He had even died once and, a little late, been resurrected. It remained to be seen how much the Dark Lady had claimed of him.

An eyelid, a finger, a calf muscle, twitched. His naked flesh became covered with goose bumps.

His chest heaved. Air rushed in, wheezed out. Dust flew. Minutes passed. The old man drew another breath.

One eye opened, roved the room.

Now a hand moved, creeping like an arthritic spider. It tumbled a glass vial from the throne's arm. The tinkle of breakage was a crash in a chamber that had known silence for years.

Ruby clouds billowed, obscuring half the room. The old man breathed deeply. Life coursed through his immobile limbs. It was a more powerful draft than ever he had wakened to before, but never before had he been so near death.

He heaved himself upright, tottered to a cabinet where his witch tools were stored. He seized a container, drained it of a bitter liquid.

He operated almost by instinct. No real thoughts roiled his ancient mind. Perhaps none ever would. Lady Death had held him close.

The liquid refreshed him. In minutes he had almost normal strength.

He abandoned the room, descended a spiral stair to the castle proper. There he drew waiting, ready food from a spell-sealed oven and ate ravenously. He then carried a platter up to the tower chamber.

Still no real thoughts disturbed his mind.

He went to a wall mirror. With sepulchral words and mystic gestures he brought it to life.

A picture formed. It showed falling snow. He placed a chair and small table before it. He sat, nibbled from his tray, and watched. Occasionally, he mumbled. The eye of the mirror roamed the world. He saw some things here, some there. Like a navigator taking starshots he eventually got enough references to fix his position in time. Bewilderment creased his brow. It had been a short sleep. Little more than a decade. What had happened to necessitate his return?

Thoughts were forming now, though most were vagaries, trains of reasoning never completed. The Dark Lady had indeed held him too tightly.

Much of what he had lost could be called will and volition. Knowledge and habit remained. He would be a useful tool in skilled hands.

The hours ground away. He began uncovering events of interest. Something mysterious was happening at the headquar-ters of the Mercenaries' Guild, where soldiers ran hither and yon, parodying an overturned anthill. Smoke billowed and drifted out to sea. Curious debates were underway at the Royal Palace in Itaskia, and in the Lesser Kingdoms princes were gathering troops. The tiny state called Kavelin was a-hum.

Something was afoot.

A footfall startled him. He turned. A tall, massive man in heavy armor, in his middle twenties apparently, dark of hairand eye, met his gaze. "I am Badalamen. You are to come with me."

The absolute confidence of the man was such that the old man--his only name, that he could remember, was The Old Man of the Mountain-rose. He took three steps before balking. Then, slowly, he turned to his sorcery cabinet.

The warrior looked puzzled, as if no human had ever failed to respond to his commands.

He had been born to command, bred to command, trained from birth to command. His creator-father, Magden Norath, Master of the Laboratories of Ehelebe and second in the Pracchia, had designed him to be unresistible when he issuedorders.

His amazement lasted but a moment. He revealed the token Norath had given him. "I speak for he who gave me this."

That medallion changed the Old Man. Radically. He became docile, obedient, began packing an old canvas bag.

There was an island in the east. It was a half-mile long and two hundred yards at its widest, and lay a mile off the easternmost coast. It was rugged and barren. An ancient fortress, erected in stages over centuries, rambled down its stegosaurian spine. The coast to the west was lifeless.

It had been built during the Nawami Crusades, which had broken upon these shores before Shinsan had been a dream.

This land and its ancient wars were unknown in the west. Even the people of the so-called far east were ignorant of its existence. A band of lifeless desert a hundred miles wide scarred that whole coast.

No one remembered. There were few written histories. But the Crusades had been bitter, enduring wars.

The great ones always were. The man who orchestrated them made certain....

The born soldier led the Old Man from the transfer portal toaroom where a man in a grey smock leaned over a vast drawing table, sketching by candlelight. Badalamen departed. The man on the stool faced the Old Man.

This was the widest man he had ever seen. And tall. His head was bald, but he had long mustachios and a pointed chin beard. His facial hair and eyes were dark. There was a hint of the oriental to his features, yet his skin was so colorless veins showed through. Dark lines lurked at the corners of his eyes and mouth, and lay across his forehead like a corduroy road. His head was blockish. He was a gorilla of a man. He could intimidate anyone by sheer bulk.

The Old Man wasn't dismayed. He. had seen many men, including some who had exuded more presence than this one.

"Hello." Any other visitor might have snickered. The man's high, squeaky voice was too at odds with his physique.

There was a scar across his throat from an attempt on his life.

"I'm Magden Norath." He flashed the medallion Badalamen had shown before. "Come." He led the Old Man to the battlements.

The Old Man began remembering. The near past was gone, but, like a senile woman reliving her childhood, he had no trouble recalling remote details. He had been a player in the drama of the Crusades.

"It's changed," he said. "It's old."

Norath was startled. "You've been here before?"

"With Nahamen the Odite. The High Priestess of Reth."

Norath was puzzled. He had been led to believe that no one knew who had built the fortress.

He knew nothing about it himself, nor did he care. He saw it only as a refuge where he could continue the researches that had caused him to be driven from his homeland, Escalon, a decade before it fell to Shinsan.

"There is no need, then, to explain where we are."

"K'Mar Khevi-tan. It means The Stronghold on Khevi Island.'"

Norath eyed him speculatively. "Yes. So. It's that for the Pracchia." A smile bruised his lips. "If Ehelebe has a homeland, this is it. Come. The others have arrived by now."

"Others?"

"The Pracchia. The High Nine."

Enfeebled though his mind was, the Old Man didn't like what he saw.

They had gathered, sure enough, and most wore disguises. Even the bent man, whom he recognized instantly.

Only Badalamen and Norath didn't hide. They had no need.

Norath was the creative genius of the society. Beside Badalamen, he had filled the fortress with the products of other experiments. Most had to be caged.

There was a Tervola in a golden mask. A woman of middle-eastern origins. A masked man clothed as a don of the Rebsamen. A masked general from High Crag, Two more, whose origins the Old Man couldn't place. And one empty seat.

"Our brother couldn't join us," said the small man. "He couldn't leave his bed. It behooves us to consider replacements. He has cancer of the blood. No one survives that--though he whom I have summoned, had he his whole mind, might have arrested it. Sit, my friend."

The Old Man took the empty chair.

The Tervola spoke. "Question. How do we deal with this monster created by Varthlokkur? It betrays our agentseverywhere."

Others agreed. The Mercenary added, "It's demoralized th working Nines. We're on the run. Our people are cowering in the Hidden Places to escape the Unborn. In Kavelin it merely collected them. Now that it haunts the entire west, it's killing. Cruelly. It's kept us from moving for weeks. I've lost touch with what's going on in Ravelin. Maybe our brother from Shinsan, with his sight, has seen,"