"Aye, time," they said as one, and hearing the menace in their voices Vengis rolled his eyes upward in their sockets and let go his hold on life.

 

 

VII

 

 

"Oh, there you are!"

 

 

Perched on a grey rock atop a grey hill, Jacques the scrivener forwent his gazing at sunset-gilded Ys in favor of a scowl at the traveler in black who had come to join him. There were no footprints to show by what path he had arrived; still, where Laprivan wiped away the past that was no wonder.

 

 

"I've sat here long enough, in all conscience," Jacques complained. "This wind is cold! And, for all you promised I should witness the doom of Ys, I see nothing but what I've always seen when looking on the city from afar. When will this doom befall, tell me that."

 

 

The traveler sighed. Now the course of events was grinding to its inexorable conclusion, he felt downcast, despite there never having been an alternative. He did not much like Jacques, regarding him as pompous and self-opinionated, but even so...

 

 

"The doom is already in train."

 

 

Jacques leapt from his rock and stamped his foot. "You mean I've missed it?"

 

 

"That, no," said the traveler. He raised his staff and pointed across the twilight grey of the valley. "Do you not see, there by the gates, a certain number of persons making in this direction?"

 

 

"Why... Yes, I believe I do." Jacques peered hard. "But from this distance I cannot tell who they are."

 

 

"I can," the traveler murmured. "They are those who are determined Jacques the scrivener shall not be denied participation in the doom of Ys."

 

 

"What?" Turned sidewise in the gloaming, Jacques's face was ghastly pale. "Why me? What do they want with me?"

 

 

"A reckoning."

 

 

"But... !" Jacques shifted from foot to foot, as though minded to flee. "Explain! Pray explain!"

 

 

"So I will," the traveler conceded wearily, and took a comfortable grip to lean on his staff. "You must understand first that the would-be enchanters of Ys have succeeded beyond their wildest dreams, and-as they desired-have called back those who created the city and maintained it in times past. And they found, as was inevitable, that these ancestors were human beings, with human faults and failings, and not infrequently with remarkable outstanding faults, because this is the way with persons who are remarkable and outstanding in other areas of their lives."

 

 

"But-but I counseled against this foolishness!" stammered Jacques.

 

 

"No," corrected the one in black. "You did not counsel. You said: you are pig-headed fools not to see that I am absolutely, unalterably right while everybody else is wrong. And when they would not listen to such dogmatic bragging-as who would?-you washed your hands of them and wished them a dreadful doom."

 

 

"Did I wish them any worse than they deserved?" Jacques was trying to keep up a front of bravado, but a whine had crept into his voice and he had to link his fingers to stop his hands from shaking.

 

 

"Discuss the matter with those who are coming to find you," proposed the traveler sardonically. "Their conviction is different from yours. They hold that by making people disgusted with the views you subscribed to, you prevented rational thought from regaining its mastery of Ys. Where you should have reasoned, you flung insults; where you should have argued soberly and with purpose, you castigated honest men with doubts, calling them purblind idiots. This is what they say. Whether your belief or theirs constitutes the truth, I leave for you and them to riddle out."

 

 

Jacques looked again at the column of people winding out from the city gate, and now could see them in detail. At the head of the line was a blacksmith with a hammer on his shoulder; behind him, a ditcher came with a mattock, then a gardener with a sickle and two coopers with heavy barrel-staves. And those behind still bore each their handiest weapon, down to a red-handed goodwife wielding the stick from her butter-churn.

 

 

He glanced wildly around for a way of escape, teeth chattering. "I must run!" he blurted. "I must hide!"

 

 

"It would be of little help," the traveler said. "Those people yonder are determined; though you hid in the pit of Fegrim's volcano, they would still track you down."

 

 

"Oh, misery me!" moaned Jacques, burying his head in his hands. "Would that I had never come to this pass! Would that what I've done could be undone!"

 

 

"As you wish, so be it," said the traveler, and cheered up, for that put a very satisfactory end to this momentary aberration in the smooth progress of the cosmos. He tapped three times on a nearby rock, and under his breath he said, "Laprivan! Laprivan of the Yellow Eyes!"

 

 

Jacques screamed.

 

 

Below in the valley, the column of determinedly advancing men and women bound to wreak vengeance on Jacques hesitated, halted, and broke ranks in disorder that grew to panic. For out of the side of the hill Laprivan was peering, and what was behind his eyes belonged to the age when chaos was the All.

 

 

Some small power remained to him so long as he survived, and he applied it to this single and unique purpose: to wipe clean the slate of yesterday.

 

 

So he looked down on Ys, and saw there what was to him an abomination, the shadow of the past given substance. He reached out one of his arms, and erased -and erased-and erased...

 

 

Honorius, sowing contagious fever on the streets, was not.

 

 

Thirty sated children, smeared with blood on faces and fingers, were not.

 

 

Bardolus's mother, chortling over the fate of her son, was not.

 

 

Knotting a noose from every rope in a cord-seller's shop, the first of the line of the Hautnoix was not.

 

 

Brandishing his bloody trophies, the adulterous d'Icque was not.

 

 

Three who had come forth from a vault were not.

 

 

Stripped of its food, its draperies, its gold and silver and precious artworks, the house of Meleagra was silent.

 

 

And those who had come to regulate accounts with the decadent lordling Vengis took their leave.

 

 

Also many who had come forth from graves and sepulchres, from hollow walls and wayside ditches, from dungeons and the beds of rivers and the bottoms of wells... were not.

 

 

"So!" said the traveler in black, when he had restored Laprivan to his captivity. "You have a reprieve, Jacques-are you glad of that?"

 

 

The tawny-bearded man mouthed an affirmative.

 

 

"And will you learn a lesson from it?"

 

 

"I'll try-as heaven is my witness, I will try!"

 

 

"Fairly said," the traveler declared. "Go then to join those hiding in the valley. Approach them as a friend, not showing that you're aware why they set forth bearing bludgeons. Say to them that the rule of chaos in Ys is ended, and so is Ys; they must return home for the last time and gather their belongings before they and all the people scatter to the corners of the world."

 

 

"But-but is this our world?" Jacques whimpered. "On the way to Barbizond I saw-and now here..."

 

 

"Ah, you'll have no more of that kind of thing. It belongs to yesterday, and with other traces of yesterday Laprivan has wiped it out." The traveler allowed himself a smile. "And do not lament excessively for Ys. For cities, as for men, there comes a Time... Besides, there is a prophecy: a prince shall seek a name for his new capital, and he'll be told of Ys, and out of envy for its greatness he will say, 'I name my city Parys, equal to Ys.'"

 

 

"I have little faith in prophecies as a rule," said Jacques, staring. "But in this extraordinary place... Well, no matter. Sir, I take my leave, and-and I thank you. You have held up an honest mirror to me, and I cannot resent it."

 

 

"Go now," the traveler adjured. "And be quick."

 

 

He waited long on the brow of the hill while the last daylight dwindled away and the stars wheeled gradually to the conformation marking midnight. It became more and more difficult to see Ys; the towers melted into mist, the walls and gates were shadow-dark among shadows. For a while torches glimmered; then even they failed to be discerned, and when dawn broke there was neither the city, nor the traveler in black, for anybody to behold.

 

 

three

 

 

THE WAGER LOST BY WINNING

 

 

What Stake will you adventure on this Game? (quoth Arundel).

 

 

Why, Sir, though I be naked and penniless, yet stand I in possession of my Head (saith Amalthea). That prize I in no wise, quoth Arundel. I had liefer win a Cooking Pot than such a Numskull. Wager me in place of it that Treasure, which though you lose it to me shall be yours again when I have done.

 

 

-Fortunes and Misfortunes of Amalthea

 

 

I

 

 

Down the slope of a pleasant vale an army marched in good order: colors at the head fluttering in the warm summer breeze, drummers beating a lively stroke for the men behind perspiring in their brass-plated cuirasses and high-thonged boots. Each of the footmen wore a baldric with an axe and a short-sword in leather frogs, and carried a spear and a wide square shield. Each of the officers rode a horse draped in fine light mail, wore a shirt and breeches of velvet sewn with little steel plates, and carried a long-sword in a decorated sheath. Sunlight glinted on pommels bright with enamel and gilt.

 

 

Leaning on his staff, the traveler in black stood in the shade of a chestnut-tree and contemplated them as they filed by. Directly he clapped eyes on them, the banners had told him whence they hailed; no city but Teq employed those three special hues in its flag- gold, and silver, and the red of new-spilled blood. They symbolized the moral of a proverb which the traveler knew well, and held barbarous, to the effect that all treasure must be bought by expending life.

 

 

In accordance with that precept, the Lords of Teq, before they inherited their fathers estates, must kill all challengers, and did so by any means to hand, whether cleanly by the sword or subtly by drugs and venom. Consequently some persons had come to rule in Teq who were less than fit-great only in their commitment to greed.

 

 

"That,"' said the traveler to the leaves on the chestnut-tree, "is a highly disturbing spectacle!"

