She slapped the coins into Stulwig's moist palm and watched, glaring, as hepacked up his satchel and picked up the staff he had leaned against the door.

'The blessing of Heqt upon the healing -' he mumbled.

'And upon the hands of the healer,' Gilla responded automatically, but she wasthinking, I have wasted my money. He doesn't believe his paltry herbs will doany good either. She listened to the hurried clatter of Stulwig's sandals on thestairs as he hastened to reach his own lodging before darkness fell, but hereyes were on Lalo's still face.

And suddenly it seemed to her that his breathing had deepened and there was thesuggestion of a crease between his brows. She stiffened, watching, while hopefluttered in her heart like a trapped moth, until his features grew smoothagain. She thought of the great waves that sometimes slapped at the wharvesthough the sky was clear, that fishermen said were the last ripple from somegreat storm far out to sea.

Oh my beloved, she thought in anguish, what bitter storms are raging in the farreaches where you wander now?

The children were waiting for her when she came out of the studio, all of themexcept for her oldest, Wedemir, who was ajunio"-master with the caravans. Herdaughter Vanda had gotten leave from her Beysib lady when Gilla sent for her,and sat now with Alfi on her lap, looking at her mother with a fairapproximation of the flat Beysib stare. Even her second boy, Ganner, had beggedtime from his apprenticeship with Herewick the Jeweller to come home. Onlyeight-year-old Latilla, playing with her doll on the floor. seemed oblivious ofthe tension in the room.

Gilla glared back at them, knowing they must have heard her argument with AltenStulwig. What did they expect her to say?

'Well?' she snapped. 'Stop looking at me like a batch of gaffed cod! Andsomebody put the teakettle on!'

Lalo was following the scent, familiar as the stink of a man's own closestool,of sorcery.

He knew this much about the strange existence he was caught in now - even adauber whose only magic had flowed through his . fingers could smell sorceryhere, and though in that other life Lalo had been wary of wizards, he had notbeen quite wary enough, and that was the start of the road that had led himhere.

There, for instance, was the gaudy presence of the Mageguild. a mixture ofodours from the faint aromas of the magelings to the full-blown, exoticoutpourings of the Hazard-class wizards who were their masters - a potpourriwith all the mixed fascination of Prince Kitty-Cat's garbage bin. Here also wasthe alien tang of Beysib ritual, and the fuggy flavours produced by all thelittle hedge-wizards and crones, and the wavering scents of those who served inthe temples of the gods.

But what he was seeking was not in the temples, though it came from a place thatwas close by - a house whose very foundations were sorcery. Someone was workinga spell there even now, elegant magics that sent spirals of power smoking intothe dim air. Lalo had known that flavour before, though he had not thenrecognized it - the unique atmosphere that surrounded Enas

Yorl. Focusing, he found that he could interpret what he was sensing

as colour, a line of light that snaked outward, another crossing it and another,a net to capture any spirit that might be wandering there. And Lalo could feelthe presence of those Others, beings less conscious than the ghosts he fled, butmore active and aware.

A Symbol flickered into being in the centre of the knot, pulsing lividly,colour, shape, and flavour all combined to lure its intended prey. Laloshuddered as something swept by him. The glowing lines distorted and the Symbolin their midst dissolved and then reformed, imprisoning a roil of writhingenergy and forcing it into a form that human eyes could, however unwillingly,see. But the Gateway that had opened for the creature was still there, and Lalo,frantic for contact, thrust himself through.

"Ehas, barabarishti, azgeldui m 'hai tsi! Oh thou who dost know the secrets ofLife and Death, come to me! Yevoi! YevadF The Voice snapped shut the gap and setthe imprisoned entity to whirling in a shower of nitrate and sulphur-smellingsparks.

Lalo contracted like an upset snail, seeking to avoid the touch of that light,the sound of those words. They were the language of the plane from which thespirit had come, and Lalo's present condition gave him the power to directlyapprehend them, and to realize that there were worse places than the one inwhich he found himself now.

'Evgolod sheremin, shinaz, shinaz, tiserra-neh, yevoi!' The Voice rolled on,conjuring the creature to bring to him the knowledge of how to separate the soulfrom a body to which it had been obscenely and indissolubly fettered by sorcery,of a way, though the price of it might be annihilation, to set such a soulforever free. Lalo cowered from knowledge that was never meant for his ears.

But presently the Voice stilled, the echoes died away, and Lalo allowed himselfto focus on tlie insubstantial figure that stood within its own shimmeringcircle beyond the triangle within which Lalo and the demon shared an unwillingcaptivity. It was Enas Yorl - it must be - yes, he would always know thoseglowing eyes.

And at the same moment Enas Yorl appeared to realize that his summoning had beenmore successful than he intended. A wand rose, and power swirled and eddied inthe still air.

'Begone, oh ye intruding spirit, to thine own realm where thou shall wait untilI do summon thee!'

Lalo was tumbled by a riptide of power and for a moment knew a desperate hopethat the sorcerer's instinctive house-cleaning would send him home. But wherewas home, now?

Then the power ebbed, and Lalo sat up, still in the triangle. The demon in thesigil beside him spat and reached for him with flaming claws.

'Oh thou spirit who hast come to my summoning, I conjure thee to tell me thyname.' Enas Yorl seemed unmoved by his first failure, and Lalo began tounderstand the patience and plain nerve required for wizardry.

He got to his feet and approached the edge of the triangle as closely as hedared. 'It's me, Lalo the Limner. Enas Yorl, don't you recognize me?'

And as he waited for the sorcerer to reply, Lalo realized that he himselfrecognized Enas Yorl, and that was very strange, for the essence of the cursethat tormented the sorcerer was that his form should never remain for long thesame. With a kind of horrified fascination, Lalo looked into the true face ofEnas Yorl.

He read there passions and evils at the limit of his comprehension, barelyconfined by lines of vision and tormented love. In that face all that was greatand terrible were joined in an eternal conflict that only the slow erosion ofhopeless years might ever hope to reconcile. And those years had already becomeso long. It was a face whose planes had been chiselled out by the relentlessblade of power, ground down again by a kind of patient, painful despair. At lasthe understood why Enas Yorl had refused to let Lalo paint his portrait. Hewondered which part of it the sorcerer feared most to see.

'Enas Yorl, I know you, but I don't know what I am, or why I am here!'

The sorcerer certainly saw him now, and he was laughing. 'You're not dead, ifthat's what was worrying you, and there's no stink of magic about you. Were youfevered, or did that mountain you are married to knock you senseless at last?'

Lalo sputtered, denying it, while he tried to remember. There was nothing - Iwas painting; I was alone, and -'