Simon tugged at the handle and cursed quietly. This lower door was wedged shut-there would be no easy entry into the room beneath the missing floor-and now he heard footsteps coming up the stairwell again.

His joints still hurt fiercely, but he scrambled back up the stairs to the other door as quickly as he could, then stepped inside, taking care this time to stand at the very edge of the flooring, which had held his weight before. He was forced to move far to the side of the door as it closed. As the footfalls pa.s.sed outside, he carefully made his way along the strip of wood to look through the door slit, but by the time he could reach it he glimpsed only a small dark shape vanishing up the stairwell, lurching strangely. He waited a score of heartbeats, listening, then crept outside and took a torch from the nearest bracket.

To his vast relief, Simon saw by the torch's light that there was indeed a bottom to the chamber below, and though parts of that lower floor had rotted through as well, it was mostly intact. Bright-Nail lay gleaming in a pile of discarded furniture. Seeing it lying there like a piece of splendid jewelry thrown onto a midden heap, Simon felt a violent pang. He must get it back. Bright-Nail must go to the tower. Even from a distance, he could feel its yearning.

A faint thread of the blade's song coiled through his thoughts as he found what seemed the most stable spot on the floor below, gripped the b.u.t.t of the torch between his teeth, then slid his legs over the edge of the strip inside the doorway. He let himself down to the full extension of his arms, then dropped, his heart fluttering as he landed. The wood creaked loudly and sagged a little, but held. Simon took a step toward Bright-Nail, but his foot sank as though into muddy ground. He hurriedly pulled it back to see that a section of the floor a little larger than his boot sole had crumpled and fallen in.

Simon got down onto his hands and knees. He made his way across the treacherous surface with slow caution, taking more than a few splinters as he probed before him. The cry of the wind outside was m.u.f.fled. The torch burned hot beside his cheek; its quavering flame threw his shadow up on the wall, a hunched thing like a beast.

He stretched out his hand. Nearer ... nearer ... there! His fingers closed around Bright-Nail's hilt, and instantly he could feel its song intensify, vibrating through him, making him feel welcome ... and more. Its need became his need.

Up, he thought suddenly. The word seemed a glowing thing before his mind's eye. he thought suddenly. The word seemed a glowing thing before his mind's eye. It's time to go up. It's time to go up.

But that was easier said than accomplished. He sat back on his haunches, wincing as the floor creaked, and removed the torch from his teeth. He lifted it and looked around. This room was wider than the one above; the half of the ceiling that had not been the wood floor of the upper chamber was a slab of pale stone, seemingly without support. The walls were bare except for a faint scrawl of carvings, overlaid with dust and soot. There was nothing to afford any holds for climbing, and even if he jumped, he could not reach the bit of flooring that edged the doorway above.

Simon pondered for a moment. The sword's pull was a shadow behind his thoughts, an urgency like a quiet but steady drumbeat. He slid Bright-Nail into his belt, reluctantly releasing the hilt, then resettled the torch handle in his jaws. He crawled back across the floor toward the door he had tried from the stairs, but it was just as impa.s.sable from the inside: either damp weather or shifting timbers kept it firmly closed no matter how he pulled. He sighed, then crept back to the middle of the room.

Moving with extreme care, he dragged bits of broken furniture across the floor, setting each piece carefully on or beside the last, until he had made a shoulder-high pile near the sealed doorway. As he was sliding the scarred surface of a discarded table into place at the top of the heap, he again heard someone mounting the steps.

It was hard to tell, but this time there seemed to be more than one set of feet. He crouched in silence, steadying the tabletop with his hand, and listened to the footfalls move past the door beside him, then, after a few dragging moments, echo softly past the door above. He held his breath, wondering which of his many enemies might be climbing the tower, knowing that he would discover the answer all too soon. Bright-Nail tugged at his thoughts. It was hard to sit still.

When the noises had faded, Simon prodded at the pile until he was certain it was steady. He had tried to point all the jagged edges and snapped legs downward in case he fell, but he knew that if he did, he and the spiky pieces of broken chairs, stools, and heavy tables would probably break through the floor together and tumble down into yet a lower room. He did not think much of his chances if that happened.

