My words to the Winds, I prayed as I flew, let my speaking be true.

The guards' cabin was changed beyond all recognition. More than anything else it reminded me of that hidden room in my first Merchant House in Mara, when Berys and I made the Farseer that was the cause of all my pain.

I had trebled the guard, and all six had strict instructions to let none nearer than thirty paces, including themselves. My own cabin was more than fifty paces distant, and I could only hope it would remain free of the taint of our activities. Such things make it hard to sleep.

As for ourselves—Caderan had spent all the hours since dawn placing wards and other things in readiness, in and about the cabin and the grounds. Since the girl had Farspeech, we would be in danger as long as she was awake, until the dedication was complete. His preparations were exhaustive. The girl herself sat slumped in a chair and chained to the wail, as she had been all day. The Rikti who guarded her perched on her knee, alert, and whenever she struggled to consciousness Caderan spelled her asleep again.

On his advice I wore the Ring of Seven Circles.

He had provided a small wooden altar—no more than a table, really, but in the last few days he had carved things deep into the wood. I recognised the seven circles of the Hells, but outside the largest circle there were sigils I had never seen before. When I looked at them, they seemed almost to move— but that might have been the candlelight. On the floor around the altar were scriven in chalk seven more circles, to keep the demon bound.

On the altar were seven candles, all short, stubby things, placed evenly outside the carvings. A cup I recognised from earlier in the day, when he had drawn my blood into it, lay in one corner, along with a wand and a large bowl full of choicest lansip leaves. In the center a round brazier sat piled high with coals. I was surprised that they were yet black and cold, but at a word and a gesture from Caderan they lit themselves. In moments they glowed deep red, like so many malevolent eyes gazing out at us. "The sun is well gone, night approaches," he said.

"Let us begin."

He reached into a pouch at his waist and threw something on the coals. I was amazed to smell lansip burning. For just an instant the place was filled with rare perfume, the very touch of bliss—but at a word from Caderan the smell went instantly rancid. He laughed. "So eager they are for lansip," he said, and his voice shocked me. From its usual high nasal register it had sunk, now far deeper, into a rough and powerful range. It seemed almost to echo in that small room.

Now he began to chant, low and soft, his voice steady. All the while he sang he gestured in air with his hands, drawing out symbols (I recognised one or two of the strange carvings from the altar), making passes over the candles each one in turn. At first I thought it my imagination, but it soon became obvious mat the room was in truth filling with a foglike haze. The very air was thicker, crowded almost. It was hard to breathe.

It was also, obviously, hard to concentrate. Caderan's voice went more slowly now, the syllables (which I had heard him rehearsing by the hour for days) taking more and more effort to pronounce. His tongue stumbled now and then, and each stumble was greeted by a flare of flame from the brazier as if some intelligence waited there for him to falter. The last words were preceded by long pauses, but when they left his lips they were whole, and when the last was pronounced he drew a deep breath of satisfaction. From the altar he took up the wand and couched it to each of the sigils in turn.

''Come, Dark One, thou art summoned. Lord of the Third Hell of the Rakshasa, I call upon thee—by circle, by sigil, by offering, thou art compelled. I charge thee by my power, I charge thee by these sigils, I charge thee by this offering of blood—" Here he poured the dark liquid from the small cup into the coals, setting off a hissing and a stench. "—and of lansip—" Here he emptied the large bowl into the brazier. "—come to this place. By my own power I summon thee, by the power of Malior, Magister of the Sixth Circle, I summon thee, and to bring and to bind thee I call thee by name."

The name sounded to me like a string of grunts and clicks and curses, but there was no mistaking it for anything but a demon name. Caderan had warned me and I had fasted now for a full day, so that when the sound of it made me heave naught escaped me but a little bile, that I caught in a cloth. Even I know it is unwise to leave such personal essences in the presence of demons.

When I looked up I saw that the thick air had begun to congeal above the altar. It outlined limbs surprisingly fair and well made, though the shape of the head made me reach again for my cloth. As it grew more solid it appeared to be the torso and upper limbs of a comely man, though the skin was deep red streaked with black, but above sat the head of a nightmare. It had far too many eyes and mouths, scattered it seemed at random about the many disparate lumps that made up what sat on its thick neck. When it spoke its breath was the stench of rotting meat, and its voice was flat as death.

"Behold, fools, I am come," it said. "None may summon the Lord of the Third Hell and live. Die in agony." And with those words the mouth nearest Caderan grew ten times its size, ringed with teeth like daggers, and reached for him.

Without a word Caderan leaned back, and the Raksha (to my shock) found itself unable to pass the carven circles that surrounded the brazier. Its attack was arrested as though it had hit a wall, though naught but air blocked its way. It screamed. a gut-wrenching scream, and pounded at the barrier, to no avail.

"You waste my time," said Caderan calmly. "Behold, dread lord, you are bound and summoned. You have no choice."

Its yells cut off instantly, as if they had never been. "And what is so worth your life that you summon me thus, puny mortal?" it asked in the same flat tones it had used before.

"Behold, lord," said Caderan, gesturing at me. I went to the wall and unlocked the chains that bound the girl. I put one of her arms about my neck and lifted her, carrying her like a bride to stand before the demon. "This is Marik of Gundar's blood and bone, a pact made and an offering sealed when this one was in the womb. We come to make payment for the Farseer, that Marik's pain may cease."

"Let her speak her dedication," the thing said.

"The offering resists. I would have you dedicate her."

''Wake her then, fool. She must have a will for that will to be taken."

I let her down, let her feet touch the floor and whispered her name softly.

"Lanen. Lanen, wake up."

I shame to admit such weakness, but in that moment I hesitated. She was so near, so young and strong—my daughter, my only child, my blood and bone ...

And then the pain the demons had cursed me with, the pain that has followed me since her birth, stabbed through me in a great spasm, and I was myself again.

I felt her take her own weight and stand on her own feet. She put her hands to her face and rubbed her eyes. "Where am I?" she said groggily. Then she looked up, and in that instant knew all.

"NO!" she screamed with all her might, and strove to throw me off.

I might as well have wrestled with a Dragon. Marik was proof now against my strength, and I felt in his wiry frame strength the equal of my own. I could do no more—

true speech, I desire nothing but true speech

''AKOR! SAVE ME!'' I screamed, in truespeech, aloud, with every fibre of my being. My voice was pitched so high it frightened me.

There was an instant of silence, in which Caderan laughed and the creature before me reached out, but in the next moment all sound was swallowed up in a vast roar.