"Hear it?" Haught asked. "Feel it, dead man? She's worried. She's unweaving hermagics. Souls are winging back to hell tonight. Do you feel yours slipping?"

"Get your ha-hands from me."

Haught's hands slid up his shoulders and held there. "She's forgotten youtonight. I haven't. I'm holding you, Stilcho. /. And I can peel you like anonion. Or save your wretched soul. Do you feel it now?"

"Ish-"

Haught's grip tightened, that of his hands and that on his soul. The paralysisgrew, and Haught's voice sank deeper and deeper, so that it was not sound atall, only the dazzle of winter cold, was snowflakes falling on dark wind.

The Queen of Death is dethroned. Power is free tonight. Fragments of it drift onthe winds, sift through the air, fall on the earth.

It slays the dead.

It casts down the powerful.

Stilcho shivered, his living eye widened and the dead one saw abysses.

He tottered on the edge, reached up hands cold as clay and held to Haught as tohis last and only hope.

There is something that shines and I see it, dead man.

It beckons the powerful with an irresistible lust.

And she dares not.

The dust shines and shimmers and falls everywhere and she dares not gather thatpower up. She seals up the ways. She burns it with fire.

Nisi power. She loathes it and desires it.

I am Nisi, dead man. And I will have that thing. She sits blind and deaf to mewhat we say she cannot know. That is my power. And it needs one thing.

Things will change, Stilcho. Consider your allegiances. Consider how you farewhen she forgets you.

He had a very clear picture then what Haught wanted. He held the image of ashining globe that spun and shimmered. Lust was part of it, in the same way thatlight was. It was raw power. It was dangerous, dangerous as some spinning blade,as some terrible juggernaut let loose. That shining, spinning thing was ahumming regularity that beat like a pulse, that held all the gates of hell andcreation in harmony with itself, all beating away with the same thump-thump of aliving heart, that was the tiniest imperfection in this spinning. If it wereperfect there would be nothing.

The universe exists on a flaw in nothing at all.

A little wobble in the works.

He caught at his chest, feeling an unaccustomed hammering. He felt it asthreatening at first, and then he realized that it was a thin, occasional beatin a perfect stillness. It was his own heart giving a little thump of life. Andhe felt it because for a moment it had been utterly silent.

"You know," Haught said, "you understand it now, what I want." Haught's finehand touched his face, and a little chill numbed him. "Now forget it, dead man.Just forget it now. Until I need you.... I want to talk to you, Stilcho, Just amoment. Privately."

Stilcho blinked. It was the living eye he saw from now. It was his enemy Haught,a Haught looking uncommonly void of malice, a Haught holding him gently by theshoulder.

"I've wronged you," Haught said. "I know that. You have to understand, Stilchowe were both victims. I was yours; you were their pawn. Now I have a certainpower and it's you who are the slave. A sweet difference for me; and a bitterone for you. But-" The hand moved softly and warmth spread from it, like lifethrough clay, so poignant a pain that Stilcho's vision came and went. "Itneed not be bitter. You so scarcely died, Stilcho. Earth never went over you;fire never touched you. Just a little slip away from the body, a little slipand she caught you in her hands before you could get much beyond the merestthreshold of hell, drew you back to your body in the next breath; and thisflesh of yours-this is solid, it bleeds if cut however sluggishly; itsuffers pain of flesh. And pain of pride; and pain of fear-"

"Don't-"

"And when mistress wants you, it does infallibly what a man's body ought-tellme: does it feel anything?"

Stilcho gave a wrench of his arm. It was no good. The paralysis closed about histhroat and stopped the shout; Haught's eyes caught his and held and the arm fellleaden at his side.

"I have the threads that hold you to life," Haught said. "And I will tell you asecret: she has never done as much for you as should be done. She can't, now.But she could have. The power that could have done it is blowing on the windtonight, is falling like dust, wasted. Do you think that she would have thoughttwice of you? Do you think that she would have said to herself-Stilcho couldbenefit by this, Stilcho could have his life back? No. She never thought ofyou."

Liar, Stilcho thought, fighting the silken voice; but it was hard to doubt thehand that held the threads of his existence. Liar-not that he believed Ischadehad ever thought of him; that he did not expect; but he doubted that there hadever been such a chance as Haught claimed.

"But there was," said Haught softly, and something fluttered and rippled throughthe curtains of his mind. "There was such a chance and there still is one. Tellme, Stilcho-ex-slave speaks to slave now-do you enjoy this condition? You'lltrek to hell and back to preserve that little thread of life of yours; you'llwhimper and you'll go like a beaten dog because even death won't make you safefrom her, and your life won't last a moment if she forgets you the wayshe's forgetting those others. But what if there were another source of life?What if there were someone to hold you up if she neglected you-do you see thefreedom that would give you? For the first time since you died, poor slave, youcan choose from moment to moment. You can say-this moment I'm hers; or: forthese few I'm his. And if anything should happen to me-that choice will be goneagain. Do you understand?"

There was warmth all through him. Warmth and the natural give of his stiffenedribs-it hurt, like cramped muscle. His heart beat at a normal rate and thesocket of his eye ached with a stab of pain that was acute and poignant and fora moment giddy with strength.

Haught caught him as it faded and the river-cold came back. Stilcho shivered, anatural shiver; and Haught's face before him was pale, beaded with sweat:"There," Haught gasped, "there, that's what I could do for you if I werestronger."

Stilcho only stared at him, and the living eye wept at the memory and the deadone wept blood. It was a seduction' as wicked as any ever committed inSanctuary, which was going some: and he knew himself the victim of it. Of drugsand temptations he had sampled in his life, of ghassa and krrf and whateverlotos-dreams the smoke of firoq gave, there was no sensation to equal thatmoment of painful warmth, and it was going away now.

He needs a focus, Stilcho thought; he had learned his gram-marie in bitter andterrible lessons and knew something of the necessities of black sorcery. Hewants a familiar. Nothing so simple as snake or rat, not even one of the birdshe wants a man, a living man. 0 gods, he's lying. He knows what I'm thinking.He's in my skull-

Yes, came a soft, soft voice. / am. And you're quite right. But you also tastewhat my power would be. I'm still apprentice. But to hide a thing is another ofmy talents. And Mistress doesn't see me. I've learned the edges of her power,I've mapped it like a geography, and I simply walk the low places, the canyonsand the chasms of it. She's committed an error great mages make: she's lost hersmall focus. Her inner eye is set always on the horizons, and those horizonsgrow wider and wider, so the small, deft stroke can pass her notice; I can sitin a small place and listen to the echoes her power makes. It makes so muchnoise tonight it has no sense of a thing so small and soft. And I approachmastery. It lacks one thing. No, two. You are one. The thought will remain. Iwill seal it up now, I will seal it so you needn't fear at all; all that willremain is a knowledge that 1 am not your true enemy. Wake up, "Stilcho-"