Larick raised his right arm, but Pol ignored it and threw a head-cut. The green blade came flying back from the floor into Larick's hand, and he parried it. Pol could not check his momentum, so he increased it, crashing into Larick's shield before he could riposte.

As Larick staggered back, Pol chopped heavily at his weapon, knocking it aside, then lacked as hard as he could squarely against the center of the shield. Larick stumbled and Pol chopped again, knocking the blade from his hand once more. The shield swung aside and Pol was no longer in any orthodox fencing posture, but was near enough to drive his left fist into the other's midsection.

The shield fell away as he struck, and he cast his own weapon aside to throw a right at Larick's jaw.

Larick recovered, and raising his hands before his face, his elbows together over his midsection, rushed directly toward him. Pol stepped to the side and threw a left toward his head but did not connect.

Larick dropped and seized him about the knees. Pol felt himself go off balance; grabbed for Larick's shoulder, caught only a handful of his shirt and fell backward to the accompaniment of a tearing sound.

"Kill him! Hurry!" the voice came into his head.

As Pol fell, Larick attempted to hurl himself upon him but was met with a crosscut that knocked him off to the side. At that instant, Pol knew exactly what he must do.

He raised his right hand to shoulder level, palm upward, as he rolled to straddle Larick's supine form. His dragonmark throbbed as the blackness of the lines which separated the bands about him fled toward his hand and coalesced into a dark ball of negation, cancellation, death.

As he swung the ball downward toward Larick's face, his eyes jerked once and he barely had time to twist his body and hurl the death-sphere across the room, away.

Larick struggled to rise, and he clipped him once, hard, on the point of the chin and felt him grow slack. Then he rocked back onto his heels, brushed his hair out of his eyes and stared.

He reached slowly forward. There, where he had torn away the sleeve... Larick's right arm lay bare.

His hand trembled slightly as he touched the exposed dragonmark above Larick's right wrist.

Ryle Merson's voice filled the chamber:

"Is he still alive?"

Pol ignored it, reached up and removed the bandana from Larick's head. A single streak of white ran through his dark hair, front to back.

Only then did Pol turn his head and regard the heavy figure which had just come into the chamber.

"Have you slain him?" Ryle asked.

Pol stood and took a step toward the man.

"I haven't killed anyone here, yet," he said. "Who is Larick, anyway? And what is he to you?"

"How did you come free of the spell which bound you?"

"No. You answer me. I want to know about Larick."

"How quickly you forget your position," Ryle said softly. "You may have freed yourself from direct control, but your leash is short."

He spoke then the words which dissolved the spell of illusion, and the human guise slipped from Pol to reveal the monster body.

"The spell stands ready for the final transfer of which I spoke," he said, "requiring but the proper guide-word."

"I think not," Pol replied, and his will flowed forth through the dragonmark, shattering the image of the monstrous form which hung over him; his features flowed back into their normal pattern, and his hair was stirred as by an invisible wind, its natural color returning, the white streak reappearing.

His garments hung in rags upon him and he breathed heavily for several moments, but he smiled.

"Answer me now," he said. "Who is Larick?"

Ryle's face grew pale.

"Back when your father and I were still on friendly terms," he said, "he gave his young son into my care, as an apprentice."

"Larick is my brother?"

Ryle nodded.

"He is about five years older than you."

"What have you done to him?"

"I taught him the Art and I raised him to be a good man, to respect the decent things--"

Pol did a quick calculation.

"He was perfect insurance, too--when you broke with my father--wasn't he? You had a hostage then, against the wrath of your former friend."

"I am not ashamed to admit it," Ryle replied. "You never knew your father. The man was a devil. And he was one of the best sorcerers around. I had to have some protection."

A sudden flash of inspiration possessed him and Pol asked, "Could it be that Spier, who was still on good terms with my father, did what he did to your daughter in order to assure Larick's safety?"

The color returned heavily to Ryle's face.

"You think just like them, don't you?" he said. "Yes. Even your father hadn't pierced my defenses, but that bastard got through and did that thing to her. Larick has felt guilty about it all his life."

"With no small help from you, I'd guess. That's how you keep him in line, huh? The old guilt trip?"

"Something you've never felt, I'm sure. You're ready to cut a helpless girl's throat. You'd have done it by now if I hadn't heard Larick's cry."

"I'd rather cut yours," Pol said, moving forward. "You're a damned hypocrite. You're no better than my father or Spier. Maybe you're worse. You were ready to go along with their plan when you thought there was something in it for you. When you saw you had something to lose you became a white magician and a defender of righteousness. It's a lot of bullshit! You haven't changed. Now you make my brother do your dirty work, to keep your own hands clean. But they're not. You're not a big enough fool to believe they are, are you?"

Ryle moved his hands into the beginning of a warding gesture, and Pol slipped immediately into the second seeing, dragonmark still pounding with his pulsebeat.

"You talk to me of morality when you hold the Keys to the Gate and my daughter lies ready for your blade? Who is the hypocrite, Detson?"

An arc of fire passed between the man's fingertips, and Pol looked about for strands or bands, in vain.

But then, suddenly, it seemed as if great clouds of colored fog were drifting into the chamber.

Pol extended his hand and a blue mist was there when he needed it. He felt the condensing moisture upon his fingers. A moment later, he passed a globe of water the size of a basketball, dripping, from hand to hand. Fire. Water. It seemed he had the logical remedy ready for whatever Ryle had in mind.

As he waited for the older sorcerer to make the first move, he thought back over his battles with Keth and with Larick, wondering again why his perception of the magical world had altered in each instance. Then it occurred to him that on each occasion his vision could have been colored by the other's magical world-view. Perhaps, now, Ryle's world was somewhat more cloudy than most.

"We change each other's way of seeing, don't we?" he said, half-aloud.

"I am here to kill you, not to instruct you," Ryle replied, and the fires he held became a curved dagger which he cast toward Pol's breast.

Pol willed coldness and felt it flow through his fingertips. The watery sphere clouded and grew solid, covered with frost. The blade gouged ice chips from it when it struck, and then fell to the floor. Pol hurled the ice ball at Ryle, but the sorcerer stepped aside and it shattered against the wall behind him.

Ryle raised both arms and lowered them suddenly. The room vanished. They inhabited a region composed entirely of themselves and the colored clouds. Pol took another step forward. As before, he reasoned that if he could get within striking distance with his fists he could become a sufficient distraction to dispense with the magic and then, of course, with Ryle.