Simon climbed the pile as gently as he could, laying his body flat across the tabletop until he could draw his legs up behind him. The flame of the torch he held in his teeth sizzled the ends of his hair. He clambered to his feet and felt the unsteady ma.s.s rock gently beneath him. Balancing carefully, he removed the torch and held it up, looking for the st.u.r.diest spot on the edge of flooring overhead.

He was moving toward the edge of the teetering pile when the bell rang for a third time.

Even as the thunderous peal grabbed the entire tower and shook it, and the pile of wood fell away beneath him, Simon let go of the torch and leaped. One piece of the flooring overhead broke loose in his hand, but the other held. Panting, he grasped another section with his free hand and struggled to pull himself up, even as gusts of purple fire chased themselves across the walls and everything shifted and blurred. His arms, already tired, trembled. He pulled himself higher, reaching out a hand to grab at the doorsill, then lifted his leg until it was on the strip of floor. The echo of the bell faded, although he felt it still in his teeth and the bones of his skull. The lights flickered and died, but for a faint glow beneath him. He could smell smoke rising from the torch that now lay among the shards of the piled furniture.

Grunting with the strain, Simon dragged himself the rest of the way onto the safety of the narrow band of wood. As he lay gasping for air, he saw flames beginning to lick up from the floor below.

- He scrabbled to one side as cautiously as haste would permit, pulled the door open, then sprawled forth onto the stairs. He tugged the door shut, leaving a few orphaned tendrils of smoke to float and dissipate, and waited for his hands to stop shaking quite so violently.

He pulled the sword from his belt. Bright-Nail was his once more. He was still alive, still free. Hope remained.

As he began to climb he felt the blade's song rise inside him, a chant of joy, of approaching fulfillment. He felt his own heart speed as it sang. Things would be set right.

The sword was warm in his grip. It seemed a part of his arm, of his body, a new organ of sense as alert and attuned as the nose of a hunting hound or the ears of a bat.

Upward. It is time.

The pain in his head and limbs flowed away, to be filled with the ever-rising triumph of Bright-Nail, clutched firmly in his hand, safe from all harm.

It is time at last. Things will be set right. It is time.

The sword's urging grew stronger. He found it hard to think of anything but putting one foot before the next, carrying himself up toward the top of the tower, to the place where Bright-Nail longed to go. Knotted, red-shot clouds showed in the windows he pa.s.sed, scarred by the occasional jagged flicker of lightning, but the noise of the storm seemed curiously m.u.f.fled. Far louder now, at least in his thoughts, was the song of the sword.

It's finally going to end, he thought. He could feel that, Bright-Nail's promise. The sword would bring a halt to all the confusions and dissatisfactions that had plagued him for so long; when it joined its brothers, everything would change. All that unhappiness would end. he thought. He could feel that, Bright-Nail's promise. The sword would bring a halt to all the confusions and dissatisfactions that had plagued him for so long; when it joined its brothers, everything would change. All that unhappiness would end.

There was no one else on the steps now. No one moved but Simon, and he could feel that everyone, everything, waited for him. All the world hung on the fulcrum of Green Angel Tower, and he would be the one to shift that balance. It was a wild, heady feeling. The sword pulled him on, singing to him, filling him with imprecise but powerful intimations of glory and release at every upward step.

I am Simon, he thought, and could almost hear trumpets flare and echo. he thought, and could almost hear trumpets flare and echo. I have done mighty deeds I have done mighty deeds-slain a dragon! Won a battle! Now, I bring the Great Sword.

As he mounted up, the stairs shimmered before and behind, a downward-flowing river of ivory. The pale stone of the stairway wall seemed to glow, as if it reflected the light that burned within him. The sky-blue carvings were as heartbreakingly lovely as flowers strewn before the feet of a conqueror. Completion was ahead. An end to pain awaited him.

The bell tolled a fourth time, even more powerfully than before.

Simon staggered, shaken like a rat in a dog's teeth as the echoes boomed and resounded down the stairwell. A blast of freezing air rolled past him, blurring the carvings on the wall with a milky skin of ice. He almost dropped the sword again as he lifted his hands to his head and cried out. Stumbling, he grabbed at the frame of one of the tower's windows for support.