 

 

However, he stood as and where he was, neither concealed nor conspicuous, and as ever allowed events to pursue their natural course. Few of the rank-and-file soldiery noticed him as they strode along, being preoccupied with the warmth of the day and the weight of their equipment, but two or three of the officers favored him with inquisitive glances. However, they paid no special attention to the sight of this little man in a black cloak, and likely, a mile or two beyond, the recollection of him would be dismissed altogether from their minds.

 

 

That was customary, and to be expected. Few folk recognized the traveler in black nowadays, unless they were enchanters of great skill and could detect the uniqueness of one who had many names but a single nature, or perhaps if they were learned in curious arts and aware of the significance of the conjunction of the four planets presently ornamenting the southern sky in a highly specific pattern.

 

 

But there had been changes, and those who recognized him now were exceptional.

 

 

The journeys the traveler had made had long surpassed the possibility of being counted. Most of them, moreover, were indistinguishable-not because the same events transpired during each or all, but because they were so unalike as to be similar. A little by a little earnests of his eventual triumph were being borne upon him. Perhaps the loss of Ryovora into time had marked the pivotal moment; however that might be, the fact-was incontestable. Soon, as the black-garbed traveler counted soonness, all things would have but one nature. He would be unique no more, and time would have a stop. Whereupon...

 

 

Release.

 

 

Watching the purposeful progress of the army, the traveler considered that notion with faint surprise. It had never previously crossed his mind. But, clearly, it would be a wise and kindly provision by the One who had assigned him his mission if his single nature should include the capacity of growing weary, so that in his instant of accomplishment he might surrender to oblivion with good grace.

 

 

That instant, though, still needed to be worked towards. He waited while the rearguard of the army passed, slow commissary-wagons drawn by mules bumping on the rough track; then, when the drumbeats died in the distance, their last faint reverberation given back by the hills like the failing pulse of a sick giant, he stirred himself to continue on his way.

 

 

It was not until he came, somewhat later, to Erminvale that he realized, weary or no, he must yet contend with vastly subtle forces arrayed against him.

 

 

For a little while, indeed, he could almost convince himself that this was to be the last of his journeys, and that his next return would find the places he had known tight in the clutch of Time. The borderland between rationality and chaos seemed to be shrinking apace as the harsh constraint of logic settled on this corner of the All. Reason is the step-child of memory, and memory exists in Time, not the arbitrary randomness of eternity.

 

 

Thus, beyond Leppersley the folk remembered Farchgrind, and that being's chiefest attribute had been that no one should recall his deceits, but fall prey to them again and again. Yet where once there had been a monstrous pile of follies, each a memento to some new-hatched prank-'Build thus and worship me and I will give you more wealth than you can carry!", or: "Build thus and worship me and I will restore you the health and vigor of a man of twenty!" (the wealth of course being tons of ore and the health that of a paralysed cripple)-there were sober families in small neat timber houses, framed with beams pilfered from the ancient temples, who said, "Yes, we hear Farchgrind if he speaks to us, but we recall what became of grandfather when he believed what he was told, and we carry on about our daily business."

 

 

The traveler talked with Farchgrind almost in sorrow, mentioning this skepticism which had overtaken men, and accepted without contradiction the retort.

 

 

"You too," said the elemental, "are part of the way things are, and I-I am only part of the way things were!"

 

 

Likewise, though there were hoofmarks on the road which Jorkas had patrolled, they were not his; some common cart-horse had indented them, and rain tonight or tomorrow would make the mud a palimpsest for another horse to print anew. Moreover at black Acromel that tall tower like a pillar of onyx crowned with agate where once dukes had made sacrifice to the Quadruple God was broken off short, snapped like a dry stick. In among the ruins fools made ineffectual attempts to revive a dying cult, but their folly was footling compared to the grand insanities of the enchanter Manuus who once had taken a hand in the affairs of this city, or even of the petty tyrant Vengis, whose laziness and greed brought doom on his fellows and himself.

 

 

"Ah, if only I could find the key to this mystery!" said one of them, who had bidden the traveler to share the warmth of a fire fed with leather-bound manuscripts from the ducal library. "Then should I have men come to me and bow the knee, offer fine robes to bar the cold instead of these shabby rags, savory dishes to grace my palate instead of this spitted rat I'm toasting on a twig, and nubile virgins from the grandest families to pleasure me, instead of that old hag I was stupid enough to take to wife!"

 

 

"As you wish, so be it," said the traveler, and knocked his staff on the altar-slab the fool was using as a hearth.

 

 

In the cold dawn that followed, the wife went running to her neighbors to report a miracle: her husband was struck to stone, unmoving yet undead. And, because no other comparable wonder had occurred since the departure of the Quadruple God, all transpired as he had wished. Men set him up on the stump of the great black tower and wrapped their smartest robes about him; they burned expensive delicacies on a brazier, that the scent might waft to his nostrils; and sought beautiful girls that their throats might be cut and their corpses hung before him on gallows stranded with chains-all of this in strict accordance with the ancient custom.

 

 

But after a while, when their adulation failed to bring them the favors which they begged, they forgot him and left him helpless to watch the robes fade and the fire die in ashes and the girls' bodies feed the maggots until nothing was left save the bare white bones.

 

 

Likewise, a packman met at Gander's Well complained in the shade of brooding Yorbeth whose taproot fed his branches with marvelous sap from that unseen spring, and said, "Oh, but my lot is cruelly hard! See you, each year when the snows melt, I come hither and with the proper precautions contrive to pluck fruit and leaves from these long boughs. Such growths no sun ever shone on before! See here, a fuzzy ball that cries in a faint voice when your hand closes on it! And here too: a leaf transparent as crystal, that shows when you peer through it a scene than no man can swear to identifying! Things of this nature are in great demand by wealthy enchanters.

 

 

"But what irks me"-and he leaned forward, grimacing-"is a matter of simple injustice. Do those enchanters plod the rutted road to Gander's Well? Do they risk death or worse to garner the contents of a heavy pack? Why, no! That's left to me! And what I get I must dispose of for a pittance to strangers who doubtless half the time botch the conjurations they plan to build on what I bring them! Would that I knew beyond a peradventure what marvels can be wrought by using the means I'm making marketable!"

 

 

"As you wish," sighed the traveler, "so be it." He knocked with his staff on the coping of the well, and went aside to speak of release to Yorbeth-that release which he himself was coming unexpectedly to envy. For there was one sole way to comprehend the applications of what grew on this tall tree, and that was to take Yorbeth's place within its trunk.

 

 

Where, trapped and furious, the packman shortly found himself, possessed of all the secret lore he had suspected, down to the use that might be made of a sheet of the bark when luring Ogram-Vanvit from his lair... and powerless to exploit that for his gain.

 

 

Yorbeth of course ceased to be. Heavy-hearted, the traveler went on.

 

 

II

 

 

In the mountainous land called Eyneran, where folk were above all proud of their sheep and goats, he had once incarcerated the chilly elemental Karth, thanks to whose small remaining power one strange valley stayed frozen beneath a mask of ice when all around the summer flowers grew bright and jangly music drifted from the bell-wethers of the grazing flocks. Here the traveler came upon a fellow who with flint and steel was seeking to ignite the ice, grim-visaged and half-blue with cold.

 

 

"Why," inquired the traveler, "do you lavish so much effort on this unprofitable pastime?"

 

 

"Oh, you're a simpleton like all the rest!" cried the man, frenziedly striking spark after spark. "Is it not the nature of ice to melt when the hot sun falls on it? Since what is in this valley does not melt, it cannot be ice. Certainly, moreover, it's not stone-it differs in significant respects from rock-crystal, quartz, adament and fluorspar. Therefore it must be of an amberous nature, QED. And amber is congealed resin, and resin burns well, as any drudge knows who has lit a stove with pine-knots. Accordingly this so-called 'ice' must burn. Sooner or later," he concluded in a more dispirited tone, and wiped his brow. The gesture made a little crackling noise, for so bitter was the wind in this peculiar valley that the sweat of his exertion turned at once to a layer of verglas on his skin.

 

 

The traveler thought sadly of Jacques of Ys, who also had been persuaded that he alone of all the world was perfectly right, and suppressed his opinion of the would-be ice-burner's logic. Sensing disagreement nonetheless, the fellow gave him a harsh and hostile glare.

 

 

"I'm sick of being mocked by everyone!" he exclaimed. "Would that the true nature of this substance could become clear for you and all to see!"

 

 

"As you wish, so be it," said the traveler, realizing that the time of release had come also to Karth. With the cessation of his dwindled ancient power, sunlight thawed the glacier and warm zephyrs fathered water from its edge.

 

 

The man looked, and touched, and tasted, and paddled his hands in it, and cried out in dismay.

 

 

"If this is. water, that must have been ice-but that was not ice, therefore this is not water!"

 

 

Spray lashed him; rivulets formed around his ankles.

 

 

"It is not water," he declared, and stood his ground. But when the pent-up floods broke loose they swept him with his flint and steel far down the hillside and dashed him to death on a rock that was deaf to his entreaties.

 

 

Aloof, the black-clad traveler stood on a promontory and watched the whirling waters, thinking that he, so aged that there was not means to measure his duration, knew now what it meant to say, "I am old."

