“You cling to an outworn loyalty, mighty one.”

“Perhaps. And what is your excuse? Why do you seek to enhance your wisdom at this expense?”

“Wisdom is an end in itself. Also, these doings may be sources of great poetry.”

“If death be the source of great poetry, then I prefer the lesser variety. I feel, though, that the Prince should know of any new development within the Middle Worlds.”

“I drink to your loyalty, old friend, though I feel our former liege to be at least partly responsible for the present muddle.”

“Your feelings on this matter are not unknown to me.”

The poet takes one sip and lowers his glass. His eyes then grow all of one color, that being green. The white which encircles them vanishes, and the black points are gone that had been their centers. They are now become pale emeralds, and a yellow spark lives within each.

“Speaking in my capacity as mage and seer,” he says, in a voice grown distant and toneless, "I say that it has now arrived upon Blis, this thing that portends the chaos. I say too, that another comes, for I hear soundless hoofbeats within the dark, and I see that which is invisible in its many-strided pacings over stars. We may yet ourselves be drawn into this thing, who have no wish to participate.”

“Where? And how?”

“Here. And it is not life, nor is it fair.”

Madrak nods his head and says, “Amen.”

The magician gnashes his teeth. “It is our destiny to bear witness,” he decides, and his eyes burn with an infernal brilliance and his knuckles whiten upon the black walking stick with its head of silver.

… An eunuch priest of the highest caste sets tapers before a pair of old shoes.

… The dog worries the dirty glove which has seen many better centuries.

… The blind Norns strike a tiny silver anvil with fingers that are mallets. Upon the metal lies a length of blue light.

The mirror comes alive with images of nothing that stands before it.

It hangs in a room which has never held furniture, hangs upon a wall covered with dark tapestries, hangs before the witch who is red, and her flames.

Looking into it is like looking through a window into a room filled with pink cobwebs which are stirred by sudden gusts of air.

Her familiar stands upon her right shoulder, its hairless tail hung about her neck, between her breasts. She strokes its head and it wags its tail.

She smiles, and the cobwebs slowly blow away. The flames leap about her, but nothing is burning.

Then the cobwebs are gone and she regards the colors of Blis.

Most particularly, though, she regards the tall man who stands naked to the waist in the midst of a thirty-five-foot circle surrounded by people.

His shoulders are wide, and his waist is quite narrow. He is barefooted, and he wears tight black trousers. He stares downward. His hair is sand-colored; his arms are enormously well muscled; his skin is rather pale. About his waist goes a wide, dark belt with a vicious row of studs set upon it. He stares downward through yellow eyes at the man who is attempting to raise himself from where he lies upon the ground.

The man at his feet is heavy about the shoulders, chest, stomach. He raises himself with one arm. His beard brushes his shoulder as he throws back his head and glares upward. His lips move, but his teeth are clenched.

The standing man moves one foot, almost casually, sweeping away the supporting arm. The other falls upon his face and does not move.

After a time, two men enter the circle and bear away the man who has fallen.

“Who?” pipes the familiar.

The Red Witch shakes her head, however, and continues to watch.

A four-armed man enters the circle, and his feet are great, splayed things, like another pair of enormous hands at the bottoms of his twisted legs. He is hairless and shining, and as he draws near to the standing man, he drops so that his lower arms come to rest upon the ground. As he does so, his knees turn outward to the sides and he bends backward, so that his head and his shoulders are still perpendicular to the ground, though now at a height of approximately three feet above it.

Springing froglike, he does not encounter his target, but meets instead with a flat hand upon the back of his neck and another beneath his stomach. Each hand describes a semicircle, and he passes, head over hands over hands over heels. But he crouches where he falls, his sides heave three times and he leaps once more.

This time the tall man catches his ankles and holds him upside down at arm’s length from his body.

But the four-armed man twists and seizes the wrists which hold him, driving his head into the other's stomach.

There is blood upon his scalp then, for he has struck one of the belt studs, but the tall man does not release him He pivots upon his heel and swings him outward. Then he turns again and again, until he moves like a top, spinning. After a full minute he slows, and the four-armed man’s eyes are closed. Then he lowers him to the ground, falls upon him, moves his hands quickly, rises. The four-armed man lies still. After a time, he, too, is taken away.

Three more than fall before him, including Blackthorn Villy, Fourcity Champion of Blis, with his mechanical pincers, and the man is taken up upon shoulders and garlanded, and they bear him to a platform and honor him with the cup of victory and the draft of money. He does not smile until his eyes fall upon Megra of Kalgan, standing there, whose blonde X marks the spot his glances go to till he is free to follow them with boots upon his feet.

She waits for this.

The Red Witch watches the lips of the multitudes.

“Wakim,” she finally says. “They call him Wakim.”

“Why is it that we watch him?”

“I had a dream which I have read to indicate this: Watch the place of the changing tide. Even here, beyond the Middle Worlds, the mind of a witch is tied to the tides of the Power. Though I cannot use them now, still do I perceive them.”

“Why this one-this Wakim-at the place of the changing tide?”

“The quality of the mirror is mute omniscience. It shows anything, explains nothing. But it took its direction from my dream, so it remains for me to interpret this thing through meditation.”

“He is strong, and very fast.”

“True, I have not seen his like since sun-eyed Set fell before the Hammer That Smashes Suns, in his battle with the Nameless. Wakim is more than he appears to that crowd, or to the little girl toward whom he moves. See, as I cause the mirror to brighten and brighten! There is a dark aura about him that I do not like. He is something of the reason my sleep was troubled. We must see that he is followed. We must learn what he is.”

“He will take the girl over the hill,” says her familiar, poking its cold nose into her ear. “Oh, let us watch!”

“Very well,” she says, and it wags its tail and clasps its forepaws atop its curly head.

The man stands in a place that is circled round about with a pink hedge and filled with flowers of all colors. It contains benches, couches, chairs, a table and high trellises of roses, all beneath a great green umbrella tree that shuts out the sky. It is filled with perfumes and the essences of flowers, and there is music that hangs awhile upon the air and passes slowly through it. Pale lights move within the branches of the tree. A tiny, intoxicating fountain sparkles beside the table at the foot of the tree.

The girl closes the gate within the hedge. A sign saying “Do Not Disturb” begins to glow on its outer side. She moves toward the man.

“Wakim…” she says.

“Megra,” he replies.

“Do you know why I asked you to come here?”

“This is a love garden,” he says, “and I think I understand the customs of the country…”

She smiles, removes her breast strap then, hangs it upon a bush and places her hands on his shoulders. He moves to draw her to him, does not succeed.