As he stood, shivering and moaning, the sky outside changed. The broad smear of clouds vanished, and for a long moment the full blackness of the sky opened before him, dotted with tiny, cold stars, as though Green Angel Tower had torn free of its moorings and now floated above the storm. He stared, teeth clenched against the bell's fading echoes. After three heartbeats the black sky clotted with gray and red and the tower was surrounded by storm once more.

Something tugged at his thoughts, fighting against Bright-Nail's unslackening pull.

This ... is ... wrong. The joy that he had shared, the feeling that he would somehow make things right, ebbed away. The joy that he had shared, the feeling that he would somehow make things right, ebbed away. Something bad is happening-something very bad! Something bad is happening-something very bad!

But he was already moving again, mounting the stairs toward the dim glow. He was not the master of his own body.

He struggled. His limbs felt distant, numb. He slowed himself, then managed to stop, shuddering in the freezing wind that blew down the stairwell. Tiny whiskers of ice hung from the walls, and his breath clouded about his head, but he could feel an even greater coldness lurking somewhere above him-a coldness that somehow thought. thought.

He fought for a long time on the stairs, struggling to regain control of his own arms and legs-a struggle against nothing visible that went un.o.bserved except by the cold, inhuman presence. He could feel its hungry attention as the sweat beading on his skin froze and fell tinkling onto the steps. Steam rose from his overheated body, and where the warmth left, deadening chill crept in.

The cold took Simon at last, filling him. It moved him like a puppet on a stick. He jerked and began to stagger upward once more, screaming silently from the prison of his skull.

He stepped up out of the stairwell and into the vaporous bellchamber; the ice-blanketed walls glimmered and sparkled. Storm clouds surrounded the high windows, and light and shadow moved sluggishly, as though the cold gripped them, too.

Miriamele and Binabik stood beside the door, writhing slowly, caught somehow like flies struggling in amber. His eyes widened as he saw them and his heart thudded painfully behind his ribs, but he could not call out or even stop his feet from carrying him forward. Miriamele opened her mouth and made a m.u.f.fled noise. Tears filled his eyes, and for a moment her pale face held him like a lamp in a dark room-but the thing that gripped him would not be denied. It swept him past his friends like a river current, tugging him toward the cl.u.s.ter of pillars at the center of the chamber.

Beneath the frost-furred bells three figures waited, one kneeling. The part of Bright-Nail that had entangled itself with him danced and leaped ... but the still-Simon part quailed as Elias turned toward him with a face like a dead man's. The mottled gray sword in his two fists lay against black Thorn, and where they touched there was nullity, an emptiness that hurt Simon's mind.

Shivering, Camaris turned to Simon, his hair and brows powdery with ice. The old man's eyes stared in abject misery.

"My fault ..." he whispered through chattering teeth.

Pryrates had watched Simon's lurching entrance. Now the priest nodded, smiling tightly. "I knew you were in the tower somewhere, kitchen boy-you and the last of the swords."

Simon felt himself drawn closer to the place where Thorn and Sorrow met. Through Bright-Nail, whose song coursed inside him, he could feel the music of the other two swords as well: the dancing throb of life that was within all of them grew stronger as the moment of their joining approached. Simon felt it like the speeding current of a river's narrows, but he could also feel that there was a barrier that somehow kept the blades apart. Although two of them were touching, and only a few cubits stood between them and the third, they all remained as widely separated as they had ever been.

But what was different now, what Simon felt deeply and wordlessly in his mind's inmost, was that soon there would be a great change. Some mighty universal wheel lay loose on its axle, ready to turn, and when it did all the barriers would fall, all the walls would vanish. The swords sang, waiting.

Before he knew it, he was stepping forward. Bright-Nail clicked against the other two blades. The shock of contact traveled not just through Simon, but through the room as well. The black emptiness where the swords met deepened, a hole into which the entire world might fall and perish. The light changed all around: the star-glow seeping in through the windows deepened, turning the chamber b.l.o.o.d.y, and then the dreadful bell tolled a fifth time.

Simon trembled and cried out as the tower shook and the energies of the swords, still pent but fighting now for release, traveled through him. His heart stuttered, hesitated, and almost stopped. His vision blurred and darkened, then gradually came back. He was inextricably caught in something that burned like fire, that dragged like a lodestone. He tried desperately to pull away, but a supreme effort only made him sway gently, caught on Bright-Nail's hilt like a fish dying on a hook. The bell's echoes died out.

