"And of course you had to do something about it, since nobody likes Rondoval."

Ryle turned away, padded across the room, turned back.

"You tempt me to agree and let it go at that," he said. "But I have reasons for the things that I do. Would you care to hear them?"

"Of course."

"There was a time when Det was a very good friend of mine. He was your father, wasn't he?"

"Yes."

"Where did he have you hidden, anyway?"

Pol shook his head.

"He didn't. As I understand the story, I was present at the fell of Rondoval. Rather than slay a baby, old Mor took me to another world, where I grew up."

"Yes, I can see that. Interesting. For whom did he exchange you?"

"Mark Marakson, the man I killed at Anvil Mountain."

"Fascinating. A changeling. How did you get back here?"

"Mor returned me. To deal with Mark. So you knew my father?"

"Yes. We engaged in a number of enterprises together. He was a very accomplished sorcerer."

"You speak as if there was a point where you ceased being friends."

"True. We finally disagreed on a very fundamental issue concerning our last great project. I broke the fellowship at that time and sent him packing. It was then that he initiated the actions which led to the conflict and the destruction of Rondoval. The third party to our enterprise left him when things began looking bad on that front."

"Who was that?"

"A strange Madwand of great power. I don't really know where Det found him. A man named Henry Spier. Odd name, that."

"Do you mean that if you both hadn't deserted him Rondoval might have stood?"

"I am sure that it would have, in a cruelly changed world. I prefer thinking that Det and Spier deserted me."

"Of course. And now you want some extra revenge on the family, for old times' sake."

"Hardly. But now it is your turn to answer a few. You say that Mor brought you back?"

" 'Returned me' is what I said. He did not accompany me. He seemed ill. I believe that he went back to the place where I had been."

"The exchange... Yes. Were you returned directly to Rondoval?"

"No. I found my own way there, later."

"And your heritage? All the things that you know of the Art? How did you come by this?"

"I just sort of picked it up."

"That makes you a Madwand."

"So I've heard. You still haven't told me what you want."

"Blood tells, though, doesn't it?" Ryle said sharply.

Pol studied the man's face. Gone now was the bland expression which had accompanied most of their earlier exchanges. Pol read menace in the narrow-eyed look now focused upon him, in the rising color and the tightness about the mouth. He noted, too, that one pudgy hand was clenched so tightly that its rings cut deeply into the flesh.

"I don't know what you mean," Pol said.

"I think you do," Ryle replied. "Your father tipped the Balance which prevailed in this world, but did not succeed in his attempt. I stopped him here and Klaithe's forces finished him at Rondoval. There had to be a reaction sooner or later. Mark Marakson brought it into the world at Anvil Mountain, where you stopped him. Now it must tip in the other direction again--your father's way--toward total sorcerous domination of the world. It can be stopped for good at this point, or it can go all the way--your father's dream realized. I have been waiting all these years to stop it again, to end it, to see that it does not come to pass."

"I repeat. I don't know what--"

Ryle came forward and slapped him. Pol fought down an impulse to strike back as he felt a ring cut his cheek.

"Son of a black magician! You are one yourself!" he cried. "It can't be helped! It's in your blood! Even--" He grew silent. He stepped back. Then, "You would open the Gate," he said. "You would complete your father's great work for this world."

Pol suddenly felt that this was true. The Gate... Of course. He had forgotten. All those dreams... They began phasing now into his consciousness. With this, a certain wiliness came over him.

"You say that you were party to the entire business, at its beginning?" he asked softly.

"Yes, that is true," Ryle admitted.

"And you were talking about black magic ..."

Ryle looked away, walked back to the table, drew the chair farther back and lowered himself onto it.

"Yes," he said, his eyes directed toward the remains of his breakfast, "in both senses, too, I suppose. Black because it was being used for something that was morally objectionable, and black in the more subtle sense of its deepest meaning--the use of forces which must warp the character of the magician himself. The first is always arguable, but the second is not. I admit that I was once a black magician, but I am no longer. I reformed myself long ago."

"Employing Larick to perform the actual spells for you hardly seems to avoid the spirit of black magic. As in my case ..."

His words trailed off as Ryle raised his eyes and fixed him with them.

"In your case," he said, "I would--and will, if necessary--do it myself. It would at worst be an instance of the first sort--employed to prevent a greater evil."

"On the general theory of morals--that others need them?"

"I am thinking of more than the two of us. I am thinking of what you would do to the entire world."

"By opening the Gate?"

"Exactly."

"Excuse my ignorance, but what will happen if the Gate is opened?"

"This world would be flooded, submerged, by the forces of a far older world--in our terms it is an evil place. We would become an extension of that land. Its more powerful, ancient magic would completely overwhelm the natural laws which hold here. This would become a realm of dark enchantment."

"The evil may well be relative then. Tell me what objection a sorcerer could have to something which would make sorcery more important."

"You use the argument by which your father first swayed me. But then I learned that the forces released would be so strong that no ordinary sorcerer could control them. We would all be at the mercy of those others from beyond the Gate and those few of our own kind to whom it would not matter, in league with those others."

"And who might those few of our own kind be?"

"Your father was one, Henry Spier another; yourself, and those others like you--Madwands all."

Pol repressed a smile.

"I take it that you are not a Madwand?"

"No, I had to learn my skills the hard way."

"I begin to understand your conversion," Pol said, instantly regretting the words as he saw Ryle's expression change again.

"No, I do not believe that you do," he answered, glaring, "not having a daughter bound by the curse of Henry Spier."

"The ghost of this place... ?" Pol said.

"Her body lies in a hidden spot, neither dead nor alive. Spier did that when I broke the fellowship. Even so, I was willing to fight them."

Pol wanted to look away, to shift his weight, to pace, to depart.

Instead, "What exactly do you mean when you say Madwand?" he asked.

"Those like yourself with a natural aptitude for the Art," Ryle said, "those possessed of a closer, more personal relationship with its forces--its artists rather than its technicians, I suppose."

"I appreciate your explaining all these matters," Pol told him, "and I realize you are not going to believe any denials I might make concerning my intentions, so I won't make any. Why not just tell me what it is that you want?"

"You have had dreams," Ryle said flatly.

"Well, yes ..."

"Dreams," he continued, "which I sent to you, wherein your spirit traveled beyond the Gate to witness the starkness and desolation of that evil place, wherein you saw the creatures who dwell there, engaged in depravities."

Pol recalled his earlier dreams, but he thought too of the later ones, showing him the cities beyond the mountains, neither stark nor desolate, but holding a culture so complex as to surpass his understanding.