He raised his face at last and spoke very seriously. “Listen, Arha. I am a Mage, what you call a sorcerer. I have certain arts and powers. That's true. It's also true that here in the Place of the Old Powers, my strength is very little and my crafts don't avail me. Now I could work illusion for you, and show you all kinds of wonders. That's the least part of wizardry. I could work illusions when I was a child; I can do them even here. But if you believe them, they'll frighten you, and you may wish to kill me if fear makes you angry. And if you disbelieve them, you'll see them as only lies and foolery, as you say; and so I forfeit my life again. And my purpose and desire, at the moment, is to stay alive.”

That made her laugh, and she said, “Oh, you'll stay alive awhile, can't you see that? You are stupid! All right, show me these illusions. I know them to be false and won't be afraid of them. I wouldn't be afraid if they were real, as a matter of fact. But go ahead. Your precious skin is safe, for tonight, anyhow.”

At that he laughed, as she had a moment ago. They tossed his life back and forth between them like a ball, playing.

“What do you wish me to show you?”

“What can you show me?”

“Anything.”

“How you brag and brag!”

“No,” he said, evidently a little stung. “I do not. I didn't mean to, anyway.”

“Show me something you think worth seeing. Anything!”

He bent his head and looked at his hands awhile. Nothing happened. The tallow candle in her lantern burned dim and steady. The black pictures on the walls, the bird-winged, flightless figures with eyes painted dull red and white, loomed over him and over her. There was no sound. She sighed, disappointed and somehow grieved. He was weak; he talked great things, but did nothing. He was nothing but a good liar, and not even a good thief. “Well,” she said at last, and gathered her skirts together to rise. The wool rustled strangely as she moved. She looked down at herself, and stood up in startlement.

The heavy black she had worn for years was gone; her dress was of turquoise-colored silk, bright and soft as the evening sky. It belled out full from her hips, and all the skirt was embroidered with thin silver threads and seed pearls and tiny crumbs of crystal, so that it glittered softly, like rain in April.

She looked at the magician, speechless.

“Do you like it?”

“Where-”

“It's like a gown I saw a princess wear once, at the Feast of Sunreturn in the New Palace in Havnor,” he said, looking at it with satisfaction. “You told me to show you something worth seeing. I show you yourself.”

“Make it– make it go away.”

“You gave me your cloak,” he said as if in reproach. “Can I give you nothing? Well, don't worry. It's only illusion; see.”

He seemed not to raise a finger, certainly he said no word; but the blue splendor of silk was gone, and she stood in her own harsh black.

She stood still awhile.

“How do I know,” she said at last, “that you are what you seem to be?”

“You don't,” said he. “I don't know what I seem, to you.”

She brooded again. “You could trick me into seeing you as-” She broke off, for he had raised his hand and pointed upward, the briefest sketch of a gesture. She thought he was casting a spell, and drew back quickly towards the door; but following his gesture, her eyes found high in the dark arching roof the small square that was the spy hole from the treasury of the Twin Gods' temple.

There was no light from the spy hole; she could see nothing, hear no one overhead there; but he had pointed, and his questioning gaze was on her.

Both held perfectly still for some time.

“Your magic is mere folly for the eyes of children,” she said clearly. “It is trickery and lies. I have seen enough. You will be fed to the Nameless Ones. I shall not come again.”

She took her lantern and went out, and sent the iron bolts home firm and loud. Then she stopped there outside the door and stood dismayed. What must she do?

How much had Kossil seen or heard? What had they been saying? She could not remember. She never seemed to say what she had intended to say to the prisoner. He always confused her with his talk about dragons, and towers, and giving names to the Nameless, and wanting to stay alive, and being grateful for her cloak to lie on. He never said what he was supposed to say. She had not even asked him about the talisman, which she still wore, hidden against her breast.

That was just as well, since Kossil had been listening.

Well, what did it matter, what harm could Kossil do? Even as she asked herself the question she knew the answer. Nothing is easier to kill than a caged hawk. The man was helpless, chained there in the cage of stone. The Priestess of the Godking had only to send her servant Duby to throttle him tonight; or if she and Duby did not know the Labyrinth this far, all she need do was blow poison-dust down the spy hole into the Painted Room. She had boxes and phials of evil substances, some to poison food or water, some that drugged the air, and killed, if one breathed that air too long. And he would be dead in the morning, and it would all be over. There would never be a light beneath the Tombs again.

Arha hastened through the narrow ways of stone to the entrance from the Undertomb, where Manan waited for her, squatting patient as an old toad in the dark. He was uneasy about her visits to the prisoner. She would not let him come with her all the way, so they had settled on this compromise. Now she was glad that he was there at hand. Him, at least, she could trust.

“Manan, listen. You are to go to the Painted Room, right now. Say to the man that you're taking him to be buried alive beneath the Tombs.” Manan's little eyes lit up. “Say that aloud. Unlock the chain, and take him to-” She halted, for she had not yet decided where she could best hide the prisoner.

“To the Undertomb,” said Manan, eagerly.

“No, fool. I said to say that, not do it. Wait-”

What place was safe from Kossil and Kossil's spies? None but the deepest places underground, the holiest and most hidden places of the domain of the Nameless, where she dared not come. Yet would Kossil not dare almost anything? Afraid of the dark places she might be, but she was one who would subdue her fear to gain her ends. There was no telling how much of the plan of the Labyrinth she might actually have learned, from Thar, or from the Arha of the previous life, or even from secret explorations of her own in past yeas; Arha suspected her of knowing more than she pretended to know. But there was one way she surely could not have learned, the best-kept secret.

“You must bring the man where I lead you, and you must do it in the dark. Then when I bring you back here, you will dig a grave in the Undertomb, and make a coffin for it, and put it in the grave empty, and fill in the earth again, yet so that it can be felt and found if someone sought for it. A deep grave. Do you understand?”

“No,” said Manan, dour and fretful. “Little one, this trickery is not wise. It is not good. There should not be a man here! There will come a punishment-”

“An old fool will have his tongue cut out, yes! Do you dare tell me what is wise? I follow the orders of the Dark Powers. Follow me!”

“I'm sorry, little mistress, I'm sorry…”

They returned to the Painted Room. There she waited outside in the tunnel, while Manan entered and unlocked the chain from the hasp in the wall. She heard the deep voice ask, “Where now, Manan?” and the husky alto answer, sullenly, “You are to be buried alive, my mistress says. Under the Tombstones. Get up!” She heard the heavy chain crack like a whip.

The prisoner came out, his arms bound with Manan's leather belt. Manan came behind, holding him like a dog on a short leash, but the collar was around his waist and the leash was iron. His eyes turned to her, but she blew out her candle and without a word set off into the dark. She fell at once into the slow but fairly steady pace that she usually kept when she was not using a light in the Labyrinth, brushing her fingertips very lightly but almost constantly along the walls on either side. Manan and the prisoner followed behind, much more awkward because of the leash, shuffling and stumbling along. But in the dark they must go; for she did not want either of them to learn this way.