 

 

So too in Gryte, a fair city and a rich one, there was a lady who could have had her choice of fifty husbands, but kept her heart whole, as she claimed, for one man who would not look at her, though he had wooed and conquered maidens for leagues around.

 

 

"Why does he scorn me?" she cried. "He must be hunting for a wife who will give him surcease from this endless philandering! Can he not come to me, who hunger for him?"

 

 

"As you wish, so be it," said the traveler, and next day the man she dreamed of came a-courting her. She pictured all her hopes fulfilled and made him free of her household and her body. And the day after, he treated her as he had treated the rest: rose from her couch where he had taken his pleasure, not sparing a kind look or a kiss, and left her to wring her hands and moan that she was undone.

 

 

Likewise there stood a gravestone in the cemetery at Barbizond, under the arch of rainbow signaling the presence of the bright being Sardhin. Grass by it flourished in the gentle never-ceasing rain. The traveler visited it because he owed a particular debt to the man beneath, who full of years and honor had gone to his repose.

 

 

Turning away, the traveler was addressed by a person in a cape of leaves who might have passed at a glance for seven years of age, either boy or girl.

 

 

"Good morrow, sir!" this person chirruped in a treble voice. "Think you to brace yourself for death by contemplating all these tombs-or have you cause to wish it might overtake some other before yourself?"

 

 

"In the latter case, what?" the traveler said.

 

 

"Why, then, I could be of service," the person said slyly. "I have been for thirty-one years as you see me- dwarfed, sexless and agile. What better end could I turn such a gift to, than to become the finest assassin ever known in Barbizond? You stand surrounded by testimonials to my skill: here a miserly old ruffian whose daughter paid me half his coffer-load, there an eldest son who blocked his brother's way to an inheritance-"

 

 

"You speak openly of this foul trade?"

 

 

"Why, sir, no one is around to hear me save yourself, and would folk not think you deranged were you to claim a child had boasted of such matters to you?"

 

 

"In truth, your childish form is a deep disguise," the traveler conceded. "But tell me: do you speak to me merely to solicit new custom, or because that disguise grows oppressively efficient?"

 

 

The person scowled. "Why, I must confess that from time to time the very secrecy which benefits my calling does gall my self-esteem. I gain my living in a unique manner, but no one knows I'm the ultimate expert at my trade save those whom I have served, who dare not admit that they know it. Would that I might be famed far and wide as the past-master of my profession!"

 

 

"As you wish, so be it," said the traveler, and struck his staff against the nearest tomb. That very evening rumors took their rise in Barbizond, and everyone who had lost a relative in suspicious circumstances, to a poison subtler than the enchanters could detect, or a silent noose, or a knife hissing out of shadow, nodded their heads and remarked how marvellously well the appearance of a child of tender years might mask a killer.

 

 

The traveler passed the body next morning, sprawled on a dung-heap by the road to Teq.

 

 

Will it be now? The question haunted the traveler as he went. With half his being he was apprehensive, for all he had ever known throughout innumerable eons was the task allotted him; with the balance he yearned for it. Karth gone, Yorbeth gone, Jorkas gone-would there shortly also be an end for Tuprid, and Caschalanva, for Quorril and Lry and Laprivan of the Yellow Eyes?

 

 

On impulse, when he came to the grove of ash-trees at Segrimond which was one of the places where such things were possible, he constrained Wolpec to enter the customary candle, but when he tried to smoke a piece of glass over its flame and read the three truths therefrom, the glass cracked. With resignation he concluded that this was not for him to learn, and went his way.

 

 

In Kanish-Kulya the wall that had once divided Kanishmen from Kulyamen, decked along its top with skulls, had crumbled until it was barely more than a bank enshrouded with ivy and convolvulus, and roads pierced it along which went the gay carts of pedlars and the tall horses of adventure-seeking knights. Yet in the minds of certain men it was as though the old barrier still stood.

 

 

"Not only," groused a certain Kanish merchant to the traveler, "does my eldest daughter decline to accept her proper fate, and be sacrificed in traditional manner to Fegrim! She adds insult in injury, and proposes to wed a Kulyan brave!"

 

 

The traveler, who knew much about the elemental Fegrim, including his indifference to sacrifices, held his peace.

 

 

"This I pledge on my life!" the merchant fumed. "If my daughter carries on the way she's going, I shall never want to speak to her again-nor shall I let her in my house!"

 

 

"As you wish, so be it," said the traveler. From that moment forward the merchant uttered never a word; dumb, he stood by to watch the fine procession in which the girl went to claim her bridegroom, and before she returned home apoplexy killed him, so that the house was no longer his.

 

 

But nothing in this was remarkable. Greed, hate, jealousy-these were commonplace, and it was not to be questioned that they should defeat themselves.

 

 

Onward again, therefore, and now at last to Erminvale.

 

 

III

 

 

In that land of pleasant rolling downs and copses of birch and maple, there stood the village Wantwich, of small white farms parted by tidy hedgerows, radiating out from a central green where of a summer evening the young people would gather with a fiddler and a harpist to dance arid court in bright costumes of pheasant-feathers and fantastical jingling bangles. At one side of this green was a pond of sweet water which the traveler in black had consigned to the charge of the being Horimos, for whom he had conceived a peculiar affection on discovering that this one alone among all known elementals was too lazy to be harmful, desiring chiefly to be left in peace. While others older than themselves danced, the village children would splash in the pond with delighted cries, or paint their bare bodies with streaks of red and blue clay from the bank, proudly writing each other's names if they knew how. In winter, moreover, it served for them to skate on, and well wrapped in the whole hides of goats they slid across it with double wooden runners strapped to their feet.

 

 

Good things were plentiful in Erminvale: creamy milk, fat cheeses, turnips so firm and sweet you might carve a slice raw and eat it with a dressing of salt, berries and nuts of every description, and bearded barley for nutritious bread. Also they brewed fine beer, and on a festival day they would bear onto the green three vast barrels from which anyone, resident or traveler, might swig at will, the first mug always being poured of course to Horimos. Content with that small token of esteem, he slumbered at the bottom of his mud.

 

 

All this was what the girl named Viola had known since a child, and from reports she had heard through visitors she felt well satisfied that she'd been born in Wantwich. Where else offered you a better life? Great cities were crowded and full of smoke and stinks; moreover, they had more demanding patrons than Horimos, like Hnua-Threl of Barbizond black with the dried blood of those who had dueled by his altar, or that blind Lady Luck who smiled randomly on the folk of Teq and might tomorrow turn her back for good on the one she had favored yesterday.

 

 

She had heard about Teq from a finely-clad rider who had come, a while ago, on a tall roan stallion, twirling long fair mustachios and spilling gold from his scrip like sand.

 

 

He had arrived on the first fine evening of spring, when Viola and her betrothed man Leluak joined all the other young people in a giddy whirling dance around the green, and because it behooved one to be courteous to a stranger-even a stranger who complained about the narrowness of his room at their only inn, and passed unflattering remarks concerning Wantwich beer as against the wines of home-and also, she admitted to herself, because all the other girls would be envious, she had accepted his request to join him in demonstrating some newly-fashionable dances from Teq. Instruction took a moment only; she was a skillful dancer, light on slim legs that not even the bleaching of winter had worn to paleness from last summer's tan. After dancing, they talked.

 

 

She learned that his name was Achoreus, and that he served one of the great lords of Teq. She learned further that he thought her beautiful, which she granted, for everyone had always said the same: she had long sleek tresses, large eyes that shifted color ceaselessly like opals, and skin of the smoothness of satin. He declared next that such loveliness was wasted in a backwater hamlet and should be displayed to the nobility and gentry of a great city-meaning Teq. She thanked him for his compliments but explained she was already spoken for. Thereupon he proved that for all his elegant airs he lacked common civility, and tried to fondle her inside her bodice, at which she marched away.

 

 

Had he acted decently, inviting her to stroll in the woods with him and find a temporary bed of moss, she would naturally have agreed. It was the custom of Wantwich to receive all strangers as one would one's friends. But as things were-so she told Leluak when bidding him good night-he seemed to expect that the mere sight of him would make her forget the boy she had grown up with all her life. What foolishness!

 

 

Accordingly, all plans for her marriage went ahead in the ancient manner, until at sunset the day before the ceremony her father, her mother, her two sisters and her aunt equipped her in the prescribed fashion for a night she had to pass alone, during which she must visit each in turn of five high peaks enclosing Erminvale and there plant five seeds: an apple, a sloe, a cob, an acorn and a grain of barley.

 

 

With a leather wallet containing bread and cheese, a flask of water, and a torch of sweet-scented juniper, and followed by the cries of well-wishers, she set forth into the gathering dusk.

 

 

The tramp was a long one, and tricky in the dark, but she had wandered through Erminvale since she was old enough to be allowed out of sight of her mother, and though she must clamber up rocky slopes and thread her way through thickets where night-birds hooted and chattered, she gained each peak in turn with no worse injury than thorn-scratches on her calves. As dawn began to pale the sky, she set in place the final seed, the barley-grain, and watered it from her body to give it a healthy start in life. Then, singing, she turned back, weary but excited, on the road to her home. By about noon she would be safe in Leluak's embrace, and the feasting and merry-making would begin.

