadow. Rulke's physical presence was overpowering. As men go, he was the biggest Llian had ever seen; broad-shouldered, wide-chested, long and muscular of limb. But he was more than a man-he was Charon, a different human species, and Llian was so afraid that his mouth had dried up.

Rulke sprang at him. "Maybe I am."

The daydreams vanished in a second. Llian stumbled backwards with his mouth open and his hands in the air. Though he did not realize it, this was the one pose to convince Rulke that he offered no threat. This combination of terror and blank stupidity was a reaction that he was most familiar with.

"You wonder about my construct," said Rulke, smiling at him. "It's no longer a secret; I want you to know all about it. Indeed, who better than a great chronicler to carry the tale of my dread power to Santhenar? I know how you yearn for knowledge-my Ghashad have taught me something of you. Anything you want to know, just ask. We can be great partners, you and I."

The sudden appearance of Rulke was shocking enough, even though it had been half-expected, but this ... Llian was absolutely flabbergasted. Such things do not happen in real life. It is a trick, he told himself. Block your ears, smile and agree to whatever he wants, but know that everything he says is a lie. Rulke the Great Betrayer, the Flatterer, the Seducer.

But I am a great chronicler, thought Llian immodestly. At least I was, back when I still worked at my craft. That is no flattery. Maybe he cannot be trusted, but what secrets he must know! To be offered the knowledge of the ancient world, the key to tales that had never been told, was a temptation that he could barely resist.

As they faced each other a shudder passed across the floor. The walls wobbled, the mist forming swelling bubbles of light that slowly dispersed. Only the construct was unchanged.

Rulke cocked his head, watching and listening. His eyes met Llian's and there was a watchful gleam in them. "That's not happened before," he said softly. "I wonder if your friends are probing my defenses. They'll get a nasty surprise if they do." But Llian read unease in Rulke's posture. He could not completely hide it.

Llian examined him with his chronicler's eye, the better to describe him in his Great Tale. He saw that Karan had been right-Rulke's mouth was drawn tight and his jaw knotted, and he moved with an exhaustion that he could not disguise. Perhaps he thought Llian too insignificant to bother.

"Come," said Rulke, "let me show you my construct. It is a machine akin to the golden flute that Shuthdar made for me, before he stole it and brought us all to ruin." Putting out a scabbed and swollen hand he drew the unresisting Llian to him.

Llian trembled. He knew that tale overly well, for his new version, told to such acclaim at the Graduation Telling last summer, had started the whole chain of circumstances that led inexorably to here. It caused his expulsion from the college, leading to his meeting with Karan who had stolen the Mirror of Aachan, the fall of the fabulous Aachim city of Shazmak, Yggur's march to war against Mendark, and outside it all, Faelamor spinning her web to get the Mirror for herself.

And somehow, something about Karan, or something she had done, though Llian did not know what or how, had allowed Rulke to look down from his Nightland prison and use her strange, sensitive talents to wake the Ghashad, to prepare the way for his return.

"The patent of the flute was mine," said Rulke, "and the pattern that Shuthdar followed when he made it for me. This is a greater thing by far. What can I not do with it?"

Llian said nothing. His veins were boiling; his heart pumped him full of fire but his knees were jelly.

Linking his arm through Llian's as if they were brothers, Rulke led him around the construct, pointing out all its remarkable aspects. Llian gathered that it was a device for making gates from one place to another, and for unstated greater purposes. It was a marvelous machine and a clever one too, but the construct was too complex and the principles that governed its operation too obscure, and Rulke's presence too overpowering for Llian to reach any greater understanding of it.

And all the time Rulke was watching him, saying nothing, measuring Llian with his eyes. He is too strong for me, Llian decided. He knows I am overcome by the dread of him, and tempted by his offer too. And so I am. I should not be. Everything I have ever learned, and the whole history of the Zain, cries out-Beware! Have no part of this! It can only end one way! But how tempting it is. What if he is genuine? Llian began to fall under Rulke's spell.

Llian's eye was caught by something in the far corner of the room, a hexagonal pad like a large paving stone. It was glowing faintly, and the luminous mist drifting above it had also begun to shimmer. Could it be the portal through which Rulke had returned? Tensor's gate had been massive, and the air rushed through it all the while that it was open. But this small thing had made scarcely a sound when it opened, just a gentle sigh. Perhaps it was closed to all but Rulke: if so, their rebellion was already lost. Looking within himself, Llian realized that he was just a little bit relieved. He must get away, but not yet. What might he learn in one more hour?

Just then Karan appeared in the doorway, searching for him. She was halfway across the room when Rulke stepped out from behind the construct.