Even through the music of the swords, Simon could sense the chill presence he had felt on the stairs growing stronger, vast and weighty as a mountain, cold as the gaps between stars. It was closer now, but at the same time it hovered just beyond some incomprehensible wall.

Elias, who seemed almost unmoved by the exuberating power of the swords, raked Simon with mad green eyes. "I do not know this one, Pryrates," he murmured, "-although there is something familiar about him. But it does not matter. All the bargains have been kept."

"Indeed." The priest moved past, so close that his robe touched Simon's arm. A buried part of Simon shrieked with disgust and fury, but no sound pa.s.sed his quivering lips: he was now little more than something that held Bright-Nail. The sword's vaulting spirit, connected now to its brothers, uncaring of human struggles and human hatreds, waited only for whatever would happen next, eager as a dog expecting to be fed.

"All bargains are kept," Pryrates rasped as he took a place beside the king's shoulder, "and all is now set in motion. Soon Utuk'ku the Eldest will have harnessed the Pool of Three Depths. Then we will have completed the Fifth House, and all will change." He looked at Simon and his eyes glittered. "This one you do not know is Morgenes' kitchen-whelp, Highness." Pryrates grinned. "This is satisfying. I saw what you did to Inch, boy. Very thorough work. You saved me some tiresome effort."

Simon felt a powerful rage bubbling up inside him. In the red light the priest's smug face seemed to hang bodilessly, and for a moment Simon could see nothing else. He struggled to move his limbs, to pull Bright-Nail away from its brothers so he could smash out the murderer's life, but he was helpless. The flame of anger blazed without release, so hot that Simon felt sure it would scorch him to ashes from within.

The tower rocked again to the thunderous voice of the bell. Simon stared, even as the floor shook before him and his ears popped, but the bronze bells at the center of the chamber did not move. Instead, a ghostly shape appeared, a bell of sorts, but long and cylindrical. For a moment, as the phantom bell vibrated, Simon saw flames sheeting again outside the windows, the sky gone endlessly black.

When the noise had died, Pryrates lifted his hands. "She has conquered. It is time."

The king lowered his head. "G.o.d help me, I have waited long."

"Your waiting is over." The priest crossed his arms before his face, then lowered them. "Utuk'ku has captured the Pool of Three Depths. The swords are here, waiting only for the Words of Unmaking to release that which binds them, then the force that was prisoned within them will sing free and bring you everything that you have desired."

"Immortality?" asked Elias, shy as a child.

"Immortality. A life that outlasts the stars. You sought your dead wife, Highness, but you found something far greater."

"Do not ... do not speak of her."

"Rejoice, Elias, do not grieve!" Pryrates brought his palms together and lightning scratched across the sky outside the tall windows. "You feared you would have no heir when your disobedient daughter ran away-but you yourself will be your own inheritor. You will never die!"

Elias lifted his head, his eyes shut as though he basked in a warming sun. His mouth trembled.

"Never die, " he said. " he said.

"You have gained powerful friends, and in this hour they will pay you back for all your suffering." Pryrates stepped away from the king and thrust his red-sleeved arm toward the ceiling. "I invoke the First House!"

The great invisible bell sounded again, crashing like a hammer in a G.o.d's smithy. Flames ran through the bellchamber, capering across the icy walls. "On Thisterborg, among the ancient stones," Pryrates intoned, "one of the Red Hand is waiting. For his master and you he uses the power of that place and opens a crack into the between-places. He unfolds the first of the A-Genay'asu'e A-Genay'asu'e and brings forth the First House." and brings forth the First House."

Simon sensed the cold, dreadful something that waited growing stronger. It was all around Green Angel Tower, drawing nearer, like a hunting beast coming stealthily through the darkness toward a campfire.

"At Wentmouth," Pryrates cried, "on the cliffs above the endless ocean where the Hayefur once burned for travelers from the lost West, the Second House is now built. The Storm King's servant is there, and a far greater flame lifts to the skies."

