thing more.” He bent very close and whispered, “Tell me, priest, when did you ever see the great black citadel of Ke’er?”
“What?” This made no sense whatever.
“Come, boy, the keep of Baron Aid’s fortress is famed throughout all the northlands. How is it that you know that place?” “My Lord, I know not what you mean! I have never been north of our monastery-” Suddenly he saw again that vision of the grim citadel clinging to the crags above the gloomy sea. He was too amazed to continue.
“Mighty Prince,” Vridekka interjected softly, “my probe was strong-so strong that it may have picked up images from the minds of others than this priest. The ritual he saw-and I saw with him-was almost certainly from the girl: it is the initiation into the Third Circle of the Temple of Hrihayal.”
“But Ke’er, man! Has she ever seen Ke’er?”
“I think not, my Lord. I shall try to discover who amongst us here has so clear a picture of the Baron’s capital.”
The old Mind-seer pivoted to face the chamber. Sensing something amiss, all stood transfixed, an orange and brown tableau. The scribes glanced at one another with faces of fear; those guards who bore swords loosened them in their belt-clips, and those with halberds gripped them the tighter. Harsan raised his head and saw that Eyil, too, was watching.
Vridekka pulled at his long chin. His scuffed leather sandals made soft hushing noises upon the flagstones of the floor. He went to a scribe, looked him up and down; then to a guard, hooked a finger against the man’s cheek and drew his head around to face him; then to the dais, and then back again to the table upon which Harsan lay.
At last he approached Prince Dhich’une and whispered, “Mighty Master, there is now no sign of Ke’er in anyone’s mind. Someone knows well how to block his thoughts.”
He turned to Eyil-and as quickly whirled back again; he shouted, “Yan Kor! Victory to the Baron of Yan Kor!”
Scribes scattered, pencases clattering. Swords flew out, and halberds leaped up to menace him.
Prince Dhich’une smiled.
“What did you see?”
“A hint, master. A flash as of green-lacquered armour in someone’s memory.” Without warning, he cried again, “Yilrana! Avenge my Yilrana!”
There was tumult. A glimpse of a strangely beautiful, sloeeyed woman with tresses piled in curls and ringlets flickered through Harsan’s mind, but he could not tell whether this came from within himself or from without. Soldiers stared this way and that. The scribes below the dais huddled amidst their clutter of papers and pigments, terrified. A servant dropped an ewer with a mighty clang-
And that seemed to do it.
Vridekka’s bony finger swung round as surely as the needle of a compass, pointing, pointing-
To Hele’a of Ghaton!
There was a blur of motion. The tiny silver casket flew from the Ghatoni’s hand to clatter open upon the floor; five wriggling brown worms spilled out. His other hand dipped into his robe and came forth again as swiftly as an Alash- snake’s striking. He held a nut-sized, grey object in his fingers.
“An ‘Eye!’ ” someone yelled.
There was bedlam.
A sword grated awkwardly upon the wall by Hele’a’s head. Two halberds clashed and tangled as their wielders both attempted to engage the Ghatoni at once. Scribes bleated and scrambled for nonexistent cover. Prince Dhich’une shouted something, but none heard him over the uproar. The dishes and globlets went ringing and bouncing in all directions. Someone hurled himself against the table upon which Harsan lay, overturned it, and sent him toppling helplessly to the floor beneath it.
It was this that saved his life.
A faint, sweet, musical note sang through the chamber, a vibration almost too high for hearing, and Harsan felt the passage of a cascade of cold above him, so bitter that it burned. Crystals of ice showered down, and the planks of the table became agony, so frigid that he wrenched himself wildly away from contact with them.
Vridekka was scrambling up beside him-it had been he who had tipped over the table-fumbling for something within his tattered robe.
There was light.
Not the ruddy, orange-red warmth of the torches, but a flaring, bloody, crimson glare that burned itself into Harsan’s retinas even though he lay behind the fallen table.
All was silence.
Then he heard Prince Dhich’une’s voice calling something, and a babble of voices poured forth in reply. Vridekka clambered to his feet, one bony knee in Harsan’s ribs. There were footsteps, shouts, and the rattle of armour and weapons, excited yelling… Hands tugged at the table, and someone cursed at its unexpected cold. It was dragged upright, Harsan perforce along with it. He writhed against the icy surface, yelped involuntarily in pain. The table was still almost too frigid to touch!
Harsan would have cried a further warning, for Hele’a of Ghaton still stood, the dull-gleaming “Eye” in his fingers, mouth open, poised to fire. Then he saw that Hele’a did not move, did not seem to breathe. The man’s posture was curiously stiff, as though he were a waxen doll.
Prince Dhich’une now stepped around a soldier who was gingerly flicking the Worms of Death back into their casket. The Prince carried another “Eye,” one with an iris that glinted darkly red.
“Mighty Prince,” Vridekka wheezed, “you are safe?”
“Had I to depend upon my favoured Legion of Ketl, I might have been as empty of life as the Desert of Sighs! Fortunately I am not one to go without a second shaft for my bow. The ‘Excellent Ruby Eye’ has drawn his fangs-”
“ ‘Excellent Ruby Eye?’ ” Harsan hardly knew that he had spoken.
“Yes, priest. But for it-and me-you would now be frozen meat to baffle the embalmers in the City of the Dead! For it was at you that Hele’a aimed his own ‘Eye of Frigid Breath,’ not at me, not at Vridekka. It seems that the Baron of Yan Kor prefers the Man of Gold to remain lost for all time to come, rather than see it in our hands.”
“But Hele’a, mighty Prince?” That was Vridekka. “An agent of such loyalty-he could have slain you at any moment…” “Baron Aid doubtless schooled him well.” The bone-painted lips curved up in a wry grimace. “The best dagger is the one your foe cannot see. Hele’a served me faithfully for many years, and I was remiss to trust so many of my purposes to him. But… thus it is. We have been lucky to unveil him this night; else he might have done us greater harm in the days to come. You, Vridekka, were clever to try him with the name of the Baron’s dead mistress.”
“Mention of Yilrana carries much emotion for all who dwell near to the Baron of Yan Kor, my Lord. This I knew.”
“We are grateful.” Prince Dhich’une moved to stand before the motionless figure of Hele’a. “He is trapped now, as a fish in the ice of his own northern seas, frozen forever in one long, eternal moment out of time. He knows nothing, senses nothing- until he is released again by the ‘Eye.’ Were I to use it to free him, he would return to that precise instant in which he was caught: take another breath, depress the stud of his weapon, and think those same thoughts he held at the moment of his capture.” “None can touch him now, mighty Prince.” The old mind-seer, too, went to gaze into Hele’a’s open, staring eyes. “Will you not let me have him, My Lord? His mind-screens may be of the strongest, but I have many strings to pluck as well.”
The Prince chuckled. “I am tempted to immure him in the pits beneath this prison, Vridekka, even in the Ultimate Labyrinth from which no one has ever come forth again.-Or leave him in his present plight and sink him in the bottomless swamps off Thayuri Isle where he would lie until Lord Vimuhla’s conflagration bums all life from Tekumel at the very terminus of time.” He seemed to shake himself. “No, he may serve us better in still another role. What is the hour?”
One of the soldiers replied, “The Tunkul — gong of the temple of Ksarul across the river has struck the half- night, my Lord.” “Four Kiren — two hours-still remain, then…” Dhich’une mused. “Vridekka, I entrust Hele’a to you, but your questioning must needs be brief. The High Adept of our Temple of Sarku has appointed me officiant at this