"Welcome to my prison, little one," he said with a thin smile. "I'm glad you came-I have great plans for you." He put out a hand that trembled ever so slightly.

Karan froze, took a single gasping breath, then began to back away. "Llian!" she called.

Suddenly the air above the stone erupted like steam from a boiling kettle. Rulke spun around. "No!" he roared. With a wave of his hand a pane of ice formed between them and him, bisecting the room. It was as clear as glass, but too thick to break, too high to leap, too slippery to climb. He sprinted across to the plate and stood over it with his arms out, chanting words that they could not understand. Shortly the hexagonal gate-stone faded back into the pattern on the floor, the mist resumed its random motions.

He heaved a sigh and trudged back, and with another gesture a porthole appeared in the pane.

"What was that?" Llian asked.

Rulke leaned on the sill of the porthole, his great chest rising and falling. He examined his prisoners. "Your friends are trying to seal me in."

Llian snatched at Karan's hand. "You mean, seal the Nightland back up?" he quavered. "Shut us in with you?" Of all conceivable fates, he had not imagined that one. How could they do it to us? he thought numbly.

Rulke bared his teeth. "Careful what you say, Llian. If I truly am the monster your tales make me out to be, I might take offense."

Llian scuttled backwards, trying to drag Karan with him. She resisted. "Did they succeed?" she asked, imagining all her dreams of Gothryme come to nothing.

"Not this time! But they could, if they are able to tap the power of the rift. This must put you in rather a dilemma, my friends. Who do you support, them or me?"

Karan squeezed Llian's hand. "We do not wish to die, nor to betray our friends."

"Even though they have abandoned you? You might have quite some time with me, in so far as time can be measured here. It runs strangely in this place-"

In the corner the mist began to stir once more. Rulke reacted instantly. The porthole iced over again as he raced back to the stone with bounds covering five or six spans each.

The mist boiled up all around, much more wildly than before, lit by flashes and streaks of light. All they saw of Rulke was an occasional glimpse through the fog-arms raised, desperately trying to undo whatever was attacking the gate from the other side.

Llian put his arms around Karan. They both stared into the corner. "I hope ..." Karan whispered.

"What?" Llian said in her ear.

"I feel so guilty, but ... I hope Rulke wins."

"So do I. I don't want us to spend the rest of our lives here."

After quite some considerable time a bright flash lit up the distant ceiling. A dull boom made the pane oscillate like a wobble board. Rulke shrieked and reeled out of the mist, stumbling blindly toward them until he struck the barrier with his cheek. His staring eyes looked right into Karan's.

He's losing! Karan thought, and he's afraid; terrified that he'll never get out. She could identify with that.

Rulke folded up, his clawed fingernails squealing down the pane. Over in the corner the floor glowed orange and began to dome up like a blob of molten glass on the end of a glassblower's pipe. Orange rays streaked out horizontally. One touched Rulke's cheek, making his beard smoke. Another melted a finger-size hole through the pane. Swearing weakly, he forced himself to his feet and turned back to the stone. The battle went on for a good while, as Karan and Llian watched in terrified fascination. Once, time itself appeared to freeze. Toward the end the ceiling sank visibly lower, the walls thinning until Karan could see through into the next room. Finally the illumination went out once more. This time Rulke could only crawl back to the barrier. He was covered in an icy slush of sweat.

"They're beating me," he said, redissolving the porthole.

"What's the matter?"

Rulke lay his head on his arms, panting. "I'm so thirsty. Do you have any water. No, of course you don't!"

"Tell me where I can find it," said Karan, pitying him despite her fear.

"It's all right. What's the matter, you ask? I've been drawing on the Nightland itself to hold the boundaries together, but whatever power I put there I have to take from somewhere else."

"I don't understand," said Karan.

"The Nightland is not a world, Karan. It is a tiny place: little matter, less energy, and even before this it was running down, leaking its energy into the void. In a while, within your lifetimes, it would have frozen solid, and me with it. My enemies only needed to wait-an irony I'm sure they'll appreciate one day."

"What's happening now?" asked Llian.

"Eventually all this must go." Rulke gestured at the walls around them. "I built this place. If I take back the energy that holds it together, my palace must eventually reduce to the size of a privy. If I can't even hold that together we all die here for lack of air. They're too strong for me here."

"What do you mean, here?" asked Llian.

"They have tapped a mighty source of power-the rift itself, I suspect. Though they barely know how to use it, it is more than I can match. The Nightland is a shell, with just enough energy to hold itself together, and me inside."

"That's why it's so cold here," Karan guessed.