"Do ... not ... Binabik, held by Pryrates' magics, struggled to move forward from the walls. His voice seemed to come from a great distance. "Do ... not... !" Binabik, held by Pryrates' magics, struggled to move forward from the walls. His voice seemed to come from a great distance. "Do ... not... !"

The priest flicked a gesture toward him and the troll was silenced, squirming helplessly.

Again the bell rang, and the power of it seemed to pulse on and on, reverberating. For a moment Simon heard voices rising outside, screams of pain and terror in the language of the Sithi. Red lights flickered in the icicles hanging from the bell-chamber's vaulted ceiling.

"Above Hasu Vale, beside the ancient Wailing Stone, where the Eldest before the Eldest once danced beneath stars that have burned out-the Third House is built. The Storm King's servant lifts another flame to the skies."

Elias suddenly took a wobbly step. Sorrow's blade dipped as he bent, although it still touched the other two swords. "Pryrates," he gasped, "something ... something is burning ... inside me!"

"Father!" Miriamele's voice was faint, but her face was contorted with terror. Miriamele's voice was faint, but her face was contorted with terror.

"Because it is time, Majesty," the alchemist said. "You are changing. Your mortality must be scorched away by clean flame." He pointed at the princess. "Look, Elias! Do you see what your weakness does to you? Do you see what the sham of love would bring you? She would make you into an old man, sobbing for your meals, p.i.s.sing in your bed!"

The king straightened up and turned his back on Miriamele. "I will not be held down," he gritted. Every word seemed an effort. "I will ... take ... what was promised."

Simon saw that the priest was smiling, though sweat trickled down his egg-smooth brow. "You will have it." He lifted his arms once more. Simon strained until he thought veins would burst in his temples, but could not pull free from the crossed swords. "In your brother's stronghold, Elias," Pryrates said, "in what was the very heart of his treachery-at Naglimund we build the Fourth House!"

Simon again saw the unfamiliar black sky framed in the window. At the bottom of the sill, the Hayholt had become a forest of pale, graceful towers. Flames ran among them. The strange sight did not vanish. The Hayholt was gone, replaced by ... Asu'a? Simon heard shrieking Sithi voices echoing, and the roar of flames.

"And now the Fifth House!" cried Pryrates.

The tolling of the phantom bell this time brought back Simon's view of storm clouds and whirling snow. The high-pitched anguish of the Sithi gave way to the dulled shouts of mortals.

"In the Pool of Three Depths, Utuk'ku gives way to the last of the Storm King's servitors, and beneath us the fifth and final House is created." Pryrates spread his arms, palms down, and the whole tower trembled. A kind of sucking pull reached down the length of Bright-Nail, through Simon's arm, tugging at his heart and even his thoughts as though it sought to draw them out whole. Across from him, Camaris bared his teeth in an agonized grimace, Thorn quivering in his fist.

A fountain of icy blue light sprang up through the floor of the bellchamber, roaring and crackling as it pa.s.sed through the blackness where the swords touched. Diminished and distorted by that pa.s.sage, it continued up past Simon's face and spattered the glinting ceiling with blue sparks. Simon felt his body convulsing as tremendous energies flowed around him and through him. Inside his battered thoughts the swords thrilled exultantly, their spirits released. He tried to open his mouth and scream, but his jaws were locked tight, teeth grinding. The coruscating blue light filled his eyes.

"And now the three Great Swords have found their way to this place, beneath the Conqueror Star. Sorrow, defender of Asu'a, scourge of the living; Thorn, star-blade, banner of the dying Imperium; Bright-Nail, last iron from the vanished West."

As Pryrates called each name, the great bell rang. The tower and all around it seemed to shift with each sounding, the delicate towers and flames giving way to the squat, snow-covered roofs of the Hayholt, then appearing once more with the next reverberating clang.

Caught in the grip of terrible forces, Simon felt himself burning from within. He hated. Smoldering clouds of rage rose up inside him, hatred at being tricked, at seeing his friends murdered, at the terrible devastation that Pryrates and Elias had caused. He wanted to swing the sword in a deadly arc, to smash everything in sight, to kill those who had made him so horribly unhappy. He could not shriek-he could not even move except to twitch helplessly. The rage, ordinary escape blocked, seemed to pour out through his sword arm instead. Bright-Nail became a blur, something not quite real, as though part of it had gone away. Thorn was a dark smear in Camaris' hands. The old man's eyes had rolled up in his head.