 

 

Still a mile off, however, she started to sense that something was amiss. Smoke drifted to her on the breeze, but it lacked the rich scent of baking which she had expected. A little closer, and she wondered why there was no shrill music audible, for no one had ever been able to prevent Fiddler Jarge from striking up directly his instrument was tuned, whether or no the bride had come back from the hills.

 

 

Worst of all, at the Meeting Rock that marked the last bend in the road, the huge granite slab by which the groom traditionally took the hand of his bride to lead her into Wantwich, there was no sign of Leluak.

 

 

She broke into a run, terrified, and rounded the rock. Instantly she saw the furthest outlying house, that of the Remban family, which she remembered seeing built when she was a toddler, and almost fainted with the shock. Its fine clean walls were smeared with a grime of smoke, its gate was broken, and the Rembans' finest plough-ox lay bellowing in a pool of blood.

 

 

And there beyond: the Harring house afire-source of the smoke she'd smelled! Her own home with the shutters ripped off their hinges, the front door battered down with an axe from the kindling-pile! Leluak's, unmarked, but the door ajar, and no one within when she shouted through!

 

 

Wildly she raced onward to the village green, and there was Jarge's fiddle broken on the ground. The beer-barrels set out for the wedding had been drained. Near them was a patch of scorched grass she could not account for, and all the water of the pond was fouled with the blood of the ducks which daily had quacked there.

 

 

Crouched in her chair, from which for longer than Viola could recall she had watched and grinned at the weddings she had witnessed: the only remaining villager of Wantwich, Granny Anderland, who was in fact a great-great-grandmother, toothless and senile.

 

 

"Granny!" shrieked Viola. "What happened?"

 

 

But all that Granny Anderland could do-all that she had ever been able to do since Viola was a baby- was to expose her gums in a silly grin and rock back and forth on her chair.

 

 

Helpless, Viola screamed Leluak's name till she was hoarse, but after that she collapsed from weariness and horror, and that was how the traveler found her when he chanced that way.

 

 

IV

 

 

He barely checked his pace as he entered Wantwich, along another road than that which Viola had followed on her return from the five peaks. But his expression grew sterner with every step he took, until when finally he could survey the full measure of the calamity from the canter of the green his brow was dark as a thundercloud.

 

 

His footsteps were too soft upon the sward for the weeping girl to hear them through her sobs, and it was plain that the old woman near her either had been so shocked as to have lost her reason, or was far too senile to understand the world. Accordingly he addressed the girl first.

 

 

At the sound of his voice she cringed away, her face wet with tears displaying a mask of terror. But there was little in the appearance of this small man leaning on a staff to suggest that he could be connected with the rape of Wantwich. And, for all that he looked angry beyond description, it did not seem that that anger was directed at her.

 

 

"Who are you, child?" the traveler inquired.

 

 

"My-my name is Viola, sir," the girl forced out.

 

 

"And what has happened here today?"

 

 

"I don't know, I don't know!" Wringing her hands, Viola rose. "Why should anyone want to do this to us? Monsters of some kind must have done it-devils!"

 

 

"Well, there are few such creatures left hereabouts," the traveler murmured. "More likely it will have been men, if one can dignify them with that name. Were you away from the village?"

 

 

"I was to be married today!" Viola choked.

 

 

"I see. Therefore you were walking the five peaks and planting seeds."

 

 

"You-you're acquainted with our customs, sir?" Viola was regaining control of herself, able to mop away her blinding tears and look more clearly at the newcomer. "Yet I don't remember that I saw you here before."

 

 

"This is not the first time I've been to Wantwich," the traveler said, refraining from any reference to the number or date of his earlier visits. "But, to pursue the important matter: did this old lady witness what occurred?"

 

 

"If she did, she won't be able to describe it," Viola said dully. "She has been as you see her for many years. She likes to be talked to, nods and sometimes giggles, but beyond that..." She gave a hopeless shrug.

 

 

"I see. In that case we must resort to other means to determine what went on. Girl, are you capable of being brave?"

 

 

She stared at him doubtfully. "Sir," she said at length, "if you can do anything to help get back my man, and right the wrong that's been done to these good people, I'll be as brave as you require of me." Her fingers curled over to drive her nails cruelly into her palms. "Oh, that something could be done! I've no notion what-but something must be possible!"

 

 

"As you wish, so be it," said the traveler, and took her hand. He led her across the green, past the patch of grass scorched black-at which she cast a puzzled glance-and to the very rim of the sweetwater pond.

 

 

"Stand firm," he commanded. "Do not be afraid of what you see."

 

 

"I-I don't understand!"

 

 

"Better for you that you should not," the traveler muttered, and thrust his staff into the water. He dissolved one of the forces bonding the light of which it was composed, and a shaft of brilliance lanced downward to the bottom.

 

 

"Horimos!" he cried. "Horimos!"

 

 

The girl's eyes grew round with wonder, and then her mouth also, with dismay. For the water heaved and bubbled sluggishly as pitch, and from the plopping explosions a thick voice seemed to take form, uttering words.

 

 

"Le-e-eave me-e a-a-lo-o-one..."

 

 

"Horimos!" rapped the traveler. "Stir yourself-- you've slumbered eons in that soft bed of mud! Shall I remove you to Kanish-Kulya, make you share the pit of that volcano with Fegrim?"

 

 

A noise between a grumble and a scream.

 

 

"Yes, he'd be a restless companion for you, wouldn't he?" the traveler rasped. "Up! Up! I desire speech with you!"

 

 

Beside him Viola had fallen to her knees, all color vanished from her cheeks. Too petrified even to blink, she saw the water in which she had so often bathed rise into tumult-yet absurdly slowly, as though time had been extended to double length. More bubbles burst, and she could watch their surface part; waves and ripples crossed the pond so slowly, one would have thought to push them into new directions without wetting one's palm.

 

 

And ultimately...

 

 

"You may prefer to close your eyes now," the traveler said didactically, and added, "Horimos! Speak! And be quick-the sooner you tell me what I want to know, the sooner you may sink back into your ooze. What's become of all the people from this village?"

 

 

"Been taken away," Horimos mumbled. It was not exactly a mouth he used to shape the words-but then, like all elementals, his physical form was somewhat arbitrary.

 

 

"How and by whom?" The traveler rapped the bank impatiently with his staff.

 

 

"Army marched in this morning," Horimos sighed. "Went around the village, drove everybody to the green-most of them were there already anyhow. Set up a forge there where the grass is blackened, welded fetters for everyone on a chain. Killed some ducks and hens for their dinner, drank the beer in the barrels, herded the villagers away. Good riddance, say I-never had a moment's peace since you put me here, what with fiddling and dancing and swimming and skating and all the rest of it!"

 

 

"Whose was the army? What colors did they fly?"

 

 

"Should I know who bears a flag of silver, red and gold?"

 

 

The traveler clamped his fingers tighter on his staff.

 

 

"And you made no attempt to intervene?"

 

 

"Told you-glad to see the back of them." Horimos made the whole surface of the pond yawn in a colossal expression of weariness. "And but for you I'd have enjoyed a decent sleep for a while, now I'm alone!"

 

 

"For your idleness," said the traveler softly, "I decree that until the folk of Wantwich are restored to their homes, you shall itch so much you can enjoy no rest. Begone with you. Hope that the matter is speedily set to rights."

 

 

"But-!"

 

 

"You argue with me?"

 

 

Horimos declined. When once again he had subsided to the bottom of his pond, the water was no longer pellucid and still as before, but roiled continually without a breeze to stir it.

 

 

"Who are you?" Viola whispered. "I'd always thought Horimos was-was..."

 

 

"Was imaginary?" The traveler chuckled. "Not exactly. But his worst fault is mere laziness, and compared to what faults one finds elsewhere it's far from the grossest of shortcomings.... As for my own identity: you may call me Mazda, or what you will. I have many names, and only one nature."

 

 

He waited to see whether the information, which he gave only to those who directly demanded it, meant anything to her. Interestingly, he discovered that it did, for on the instant a blend of hope and awe transfigured her pretty face.

 

 

But then he took a second look, and his heart sank. For, in along with the rest, he now detected the betraying signs of selfishness.

 

 

"Is it true, then," she cried fiercely, "that I can require of you my heart's desire?"

 

 

"Think well if you do so!" the traveler warned, raising his staff. "Only you can know what's in your secret mind! Reflect and ponder!"

 

 

"I don't have to," she said with terrible directness. "I want to be reunited with my man!"

 

 

The traveler sighed, but as always was resigned to the inexorable course of events. "As you wish, so be it," he replied.

 

 

"What shall I do?" Viola whispered, suddenly overcome with a sense of the finality of her request.

 

 

"Wait."

 

 

"No more than wait? Wait here?" She turned frantically, surveying the ravished homes, the slaughtered livestock, the smoke that still drifted over the burning house. "But-"

 

 

And when she looked again for the traveler in black, he was gone.

