Finally, Mor moved his hands once again, across the face of it. All action fled, and darkness filled the glass like poured ink.

Mor turned away and moved back to his seat. He raised his teacup, sipped, made a face and dashed its tepid contents into the fire. He rose and prepared fresh tea.

"Yes," he repeated when he had returned and served them. "It is very serious. Something will have to be done about him. ..."

"What?" she asked.

He sighed.

"I do not know."

"But could not you, who banished the demons of Det--"

"Once," he said, "I could have stopped this changeling easily. Now, though... Now the power is no longer in me as it was in the old days. It is--too late for me. Yet, I am responsible in this."

"You? How? What do you mean?"

"Mark is not of this world. I brought him here as a babe, after the last great battle. He was the means whereby I exiled Pol Detson, the last Lord of Rondoval, also then a child. It is a strange feeling--knowing that the man we got in exchange is now a far greater menace than anything we had feared. I am responsible. I must do something. But what, I cannot say."

"Is there someone you could ask for help?"

He touched her hand.

"I must be alone now--to think," he said. "Return to your home, I am sorry, but I cannot ask you to remain."

She began to rise.

"There must be something you can do."

He smiled faintly.

"Possibly. But first I must investigate."

"He said that he would come back for me," she persisted. "I do not want him to. I am afraid of him."

"I will see what can be done."

He rose and accompanied her to the door. On the threshold, she turned impulsively and seized his hand in both of hers.

"Please," she said.

He reached out with his other hand and stroked her hair. He drew her to him for a moment, then pushed her away.

"Go now," he said, and she did.

He watched until she was out of sight amid the greenery of the trail. His eyes moved for a moment to a patch of flowers, a butterfly darting among them. Then he closed and barred the door and moved to his inner chamber, where he mixed himself powerful medicines.

He took a quarter of the dosage he had prepared, then returned to the room where he had sat with Nora.

Standing before the iron-framed mirror once again, he repeated some of his earlier gestures above its surface, as well as several additional ones. His voice was firmer as he intoned the words of power.

Some of the darkness fled the mirror, to reveal a dim room where people sat at small tables, drinking. A young man with a white streak through his hair sat upon a high stool on a platform at the room's corner, playing upon a musical instrument. Mor studied him for a long while, reached some decision, then spoke another word.

The scene shifted to the club's exterior, and Mor regarded the face of the building with almost equal intensity.

He spoke another word, and the building dwindled, retreating down the street as Mor watched through narrowed eyes.

He gestured and spoke once again, and the glass grew dark.

Turning away, he moved to the inner chamber, where he decanted the balance of the medicine into a small vial and fetched his dusty staff from the corner where he had placed it the previous summer.

Moving to a cleared space, he turned around three times and raised the staff before him. He smiled grimly then as its tip began to glow.

Slowly, he began pacing, turning his head from side to side, as if seeking a gossamer strand adrift in the air....

Dan turned up his collar as he left the club, glancing down the street as he moved into the night. Cars passed, but there were no other pedestrians in sight. Guitar case at his side, he began walking in the direction of Betty's apartment.

Fumes rose through a grating beside the curb, spreading a mildly noxious odor across his way. He hurried by. From somewhere across town came the sound of a siren.

It was a peculiar feeling that had come over him earlier in the evening--as if he had, for a brief while, been the subject of an intense scrutiny. Though he had quickly surveyed all of the club's patrons, none of them presented such a heavy attitude of attention. Thinking back, he had recalled other occasions when he had felt so observed. There seemed no correlation with anything but a warm sensation over his birthmark--which was what had recalled the entire matter to him: he was suddenly feeling it again.

He halted, looking up and down the street, studying passing cars. Nothing. Yet...

It was stronger now than it had been back at the club. Much stronger. It was as though an invisible observer stood right beside him....

He began walking again, quickening his pace as he neared the center of the block, moving away from the corner light. He began to perspire, fighting down a powerful urge to break into a run.

To his right, within a doorway--a movement!

His muscles tensed as the figure came forward. He saw that it bore a big stick....

"Pardon me," came a gentle voice, "but I'm not well. May I walk a distance with you?"

He saw that it was an old man in a strange garment.

"Why... Yes. What's the matter?"

The man shook his head.

"Just the weight of years. Many of them."

He fell into step beside Dan, who shifted his guitar case to his left hand.

"I mean, do you need a doctor?"

"No."

They moved toward the next intersection. Out of the corner of his eye, Dan saw a tired, lined face.

"Rather late to be taking a walk," he commented. "Me, I'm just getting off work."

"I know."

"You do? You know me?"

Something like a thread seemed to drift by, golden in color, and catch onto the end of the old man's stick. The stick twitched slightly and the thread grew taut and began to thicken, to shine.

"Yes. You are called Daniel Chain--"

The world seemed to have split about them, into wavering halves--right and left of the widening beam of light the string had become. Dan turned to stare.

"--but it is not your name," the man said.

The beam widened and extended itself downward as well as forward. It seemed they trod a golden sidewalk now, and the street and the buildings and the night became two-dimensional panoramas at either hand, wavering, folding, fading.

"What is happening?" he asked.

"--and that is not your world," the man finished.

"I do not understand."

"Of course not. And I lack the time to give you a full explanation. I am sorry for this. But I brought you this way years ago and exchanged you for the baby who would have become the real Daniel Chain. You would have lived out your life in that place we just departed, and he in the other, to which you now must go. There, he is called Mark Marakson, and he has become very dangerous."

"Are you trying to tell me that that is my real name?" Dan asked.

"No. You are Pol Detson."

They stood upon a wide, golden roadway, a band of stars above them, a haze of realities at either side. Tiny rushes of sparks fled along the road's surface and a thin, green line seemed traced upon it.

"I fail to follow you. Completely."

"Just listen. Do not ask questions. Your life does depend upon it, and so do many others. You must go home. There is trouble in your land, and you possess a power that will be needed there."

Dan felt constrained to listen. This man had some power himself. The evidence of it lay all about him. And his manner, as well as his words, compelled attention.

"Follow that green line," the man instructed him. "This road will branch many times before you reach your destination. There will be interesting sideways, fascinating sights, possibly even other travelers of the most peculiar sort. You may look, but do not stray. Follow the line. It will take you home. I--Wait."