Simon felt his monstrous anger and despair break free. The blackness where the swords met widened, an unending emptiness, a gate into Unbeing, and Simon's hate poured into it. The void began to crawl up Sorrow's length toward Elias.

"We harness the great fear." Pryrates moved to a spot behind the king, who now seemed as trapped and helpless as the other two swordbearers. The priest spread his arms wide, so that for a moment Elias seemed to have another pair of hands. "In every land, the fear has spread. The kilpa make the seas boil. The ghants crawl through the streets of the southern cities. The beasts of legend stalk the snows of the north. The fear is everywhere.

"We harness the great fear. In every land, brother is turned against brother. Plague and famine and the scourge of war turn people into raging demons.

"All the strength of fright and fury is ours, funneled through the pattern of the Five Houses." Suddenly Pryrates laughed. "You are all such small minds! Even your terrors are small ones. You feared to see your armies defeated? You will see more than that. You will see Time itself roll backward in its rut."

King Elias jerked and twitched as the blackness crawled up the blade toward him, but he seemed unable to release Sorrow. "G.o.d help me, Pryrates!" A convulsive shudder ran through him, a tremor of such power that he should have fallen to the floor. The nightdark void touched his hands. "Aaaah! G.o.d help me, I am burning up! My soul is on fire!"

"Surely you did not think it would be easy?" Pryrates was grinning. Sweat sheeted down his forehead. "It will get worse, you fool."

"I do not wish immortality!" Elias screamed. "Ah, G.o.d, G.o.d, G.o.d! Release me! I am burning away!" His voice was distorted, as though some inconceivable thing had invaded his lungs and chest.

"What you wish is not important," Pryrates spat back. "You will have your immortality-but it may not be all you had hoped."

Elias writhed. His shrieks were wordless now.

Pryrates extended his hands until they hovered on either side of Sorrow's hilt, only inches from Elias' own fingers. "It is time for the Words of Unmaking," he said.

The bell thundered, and once more Green Angel Tower was surrounded by the tragic delicacy of burning Asu'a. The stars in that black sky were cold and tiny as snowflakes. The tower seemed to shake like an agonized living thing.

"I have prepared the way!" Pryrates called. "I have crafted the vessel. Now, in this place, let Time turn backward! let Time turn backward! Roll back the centuries to the moment before Ineluki was banished to the realms beyond death. As I speak the Words of Unmaking, let him return! Roll back the centuries to the moment before Ineluki was banished to the realms beyond death. As I speak the Words of Unmaking, let him return! Let him return!" Let him return!" He lapsed into a bellowing chant in a language harsh as shattering stone, as cracking ice. The blackness spread out over Elias and for a moment the king vanished utterly, as though he had been pushed through the wall of reality. Then he seemed to absorb the blackness, or it flowed into him; he reappeared, thrashing and shrieking incoherently. He lapsed into a bellowing chant in a language harsh as shattering stone, as cracking ice. The blackness spread out over Elias and for a moment the king vanished utterly, as though he had been pushed through the wall of reality. Then he seemed to absorb the blackness, or it flowed into him; he reappeared, thrashing and shrieking incoherently.

Elysia, Mother of Mercy! They've won! They've won! Simon's head seemed full of storm winds and flame, but his heart was black ice. Simon's head seemed full of storm winds and flame, but his heart was black ice.

Once more the bell caroled, and this time the very air of the chamber seemed to grow solid and gla.s.sy, bending Simon's gaze as though he looked through a mirrored tunnel. There seemed no up or down. Outside, the stars began to smear across the sky in long white threads, tangling like wormholes in sod. Even as his life bled from him and out of Bright-Nail in searing waves, he felt the world turning inside out.

The bellchamber grew dark. Distorted shadows loomed and shifted across the icy chamber, then the walls seemed to open and fall away. Blackness flowed through, bringing with it a deeper chill, a freezing, ultimate cold.

Elias' agonized screams had become a choking near-silence. He and Pryrates were now the only things visible. The priest's hands flickered with yellow light; his face gleamed. All the warmth of the world was leaking away.