 

 

A little after, when the sun was still high in the sky, there were clopping noises on the road by which the army had arrived, and she stirred from her torpor and made to flee. But the horseman easily ran her down, bowing from his saddle to sweep her off her feet and park her on the withers of his steed, laughing at her vain attempts to break away.

 

 

"I missed you when they rounded up the rest of them," said Achoreus of Teq. "I couldn't forget a lovely face like yours. Even less can I forget an insult like the one you offered me when first I came here. So I dawdled, thinking you'd be back eventually, and here you are. Not for long, though! You're going to rejoin your family and friends, and that country bumpkin you preferred to me!"

 

 

He set spurs to his horse, and away they galloped in the wake of the miserable gang of captives strung with chains.

 

 

V

 

 

Laughter rang loud and shrill under the gorgeous canopy that shaded Lord Fellian of Teq from the naked rays of the sun. The canopy was of pleated dragon-hide, bought at the cost of a man's life in a distant land where chaos and reason had once been less evenly matched and strange improbable beasts went about with lion's claws and eagle's beaks and wings of resounding bronze. Report held that there were no more such creatures to be found; even their bones had been rejected by reality.

 

 

"But I have my canopy!" Lord Fellian would say.

 

 

Its shade fell on a floor of patterned stone: marble was the commonest of the types of tile composing it, outnumbered by chalcedony, jasper, sardonyx, chrysoberyl, and others yet so rare that they had no name save "one of the tiles in Lord Fellian's gallery." This was on the very apex of the grand high tower from which Lord Fellian might survey his domain: lands from here to the skyline and beyond which bled their wealth into his coffers.

 

 

But on the houseward side there was a high wall, that when he sat in his throne of state-made of the bones of a beast of which the enchanters declared no more than one could ever have existed, translucent as water but harder than steel-not even an absent glance over his shoulder might reveal to him the sole building in Teq which outreached his tower. Atop that mighty edifice presided the figure of Lady Luck, the goddess blind in one eye and masked over the other, whose smile dictated the fortune of those who ruled in Teq.

 

 

It was not the custom to look on her. It was said that those who secretly tried to, in order to discover whither her gaze was bent, would die a fearful death. And indeed the agents of Lords Fellian, Yuckin and Nusk did occasionally deposit in the chief market-square the bodies of men and women who had clearly undergone some repulsive torture, and the common folk interpreted these as an awful caution. More often than not, these corpses belonged to persons who had boasted of their favor with the Lady. It was taken for granted that the others belonged to those who had not even enjoyed the brief pleasure of making that boast.

 

 

To look on Lady Luck was the one gamble no Lord of Teq would risk. Why should he? Was not affluence itself proof that the Lady bent her enigmatic smile continually on the man who possessed it?

 

 

Lord Fellian on his chair of inexplicable bones cramped with pure gold, robed in cloth dyed with the purple of the veritable murex, shod with sandals of the softest kidskin on which had been stamped, again in gold, a series of runes to guide him in the most prosperous of paths; his foppish locks entwined with green ribbons, his nails painted with ground pearls, his weak eyes aided with lenses not of rock-crystal such as his rivals must make do with but of diamond, his lobes hung with amber, his girdle glittering with sapphires: he, Lord Fellian, the greatest winner among all the past and present Lords of Teq, laughed, and laughed, and laughed.

 

 

The noise drowned out the soft rattling from the table on which a trained monkey, tethered by a velvet leash, kept spilling and gathering up a set of ivory dice, their values after each throw being recorded by a slave on sheets of parchment; likewise, the humming of a gaming-wheel turned by an idiot-both these, with bias eliminated, to determine whether after fifty thousand throws or spins there would be some subtle preference revealed, that he might exploit in his ceaseless conflict against Lords Yuckin and Nusk. Furthermore his laughter drowned the chirrup of the gorgeous songbirds in a gilded cage which he had won last week from Nusk in a bout at shen fu, and the drone of musicians playing on a suite of instruments he had won-along with their players-from Yuckin a year or more past. Those instruments were of eggshells, ebony and silver, and their tone was agonizingly sweet.

 

 

Facing the chair of bones, Achoreus-who had committed himself to the service of Lord Fellian when he was but seventeen and kept complimenting himself on his far-sightedness-grinned from ear to ear at the brilliant inspiration of his master.

 

 

"Before those fools learn that winning from me costs nothing," Fellian declared, "I shall have taken the very roofs from over their heads! They will be shamed if they refuse to match my stakes, and I may climb as high as I wish, while they-poor fools!-struggle to clamber after me. Oh, how I look forward to seeing Yuckin's face when tonight I bet him a hundred skillful servants, including girls fit for a royal bed! You've done well, Achoreus. Torquaida, come you here!"

 

 

From among the gaggle of retainers who by day and night attended Fellian, subservient to his slightest whim, there shuffled forward the elderly treasurer whose mind retained, so he boasted, even such detail of his master's coffers as how many of the copper coins in store had been clipped around the edge, instead of honestly worn, and were therefore reserved to pay off tradesmen.

 

 

In no small part, Fellian acknowledged, his victories in the endless betting-matches with his rivals were due to Torquaida instructing him what they could or could not stake to correspond with his own wagers. He had rewarded the treasurer suitably, while those who served his rivals were more often punished for letting go irreplaceable wonders on lost bets, and grew daily bitterer by consequence.

 

 

"Young Achoreus here," the lord declared, "has performed a signal service. We have now, thanks to him, one hundred or more extra servants surplus to the needs of the household, and additionally many children who can doubtless be trained up in a useful skill. How, say you, should this service be repaid?"

 

 

"This is a difficult estimate," frowned Torquaida. His ancient voice quavered; Fellian scowled the musicians into silence that he might hear better. "There are two aspects of the matter to consider. First, that he has brought a hundred servants-that is easy. Let him have dirhans to increase his stake in the wager he has made with Captain Ospilo of Lord Yuckin's train; our privy intelligence states that bet is won on odds of nine to four, whereas Ospilo is yet in ignorance of the result. Thereby the winnings may be much enlarged. I'd say: one hundred coins."

 

 

Fellian slapped his thigh and chortled at the ingenuity of the deceit, while Achoreus preened his mustachios and basked in the envy of those around.

 

 

"Beyond that, however," Torquaida continued in his reedy tones, "it remains to be established what the value of these servants is. As one should not wager on a horse without inspecting both it and its competition, thus too one must begin by looking over the captives."

 

 

"Let them be brought, then!" Fellian cried. "Clear a space on the gallery large enough for them to parade!"

 

 

"Sir," ventured Achoreus, "there were not a few among them who resented the-ah-the invitation I extended to enter your lordship's service. It will be best to make space also for the escort I detailed to accompany them."

 

 

"What?" Fellian leaned forward on his chair, scowling. "Say you that a man on whom Lady Luck smiles so long and so often is to be injured by-by some stupid peasant? Or is it that you neglected to disarm them?"

 

 

Seeing his new-found fortune vanishing any second, Achoreus replied placatingly, "My lord! There was hardly a weapon in the whole village, save rustic implements whose names I scarcely know, not having had truck with country matters-scythes, perhaps, or maybe hatchets.... Which, naturally, we deprived them of! But all of those' we brought are able-bodied, and hence remain possessed of feet and fists!"

 

 

"Hmmm!" Fellian rubbed his chin. "Yes, I remember well a gladiator whom Lord Yuckin set against a champion of mine, in years gone by, who lost both net and trident and still won the bout, by some such underhand trick as clawing out his opponent's vitals with his nails." He gave an embarrassed cough; he hated to refer to any wager he had lost. "Well, then, bring them up, but have a guard around them, as you say."

 

 

Relieved, Achoreus turned to issue the necessary orders. Accordingly, in a little while, to the music of their fetters clanking, a sorry train of captives wended their way out of the grand courtyard of the palace, up the lower slopes of the ramp leading to the gallery- which were of common granite-and stage by stage on to the higher level, where the parapets were of garnets in their natural matrix, and the floor of cat's-eye, peridot and tourmaline.

 

 

Refused food on the long trudge from Erminvale to discourage the energy needed for escape, granted barely enough water to moisten their lips, they found the gradual incline almost too much for them, and their escorts had to prod them forward with the butts of spears.

 

 

At last, however, they were ranged along the gallery, out of the shade of the dragon-hide awning, blinking against sunlight at their new and unlooked-for master. At one end of the line was Leluak, his left eye swollen shut from a blow and testifying to his vain resistance; as far distant from him as possible, Viola, nearly naked from the struggle that had led to Achoreus ripping her clothes. And between them, every villager from Wantwich bar Granny Anderland, from babes in arms to gray-pated patriarchs.

 

 

Accompanied by the proud Achoreus, Torquaida went along the line peering into face after face, occasionally poking to test the hardness of a muscle or the flab of a belly, his forefinger sharp as one of the styli he used to post his accounts on wax tablets. He halted before one bluff middle-aged fellow in a red jerkin, who looked unutterably weary.

 

 

"Who are you?" he croaked.

 

 

"Uh..." The man licked his lips. "Well, my name's Harring."

 

 

"Say 'so please you'!" Achoreus rasped, and made a threatening gesture towards his sword.

 

 

Harring muttered the false civility.

 

 

"And what can you do?" Torquaida pursued.