"Clever!" said Rulke. "I can make fire here, but it burns cold; there's not enough energy to power it. No, unless I can baffle or trick them somehow, we will soon be dead."

The model was still revolving, very slowly, while Yggur and Mendark went over it with exquisite care, examining every part of it for signs of the flaw in the Nightland. After many hours Yggur shook his head.

"I can't find any evidence of it."

"Maybe the grid isn't fine enough," Mendark said. He looked as if he'd not slept for a week-eyes bleary and sagging, movements sluggish, voice lifeless. "We'll have to do it all over again."

"We've been going more than a day," Yggur said. "Every hour we get weaker, and Rulke becomes stronger. I can't go on!"

"We must," said Mendark, though it was evident to Tallia that he was near collapse.

She paced about the light-shape, round and round, while she tried to build a picture of it within her mind. It kept changing-rippling, dimpling, swelling and retreating as, she realized, the Nightland itself must be in constant flux. Then, as her eye rested on a tiny knot of intersecting lines, they shifted, moving apart imperceptibly until there was nothing there.

Tallia rubbed tired eyes, sure that she had imagined it. Where the tangle had been was now a bloody clot that waxed and waned in brightness as the model continued its revolution. Behind her she could hear Mendark and Yggur arguing.

"We've got to give it up," Yggur pleaded. "Before it's too late."

"We've gone too far to give up," said Mendark.

It was hard to concentrate with that going on. Beneath her feet the rock shuddered, more strongly than before.

"Shut up!" she cried, still pacing. "There's something wrong here."

"What?" said Mendark, spinning around.

"There was a little knot of lines just here." She marked it with a fingertip. "But when I noticed them they moved apart. Could Rulke change this model from inside the Nightland?"

"Only by modifying the relevant parts of the Nightland itself. Maybe he has been aware of us all along."

"What did I tell you?" said Yggur, visibly shaken. "He knows everything. He's playing with us!"

"He cannot see us from the Nightland," said Malien. "Not at all! But this model is, as it were, a tracing of the shell of that place in smaller dimension, and to the extent that the one corresponds to the other he may be able to detect what we're doing."

"There must be another way to visualize the flaw," said Tallia.

"Do we have anything that Rulke touched after he came through the gate?" asked Mendark. "If we do, one of the principles of the Secret Art-the Principle of Contagion-may show traces of his passage."

"He touched the Mirror of Aachan," said Shand, "though we dare not use that."

"What about the emerald?" said Asper. Yggur had empowered it here at the rift, then hurled it at Rulke to destroy him. But Rulke broke the spell and shattered the jewel to emerald sand.

"And he left blood on the floor," said Shand.

"Perfect!" said Mendark.

"Sweep up the emerald sand and scrape up the blood," Malien said to Asper. "Recover every trace of both."

Asper and Xarah hurried up the ladder. The floor trembled again. Tallia looked up at the blank roof, feeling the weight of rock and tower above her, held together so precariously. She found it hard to breathe down here.

The model of the Nightland still revolved in the air, though Yggur was having trouble holding it. It kept fading and flaring. After an interminable wait in the heat the two Aachim reappeared on the ladder. Asper carried the emerald sand in a leather bag while Xarah had a bowl with a scraping of dried blood in the bottom.

"Crush the sand to dust," said Mendark, and that was done-a long process as it was very hard. Finally the glittering dust was ready, the powdered blood mixed though a small amount of it, the light-sphere energized once more with a beam from the ruby rod, then Yggur muttered a command and Xarah blew the mixture though a fine tube aimed at the top of the light-sphere.

The sphere flared bright, then the bloody droplets faded and the green background color too. For an instant the mesh of yellow lines stood out brightly, save in one place at the southern pole where the grid was warped into a funnel with a knot at the bottom, a green cap over the hole-the way in and out of the Nightland. Then, as the dust lost its grip and sifted to the floor, the knot began to fade.

"Fix it!" cried Mendark, and Yggur drew power out of the rift and froze the model of the Nightland in that state.

Everyone breathed a great sigh. "Is it done then?" came Xarah's youthful voice. She was sitting on one of the sulphur-crusted benches on the other side of the room.

"Not near," said Yggur, clutching his jaw. "All we've done is locate the portal."

"The hardest work is yet to come," Mendark said. "And the most dangerous. To seal it up tight."

As he spoke there was a rumble like thunder and the crack in the floor widened perceptibly. Chips of rock fell from the roof, then above them they heard, or felt, the foundations groan as they slid one against the other. They stared at each other. Tallia knew that the terror she saw on Malien's face, and Asper's, was a reflection of her own.

"How can you seal it?" she asked hoarsely.