“Why?” Mandor repeated.

“I must,” she answered.

“Why must you?” he asked.

“I...” Her teeth raked her lower lip and the blood began to flow again.

“Why?”

Her face grew flushed and beads of perspiration appeared upon her brow. Her eyes were still unfocused, but they brimmed with tears. A thin line of blood trickled down her chin. Mandor extended a clenched fist and pened it, revealing another metal ball. He held this one about ten inches before her brow, then released it. It hung in the air.

“Let the doors of pain be opened,” he said, and he flicked it lightly with a fingertip.

Immediately, the small sphere began to move. It passed about her head in a slow ellipse, coming close to her temples on each orbit. She began to wail.

“Silence!” he said. “Suffer in silence!”

The tears ran down her cheeks, the blood ran down her chin...

“Stop it!” I said.

“Very well.” He reached over and squeezed the ball for a moment between the thumb and middle finger of his left hand. When he released it, it remained stationary, a small distance before her right ear. “Now you may answer the question,” he said. “That was but the smallest sample of what I can do to you. I can push this to your total destruction.”

She opened her mouth but no words came forth. Only a gagging sound.

“I think we may be going about this wrong,” I said. “Can you just have her speak normally, rather than this question-and-answer business?”

“You heard him,” Mandor said. “It is my will, also.”

She gasped, then said, “My hands... Please free them.”

“Go ahead,” I said.

“They are freed,” Mandor stated.

She flexed her fingers.

“A handkerchief, a towel...,” she said softly.

I drew open a drawer in a nearby dresser, took out a handkerchief. As I moved to pass it to her, Mandor seized my wrist and took it from me. He tossed it to her and she caught it.

“Don't reach within my sphere,” he told me.

“I wouldn't hurt him,” she said, as she wiped her eyes, her cheeks, her chin. “I told you, I mean only to protect him.”

“We require more information than that,” Mandor said, as he reached for the sphere again.

“Wait,” I said. Then, to her, “Can you at least tell me why you can't tell me?”

“No,” she answered. “It would amount to the same thing.”

Suddenly I saw it as a strange sort of programming problem; and I decided to try a different tack.

“You must protect me at all costs?” I said. “That is ;your primary function?”

“Yes.”

“And you are not supposed to tell me who set you this task, or why?”

“Yes.”

“Supposing the only way you could protect me would be by telling me these things?”

Her brow furrowed.

“I...,” she said. “I don't., .. The only way?”

She closed her eyes and raised her hands to her face. “I... Then I would have to tell you.”

“Now we're getting somewhere,” I said. “You would be willing to violate the secondary order in order to carry out the primary one?”

“Yes, but what you have described is not a real situation,” she said.

“I see one that is,” Mandor said suddenly. “You cannot follow that order if you cease to exist. Therefore, you would be violating it if you permit yourself to be destroyed. I will destroy you unless you answer those questions.”

She smiled.

“I don't think so,” she said.

“Why not?”

“Ask Merlin what the diplomatic situation would be if a daughter of the Begman prime minister were found dead in his room under mysterious circumstances-especially when he's already responsible for the disappearance of her sister.”

Mandor frowned and looked at me.

“I don't understand what that's all about,” he said.

“It doesn't matter,” I told him. “She's lying. If something happens to her, the real Nayda simply returns. I saw it happen with George Hansen, Meg Devlin, and Vinta Bayle.”

“That is what would normally occur,” she said, “except for one thing. They were all alive when I took possession of their bodies. But Nayda had just died, following a severe illness. She was exactly what I needed, though, so I took possession and healed the body. She is not here anymore. If I depart, you'll be left either with a corpse or a human vegetable.”

“You're bluffing,” I said, but I remembered Vialle's saying that Nayda had been ill.

“No,” she said. “I'm not.”

“It doesn't matter,” I told her.

“Mandor,” I said, turning to him, “you said you can keep her from vacating that body and following me?”

“Yes,” he replied.

“Okay, Nayda,” I said. “I am going somewhere and I am going to be in extreme danger there. I am not going to permit you to follow me and carry out your orders.”

“Don't,” she answered.

“You give me no choice but to keep you pent while I go about my business.”

She sighed.

“So you've found a way to get me to violate one order in order to get me to carry out the other. Very clever.”

“Then you'll tell me what I want to know?”

She shook her head.

“I am physically unable to tell you,” she said. “It is not a matter of will. But... I think I've found a way around it.”

“What is that?”

“I believe I could confide in a third party who alstt desires your safety.”

“You mean—”

“If you will leave the room for a time, I will try to tell your brother those things I may not explain to you.”

My eyes met Mandor's. Then, “I'll step out in the hall for a bit,” I said.

And I did. A lot of things bothered me as I studied a tapestry on the wall, not the least being that I had never told her that Mandor was my brother.

When my door opened after a long while, Mandor looked in both directions. He raised his hand when I began to move toward him. I halted, and he stepped outside and came toward me. He continued to glance about as he advanced.

“This is Amber palace?” he inquired.

“Yes. Not the most fashionable wing, perhaps, but I call it home.”

“I'd like to see it under more relaxed circumstances,” he said.

I nodded. “It's a date. So tell me, what happened in there?”

He looked away, discovered the tapestry, studied it.

“It's very peculiar,” he said. “I can't.”

“What do you mean?”

“You still trust me, don't you?”

“Of course.”

“Then trust me in this. I've a good reason for not telling you what I learned.”

“Come on, Mandor! What the hell's going on?”

“The ty'iga is not a danger to you. It really does care about your welfare.”

“So what else is new? I want to know why.”

“Leave it,” he said, “for now. It's better that way.”

I shook my head. I made a fist and looked around for something to hit.

“I know how you feel, but I'm asking you to drop it,” he said.

“You mean the knowledge would hurt me in some way?”

“I didn't say that.”

“Or do you mean that you're afraid to tell me?”

“Drop it'“ he said.

I turned away and got control of myself.

“You must have a good reason,” I finally decided.

“I do.”

“I'm not going to give up on this,” I told him. “But I haven't the time to pursue it further against this kind of resistance. Okay, you have your reasons and I have pressing business elsewhere.”

“She mentioned Jurt and Mask and the Keep where Brand gained his powers,” he said.

“Yes, that's where I'll be heading.”

“She expects to accompany you.”

“She is wrong.”

“I would counsel against taking her, too.”

“You'll keep her for me until I've taken care of things?”

“No,” he said, “because I'm coming with you. I'll put her into a very deep trance, though, before we depart.”

“But you don't know what's been going on since our dinner. A lot has happened, and I just haven't the time to bring you up to date.”

“It doesn't matter,” he said. “I know that it involves an unfriendly sorcerer, Jurt, and a dangerous place. That's enough. I'll come along and give you a hand.”