 

 

"I'm a brewer." And, reluctantly after a brief mental debate: "Sir!"

 

 

"You learn swiftly," Achoreus said with mocking approval, and accompanied Torquaida down the Line. "You?"

 

 

"I'm a baker-sir."

 

 

"I? Oh, a sempstress!"

 

 

"And I'm a bodger, turner, and mender of ploughs."

 

 

The answers came pat upon the questions, as though by naming their trades the captives could reassure themselves they still retained some dignity by virtue of their skill. At Torquaida's direction a clerk made lists of all the names and crafts, leaving aside the children under twelve, and finally presented the lists with a nourish to Lord Fellian.

 

 

Scrutinizing them through his diamond lenses, the lord addressed Achoreus.

 

 

"And of what standard are these louts in their professions? Competent, or shoddy?"

 

 

"As far as I could judge, sir," Achoreus answered, "they might be termed competent. Of course, their criteria fall far short of our own; still, their houses seemed sturdy, they kept their fences well mended, and they had sound byres and folds for their livestock."

 

 

"I see." Fellian rubbed the tip of his nose on the sharp facets of a gemstone ringed to his left middle finger. "Then there might be something to be said for keeping them instead of staking them. We have no brewer in the household that I know of. Some scullery drab or turnspit would be less useful than that man- what's his peasant's name? Harring? Therefore do thus, Torquaida: take away their brats and put them to nurse or be apprenticed, then sort the rest and for each one you judge to be worth adding to my staff select one servant we already have, who's lazy or sullen or deformed, and set him at my disposal to be staked tonight. Hah! Was this not an inspiration that I had?" He rubbed his hands and gave a gleeful chuckle.

 

 

"Oh, how I long to see the faces of those dunderheads when I wager fifty servants against each of them tonight! I simply cannot fail to gain by this affair! If they win, which Lady Luck I trust will prevent, they will merely clutter up their households with extra mouths to feed, while I have acquired new tradesmen, and should I win-which I no doubt shall-I'll have plenty of spare overseers to cope with the servants those two stake! Ho-ho! We must do this again, Achoreus!"

 

 

Achoreus bowed low, and once more stroked his mustachios.

 

 

"Take them away," Fellian commanded, and leaned back in his throne, reaching with fat pale fingers for the mouthpiece of a jade huqqah on a lacquered table nearby. An alert slave darted forward and set a piece of glowing charcoal on the pile of scented herbs the bowl contained.

 

 

Frightened and angry, but too weak to resist, the folk of Wantwich turned under the goading of the soldiers to wend their way back to the courtyard below. Fellian watched them. As the end of the line drew level with him, he snapped his fingers and all looked expectantly towards him.

 

 

"That girl at the tail," he murmured. "She's not unattractive in a country way. Set her apart, bath, perfume and dress her, and let her attend me in my chamber."

 

 

"But-!" Achoreus took a pace forward.

 

 

"You wish to comment?" Fellian purred dangerously.

 

 

"I..." Achoreus hesitated, and at last shook his head.

 

 

"Let it be done, then," Fellian smiled, and sucked his huqqah with every appearance of contentment.

 

 

VI

 

 

Furious, Achoreus turned to superintend the final clearance of the captives from the gallery, and thought the task was done, but when he glanced around there was one stranger remaining, who certainly was neither a household officer nor a slave: a man in a black cloak leaning on a staff.

 

 

"Achoreus!" Fellian rasped. "Why have you not taken that fellow with the rest?"

 

 

Staring, Achoreus confessed, "I have not seen him before! He was not with the villagers when we assembled them-Ah, but I have seen him, not at Wantwich. Now I recall that when we were on the outward leg from Teq he stood beneath a tree to watch our army pass, having that same staff in his hand."

 

 

"And he's come to join the captives of his own accord?" Fellian suggested with a laugh. An answering ripple of amusement at what passed for his brilliant wit echoed from his sycophants. "Well, then! We shall not deny him the privilege he craves!"

 

 

Faces brightened everywhere. Fellian was a capricious master, but when he spoke in this jovial fashion it was provable that he was about to distribute favors and gifts at random, saying it was to impress on his retinue the supreme importance of luck.

 

 

"So, old man!" he continued. "What brings you hither, if it was not the long chain Unking those who have been here a moment back?"

 

 

"A need to know," said the traveler in black, and paced forward on the jeweled floor.

 

 

"To know what? When the gaming-wheel of life will spin to a halt for you against the dire dark pointer of death? Why, go ask Lady Luck face to face, and she will tell you instanter!"

 

 

At that, certain of his attendants blanched. It was not in good taste to joke about Lady Luck.

 

 

"To know," the traveler responded unperturbed, "why you sent armed raiders to rape the village Wantwich."

 

 

"Ah, yes," Fellian said ironically. "I can see how a stranger might put a question of that order, lacking proper comprehension of the priorities in life. Many think that all they need ever do is act reasonably, meet obligations, pay their debts... and then some random power intrudes on their silly calm existence, perhaps with a leash, perhaps with a sword, and all their reasoning is set at naught! That then is their opportunity to learn the truth. Not sense but luck is what rules the cosmos-do you hear me? Luck!"

 

 

He leaned forward, uttering the last word with such intensity that a spray of spittle danced down to the floor.

 

 

"See you that idiot who turns a gaming-wheel for me? Ho, you! Bring the creature here!"

 

 

Retainers rushed to obey. Fellian peeled rings from his fingers, decorated with stones that might bring the price of a, small farm or vineyard, and threw them on the soiled skirt of the idiot's robe.

 

 

"Turn her free! Luck has smiled her way today!"

 

 

"Not so," contradicted the traveler.

 

 

"What? You gainsay me-you gainsay Fellian!" The lord was nearly pop-eyed with horror.

 

 

"Say rather I see two sides of this good fortune," the traveler murmured. "Is it not great luck for an idiot to be fed, housed and clothed by a rich lord? Is this not worth more to her than to be given some pretty baubles and left to fend alone? Where is the benefit if next week she starves?"

 

 

Fellian began to redden as the validity of the point sank in, and he glared fiercely at someone to his right whom he suspected of being about to giggle.

 

 

"You chop logic, do you?" he rasped. "You're a schoolman, no doubt, of the kind we take to gaze on Lady Luck, who thereupon die rather horribly!"

 

 

"Which event," the traveler remarked mildly, "puts a term to the possibility of persuading them to share your views. The dead are not the easiest persons to convert; their attitudes tend to be somewhat fixed." He shifted his staff from one hand to the other, and continued.

 

 

"Let me see if I understand these views of yours. You maintain, I believe, that life is one long gamble?"

 

 

"Yes, of course!" Fellian barked.

 

 

"If this is so, why should one need to make more wagers? Is not any other, compared to the wager which embraces the whole of life, too trivial to be worth attention? Clearly you do not agree, I grant, inasmuch as you propose to stake human beings against your rival lords tonight, and for this purpose kidnapped the inoffensive folk of Wantwich."

 

 

"Nothing gives spice to life but winning wagers!" Fellian snorted. "I sit here-is it not plain by that token that I already won a great gamble? I staked my very existence on the right to be a Lord of Teq, and that I am here proves that the lady on the tower smiles my way!"

 

 

The traveler cocked his head sardonically. He said, "Call yourself a great gambler, a great winner, whatever you like. But I can name a bet you'll not accept."

 

 

"What?" Fellian howled, and all around there were cries of shocked dismay. "Think you can insult a Lord of Teq with impunity? Guards, seize and bind him! He has offered me a mortal affront, and he must pay for it!"

 

 

"How have I affronted you-how? To say that I can name a bet you will not accept is not to insult you, unless you can but will not match my stakes!" The traveler fixed Fellian with a sharp stare.

 

 

"Am I to bet with a nobody? I bet only against my coevals! It takes uncounted wealth to bet with me!" Fellian snorted. "Why, were I to treat you seriously, any bumpkin could come to me and say, 'I wager my rags and clogs, all I possess, against all that you possess -and that's a match!' "

 

 

"But there is one thing any man may bet against any other," said the traveler. "For no man can have more than one of it."

 

 

There was silence for the space of several heartbeats. "My lord," Torquaida said at last in a rusty voice, "he means life."

 

 

Fellian went pale and licked his lips. He blustered, "Even so! A life that may have fifty years to run, like mine? Against one which may snuff out tomorrow, or next week?"

 

 

"Regrettably," Torquaida creaked, "that is fair stakes. However"-and he gave a tiny dry smile and wheezing chuckle-"it's over-soon to name the stakes before one knows the bet, is it not?"

 

 

Fellian flashed him a grateful grin; this was the outlet he had been unable to spot himself. He said loudly, "Yes, a crucial point! What bet is this that you wish to make with me, old man?"

 

 

"I bet you," said the traveler into a universal hush, "that the face of Lady Luck is turned away from your throne."

 

 

There was an instant of appalled shock. But with a great effort Fellian forced a booming laugh.

 

 

"Why, that wager's lost already!" he exclaimed. "Is it not proof of the lady's favor that I sit here among unparalleled riches?"

 

 

"They are what you woke to today," the traveler said. "Tomorrow is yet to eventuate."

 

 

"Why stop at tomorrow?" Fellian said. "Next week, next month, next year if you like, when I have won still more bets against Yuckin and Nusk, we'll take you and hoist you on a tall pole that you may look on the lady directly and see that she does smile towards me. Meantime, enjoy the hospitality of my dungeon. Hey, guards!"

 

 

"Thank you, I am in no need of lodging," the traveler said. "Moreover, a week is too long. One day will suffice. I will see you again tomorrow; let's say at dawn. For now, however, farewell."

 

 

"Seize him!" Fellian bellowed, and the soldiers who had remained behind, on Achoreus's signal, when the party of captives was led away, dashed in the direction of the traveler. But they went crashing against one another, as though they had sought to clutch an armful of empty air.

 

 

VII

 

 

In the great cave-like kitchens of the palace, a cook sweated with ladle and tongs at a cauldron of half a hogs-head capacity. The fire roaring beneath scorched his skin, the smoke blinded his eyes with tears.

 

 

From the dark corner of the hearth, a voice inquired for whom the savory-smelling broth was being prepared.

 

 

"Why, for Lord Fellian," sighed the cook.

 

 

"But no man can engulf such a deal of soup. Will he have guests?"

 

 

"Yes, so he will." The cook grimaced. "They'll eat two ladlefuls, or maybe three."

 

 

"And you then will enjoy what is left over?"

 

 

"I, sir?" The cook gave a rueful chuckle. "No, on my soul, I wouldn't dare. What my lord leaves in his dish goes to his hounds! Tonight as ever I shall sup off a crust of dry bread and that chunk of moldy bacon-rind. Still, hounds have no taste for wine, so if I'm quick I may claim the dregs from the goblets at the high table, and liquor will soothe my grumbling belly enough to let me sleep."

 

 

Among the fierce ammonia stench of guano, the falconer worked by an unglazed window, tooling with gnarled yet delicate hands a design of rhythmical gold leaf onto the hood and jesses of a peregrine falcon.

 

 

"This leather is beautiful," said a soft voice from over his shoulder. "But doubtless you put on far finer array when you go forth of an evening to enjoy yourself at a tavern?"

 

 

"I, sir?" grunted the falconer, not turning around; the light was wasting, and he was forbidden the extravagance of lamps or candles. "Why, no, I'm in the service of Lord Fellian, and have no time to amuse myself. And had I time, I'd be constrained to wear what you see upon me now-old canvas breeches, bound around the waist with fraying rope. Besides, with what would I purchase a mug of ale? With a scoop of fewmets?"

 

 

In the stables, a groom passed a soft cloth caressingly over the fitments of a stall; they were of jacynth and ivory, and the manger was filled with new sweet hay, fine oats fit to have baked bread, and warm-scented bran.

 

 

"Palatial," said a voice from behind the partition. "This is merely for a horse?"

 

 

"Aye, sir," muttered the groom, declining to be distracted from his work. "For Western Wind, Lord Fellian's favorite steed."

 

 

"By comparison, then, I judge you must take your repose on high pillows filled with swan's down, beneath a coverlet of silk, or furs for winter!"

 

 

"I sleep on straw, sir-do not jest with me! And if I have time to gather clay to stop the chinks in my hovel against the night's cold, I count myself lucky."

 

 

Beside a marble bath, which ran scented water from a gargoyle's mouth, a slender girl measured out grains of rare restorative spices onto a sponge, a loofah, and the bristles of a brush made from the hide of a wild boar.

 

 

"With such precautions," a voice said from beyond a curl of rising steam, "beauty must surely be preserved far beyond the normal span."

 

 

"Think you I'd dare to waste one grain of this precious essence on my own skin?" the girl retorted, tossing back a tress of hair within which-though she could be aged at most twenty-there glinted a betraying thread of silver. "I'd be lucky, when they detected my pilfering, to be thrown over the sill of that window! Beneath it there is at least a kitchen-midden to give me a soft landing. No, my entire fortune is my youth, and it takes the powers of an elemental and the imagination of a genius to spread youth thin enough to satisfy Lord Fellian from spring to autumn."

 

 

"Then why do you endure his service?"

 

 

"Because he is a winner in the game of life."

 

 

"And how do you know that?"

 

 

"Why," sighed the girl, "everyone says so."

 

 

In the high-vaulted banqueting-hall, as the sun went down, the rival lords Yuckin and Nusk came to feast with their respective retinues at the expense of the current greatest winner prior to the onset of the night's gambling. They had come to his palace too often of late; there was no friendly chat between them. Gloomily-though with fair appetite, because their own kitchens did not boast such delicacies-they sat apart, growing angrier and angrier as platters of gold succeeded those of silver, goblets of crystal replaced those of enameled pottery... and often recognizing items they had formerly owned.

 

 

Lord Fellian, who should have been delighted at the discomfiture of his rivals, was downcast, and the talk at his long table was all of the strange intruder in a black cloak who had laid down so threatening a bet.

 

 

"It's nonsense!" roundly declared Achoreus, who was seated beside Fellian as a mark of special favor. "As you rightly said, sir, it's absurd to expect someone of your standing to wager with a penniless nobody-and moreover the bet he named is by definition incapable of settlement!"

 

 

But his brow was pearled with sweat, and when he had repeated his assertion for the third time his voice was harsh with a hoarseness no amount of wine could relieve.

 

 

"And how say you, Torquaida?" demanded Fellian, hungry for reassurance-though not for food; course after course was being removed from his place untouched.

 

 

"There is no need to worry," the elderly treasurer wheezed. "Like you or dislike you, Lords Yuckin and Nusk would have to concede the propriety of declining such a wager. One cannot conduct important affairs on an arbitrary basis!"

 

 

Even that, however, did not set Fellian's mind at rest. "Ah, would I knew the outcome of the wager, however foolish!" he grumbled, and at that the black-clad traveler, standing apart in the secrecy of an embrasure, gave a sad smile.

 

 

"As you wish," he murmured, "so be it. You have won your bet with me, Lord Fellian-and there are and have been few in all eternity who can make that claim. Yet in the same instant when you won, you lost beyond all eternal hope."

 

 

The question settled now, he went away.

 

 

Shortly, they cleared the dishes from the hall, bringing in their place the hand-carved dominoes required for the game shen fu, the lacquered plaques destined for match-me-mine and mark-me-well, the tumbling gilded cages full of colored balls known as The Lady's Knucklebones, the gaming-wheels-those with four, those with nine, and those with thirty-three divisions- blind songbirds trained to pick out one and only one among three disparately dyed grains of corn, jumping beans, silver-harnessed fleas, baby toads steeped in strong liquor, and all the other appurtenances on which the Lords of Teq were accustomed to place their bets.

 

 

Additionally, from among their respective trains, they marshaled their current champions at wrestling, boxing with cestae, and gladiatorial combat, not to mention tumblers, leapers, imbeciles armed with brushes full of paint, dice-throwing monkeys, and whatever else they had lately stumbled across upon the outcome of whose acts a bet might be laid.

 

 

It was the practice for one of the challengers to name a game, and of the challenged to declare the stakes. Thus, in strict accordance with protocol, Lord Yuckin as the last to lose to Lord Fellian cleared his throat and began with a single hand of shen fu, to which Lord Fellian consented, and won a basket of desert-hoppers-a typical low stake for the early hours.

 

 

Then Lord Nusk bet on a jumping toad, and won a purse of coins from Barbizond, to which Lord Fellian replied with a spin of the four-part wheel, and won a bag of sapphires. He nudged his companions and whispered that the old fool on the gallery must have been wrong.

 

 

Thus too he won the next five bouts, on toads again, on fleas, on two hands of shen fu, and lastly on the pecking birds. After that he lost a spin of the nine-part wheel and had to concede to Yuckin a chased and jeweled sword that Torquaida dismissed as pretty but not practical; its blade was inferior. No special loss.

 

 

"Now, I think," murmured the pleased Lord Fellian, and on Lord Nusk naming shen fu as the next bout, declared his stake: fifty male servants on this single hand.

 

 

The impact was all he could have wished. Though they might scornfully disdain involvement with such mundane matters, none knew better than the Lords of Teq how many were kept employed to ensure their affluence, through what different and varied skills. To bet one servant was occasionally a last-resort gesture after a bad night; to bet fifty at one go was unprecedented.

 

 

Captain Achoreus chortled at the dismay which overcame the visiting lords, and nudged Torquaida in the fleshless ribs. "The greatest winner!" he murmured, and signaled for another mug of wine.

 

 

Yet, when the dominoes were dealt, the Star of Eve fell to Lord Nusk, and only the Inmost Planet to Lord Fellian.

 

 

Lord Nusk, who was a fat man with a round bald pate fringed with black, grinned from ear to ear and rubbed his enormous paunch. Scowling, Lord Fellian trembled and made challenge to Lord Yuckin at the same game.

 

 

Lord Yuckin, thin and gaunt, eyes blank behind lenses of white crystal, named as much gold as a particular man might carry, and won, and challenged back, and Lord Fellian staked the other fifty servants.

 

 

Whereupon he displayed the chief prize of shen fu, the Crown of Stars, and mocked Lord Yuckin's petty deal of Planets Conjoined.

 

 

A few minutes later, on a hopping toad, he won back from Lord Nusk the former fifty servants, and again from Lord Yuckin a fresh batch, including three skilled armorers that lord could ill afford to lose, and beyond that a farm in the Dale of Vezby, and a whole year's vintage of sparkling wine, and three trade-galleys with complete crews, and then from Lord Nusk the High Manor of Coper's Tor, with the right to make a celebrated ewe's-milk cheese according to a secret recipe; then lost for five short minutes the Marches of Gowth with all four fortresses and the Shrine of Fire, but won them back on a spin of the four-part wheel and along with them the Estate of Brywood, the Peak of Brend, and the territory from Haggler's Mound to Cape Dismay.

 

 

Securely positioned now, he commenced the calculated process of attrition that he had long dreamed of, the process which ultimately would reduce his rivals to penury: a cook who knew how to make sorbets without ice, a kitchen enchanter who could produce strawberries in winter, a charmer who could bring game from barren ground by playing a whistle, an eight-foot-tall swordsman, champion of the last public games...

 

 

Torquaida might have grown harried trying to keep track of the winnings and match what was in hand against what remained to the rival lords. By a supreme effort he remained in control, always remembering to send a clerk to inform Lord Fellian when a stake was unworthy, to say for example that this concubine had suffered the smallpox and was scarred, or that guardsman had a palsy and his sword-arm shook, or that coffer of coins bore a geas, and touched by the winner would turn to pebbles.

 

 

Lord Fellian awarded him free of feoff the Estate of Brywood as reward for his valuable support, and laughed joyously night-long at the disarray of his opponents.

 

 

VIII

 

 

Far down below that ringing laughter, cast back by the high-vaulted roof of the banquet-hall, reached the ears of those miserable deportees from Wantwich who were still awake. Some were asleep-on straw if they were lucky, on hard flags if they were not... but at least asleep.

 

 

One who was wakeful even on a mattress of eider-feathers, draped in a diaphanous gown of finest lawn embroidered with seed-pearls, was the girl Viola, surrounded by other female pleasure-objects destined for Lord Fellian's delight. At a footstep on the floor beside her couch, she started and peered into dark, seeing only a black form outlined on greater blackness.

 

 

"Is someone there?" she whimpered.

 

 

"It is I," said the traveler.

 

 

"How-how did you get in?" Viola sat up. "I tried the doors-and the windows, too. And all are locked!"

 

 

The traveler forbore to explain.

 

 

After a moment, Viola began to weep. "Go away!" she commanded. "I never want to see you again! You did this awful thing to me, and I hate you!"

 

 

"On the contrary," the traveler replied. "You did this to yourself."

 

 

"I never asked to be locked up here, waiting for some gross-"

 

 

"Ah! But you're reunited with your man Leluak, and that's what you said you wanted. You are both under the same roof; when Lord Fellian tires of you, you will be cast forth together to share the same dank alleyway and the same fevers, chills and pestilences. This in essence constitutes reunion."

 

 

"I should have thought longer before choosing," Viola said after a while for reflection. The traveler nodded. At least, then, this cruel experience had battered some sense into her skull.

 

 

"You had, I believe," he said, "encountered Achoreus before the rape he supervised on Wantwich."

 

 

"I did so. I companioned him when he joined us for the spring dance."

 

 

"Out of courtesy?"

 

 

"Of course." In the dark, the girl bridled.

 

 

"Or was it because he was a stranger, and handsome, and every other girl in the village would have changed places with you?"

 

 

"A little of that too," she admitted meekly.

 

 

"Is it not true, my child, that you were more concerned to regain the handsomest, most eligible bachelor in Wantwich, for whom you had competed against all the other girls less attractive than yourself, than you were to right the wrong done to your family and friends upon the day of your projected wedding?"

 

 

"I must have been!" Viola moaned. "Would that hasty wish of mine could be undone!"

 

 

"The second time a person calls upon me," said the traveler, "I may point out the consequences if I choose. Do you truly wish to find yourself again on the green at Wantwich-alone?"

 

 

There was an awful silence, which she eventually broke with a sob.

 

 

"However," the traveler resumed, when he judged she had suffered long enough to imprint the moral permanently on her memory, "you may rest easy. All is due to come to a satisfactory conclusion. Though if I were to tell you the name of your savior, you'd not believe it...."

 

 

He tapped his staff against the bed she sat on, and concluded, "Sleep, child. Wake at dawn."

 

 

Dazed with elation, when the returning sun began to gild the turrets of Teq with the promise of a new day, Lord Fellian struggled to the high gallery of his tower in order to witness the departure of his defeated rivals. On their own! No one in the history of this city had won so fantastic a victory in a single night! Stripped even of their closest body-slaves, Lords Yuckin and Nusk were creeping like whipped dogs into the morning twilight. It had been more by grace than necessity that they had been permitted to retain clothing.

 

 

Lord Fellian leaned drunkenly over the parapet of the gallery and whooped like a falconer sighting quarry; when the cowed face of Lord Yuckin tilted upward to see what the noise was, he spilled on it the contents of his latest beaker of wine.

 

 

"So much for that old fool who bet that Lady Luck's visage has turned away from me!" he bellowed, and laughed until the racket of his boasting was reflected from the nearby rooftops.

 

 

"Are you sure?"

 

 

On the edge of his politely voiced question the traveler in black appended the faint swish of his cloak as he advanced across the jeweled floor.

 

 

"Why, you... !" Lord Fellian gasped and made to draw back, but the parapet was hard against his spine and there was no way to retreat save into insubstantial air. "Guards! Guards!"

 

 

"None of them have followed you up here," said the traveler gravely. "They are persuaded that upon a winner like yourself-if there has ever been one-Lady Luck smiles so long and so favorably that no harm can come to you."

 

 

"Ah-hah!" Fellian began to regain his composure.

 

 

"I conclude from that statement that you admit you lost your bet with me!"

 

 

"Why, no," said the traveler, and his expression showed regret, for it had always seemed a shame to him that a person of intelligence-and Fellian was far from stupid-should be seduced into a self-defeating course of action. "I have won."

 

 

"What? You're insane!" Fellian gasped. "Prove your claim!"

 

 

"I shall," the traveler said, and smote with his staff against the wall that screened this gallery from sight of the tallest tower in Teq. A slice fell away like a wedge cut from a cheese. Beyond, there where Fellian's reflex gaze darted before he could check himself, Lady Luck's pinnacle loomed on the easterly blueness of the dawn.

 

 

A scream died still-born in the lord's throat. He stared and stared, and after a while he said, "But... But there's only a stump!"

 

 

And it was true; against the sky, instead of the celebrated statue, nothing but a jagged pediment.

 

 

He began to giggle. "Why, you've lost after all!" he chuckled. "You did not make the wager that Lady Luck had ceased to smile on me, which would be a fair victory-you wagered that her face was turned away from my throne!"

 

 

"True."

 

 

"Then-"

 

 

"Then I have won." He gestured with his staff. "Go forward; examine those chunks of stone I have broken from the wall."

 

 

Hesitant, yet ashamed to seem frightened, Lord Fellian obeyed. His fingertips fumbled across rough plaster while he coughed at the dust he was stirring up, and found smooth chased stones not conformable to the flat slanting over a shoulder-blade...

 

 

"There was a storm," said the traveler didactically. "The figure tumbled and landed in the street. It has always been the custom, has it not, that any who looked on Lady Luck should die? Save the breath you'd waste for an answer; I know your agents dump those whom you dislike in the market-square, claiming that it was for that reason they expired.

 

 

"Accordingly, none recognized the fragments. When you commanded stone-masons to assemble the necessary material and build this wall atop your handsome tower, they gathered up whatever they could find, and into the wall they set the broken pieces of the statue, in such fashion that the back of the head was behind your throne."

 

 

"But that's not fair!" Fellian shrieked. "You knew this all the time, didn't you?"

 

 

"Who are you to talk of 'fair' and 'unfair'?" the traveler snapped. "Did I not hear you yesterday promising to reward Achoreus by increasing his stake on a wager that your privy intelligence informed you he had won? Be silent! I am not here to argue, but to claim my winnings!"

 

 

He pointed at Fellian with his staff, and with one hand clutching a fragment of the statue, the other clawing at air as though he could cram it by fistfuls into his choking lungs, the greatest winner of all the Lords of Teq departed into nowhere.

 

 

A while later, when they came upon the corpse, those who had pledged themselves to his service began to quarrel about partitioning what he had left behind, in sum, the total wealth of the city and its environs.

 

 

"I will have the treasury!" cried Torquaida. "It's my due!" But a young and vigorous clerk from the counting-house struck him down with a golden candlestick. His old pate cracked across like the shell of an egg.

 

 

"If I can have nothing more, I'll take the booty Lord Fellian cheated me of!" vowed Achoreus, and set off in search of the girl Viola. But he tripped on a slippery marble step at the entrance to the women's quarters, and by the time he recovered from his bang on the head she was awake and away.