“Old man weak and now he stink bad,” Naru laughed.

Garth tried to nurse his drink along, his head swimming, wishing that he had control of one of the rare spells of curing drunkenness.

“Oh, but that bad trick you play on Naru.” The giant looked down into his drink and shook his head.

“Sorry, but if you remember, we were fighting at the time.”

Naru looked over at Garth and his eyes narrowed for a moment as if he was struggling to decide whether One-eye was a friend or not. His features finally relaxed.

“You beat Grand Master and return my spells. You still my friend.”

Garth nodded, having gone through this discussion more than a score of times in the last several hours. Naru started to pour another drink, looking at Garth sadly when he realized that his new friend was not keeping up.

“Too bad I’ll beat you at Festival.”

“Of course.”

“Naru hear people say Grand Master will declare final fights to be to death.”

Garth stirred and looked over at the giant.

“Where did you hear that?”

“Oh, Naru have friends. Grand Master do this more and more to make mob happy.”

“Why don’t you and the others refuse?”

“Can’t. Grand Master is Grand Master of Arena. When in arena can’t say no.”

“What about the House Masters?”

“Oh, they make good money from it, pay back of contracts, so they happy.”

Naru chuckled.

“Besides, Naru like breaking bones. Get many spells and mana from fallen, even though Grand Master keep part.”

The giant looked back at Garth and sighed.

“Too bad I must break your bones. I think I still like you.”

Naru raised his goblet to drain it, the movement setting off an inertia that kept the giant moving backward so that he fell off the back of his stool. He crashed to the floor, emitted a single belch, and passed out.

“One-eye.”

Startled, Garth turned to see Kirlen, the House Master of Bolk, standing in the doorway. The woman was bent over with age, hair long since gone from white to a sickly yellow, her wrinkled skin hanging loose on her face as if it had already lost hold upon the bones of her body. Her black robe clung to her slender frame as if she were a skeleton held up only by the staff she leaned against, holding it with both of her gnarled hands.

Garth slowly came to his feet and she motioned for him to follow her. Garth looked down at Hammen, who was sleeping alongside Naru, and realized that there was nothing he could do to rouse his friend. Moving carefully, so that he would not fall down, Garth stepped out into the corridor and walked behind Kirlen as she shuffled down the hallway and turned into her private quarters. The room was overly heated from a roaring fire and she went over to it, extending her hands and rubbing them. Garth looked around at the sparsely furnished quarters, which seemed almost like a monk’s cell, with nothing more than a cot and a desk piled high with books and scrolls. The four walls, however, were lined with bookcases crammed to overflowing. The room smelled musty, ancient, and somehow dangerous.

“Naru can be tedious, especially when he is drinking,” she said quietly.

“He’s interesting enough.”

“He’s an idiot. One of those rare savants who can barely empty the proverbial boot of its contents but somehow able to control the mana with remarkable ease. Someday soon he’ll get killed.” She pronounced her prediction with casual indifference.

She looked back at him and smiled, revealing a row of blackened stumps.

“I disgust you, don’t I?”

“No, my lady.”

”And suppose I asked you to share my bed?” she inquired, pointing to the narrow cot and cackling softly.

Garth said nothing.

“No, the Benalish woman, or Varena of Fentesk, with her golden red hair, now that would be different.”

She turned away for a moment and he almost felt a sense of pity for the flash of pain in her eyes.

“If you have the power I think you have, why don’t you rejuvenate yourself?” Garth asked.

She laughed, her voice breaking into a sigh.

“Ah, then I would have you, wouldn’t I?”

“That is not the question I asked,” Garth replied.

“Do you know how old I am?”

“I’ve heard rumors, my lady.”

“I lost count of the rejuvenations centuries ago. I lost count of the spells, the potions, the amulets that I burned upon dark altars. Each time I was made young again, but inside, inside one can be young but once. Youth is innocence on the inside as well as on the outside. No matter what spells I use, that innocence comes but once in a lifetime for all of us.

“Each time you turn back the hourglass you never quite gain back what you had, you lose a day, a week, a month. There are limits to the powers of this plane and I reached them long ago. Oh, I can live on for centuries yet to come, but only the Walker can grant me back my beauty and my passions.”

She paused for a long moment, looking into the fire. “Or by being a Walker myself.”

“And he will not grant it, and would most definitely block you from becoming one.”

She looked back at him, her eyes filled with a cold rage.

“You know, there was a time, a time so long ago I can barely remember it, when Kuthuman the Walker and I were lovers. How he praised my beauty then, how he pledged eternal fidelity to me.”

She cackled and then spit into the fire.

“And then he turned away as I grew older and could not reclaim my charms. He forgot such things and became consumed instead with other passions. To pierce the veil, that was all he desired.”

“He promised to take you with him, didn’t he?”

“How did you know that?”

“I’ve heard rumors.”

She stirred angrily.

“Who? Who says these things?”

“The Grand Master has it whispered about by his agents,” Garth replied softly.

“Damn him forever.” She poked the fire with her staff so that a sparkling swirl of flames soared up the chimney.

“So he forgot you in his moment of triumph, didn’t he?”

The old woman looked back at Garth as if he had spoken too much, bringing into words the humiliation of her heart.

“I helped him, you know, I helped him down through so many long years.” She pointed to the bookcases and the piles of dusty scrolls. “It was I who learned the paths and the spells, and the incantations to bridge the planes.”

“So why don’t you go yourself?”

“The mana. It is the mana which gives one the power to control magic in this plane. It is the mana as well which has the power to open the doorway into other realms when one knows the hidden path. I knew the path, but it was he who controlled the mana.

“He tricked me. On the Night of Fire he betrayed me as well.”

“The Night of Fire?”

“When Zarel stormed the House of Turquoise, murdering their Master and stealing their trove of mana. I was betrayed as well.”

Garth said nothing, his features calm.

“That means something to you, doesn’t it?’ “I heard the stories,” Garth replied.

Kirlen smiled.

“Yes, I helped him. I agreed not to object, not to rally to the side of Turquoise in return for the door to be opened for me as well.

“The following morning he was gone and Zarel was the new Grand Master.”

“Why did he betray you?”

Kirlen laughed coldly.

“Why not? The gateway to limitless worlds was now open. And with it the power to take anything he desired. Even now he strides the universe, conquering, stealing, pleasuring himself. What need had he of an old hag whom he had once loved when they were both young. He can have anyone now and love is nothing but a hindrance.”

She looked back into the fire.

“I learned that long ago, One-eye.” She turned and looked over at him and then hobbled across the floor, drawing closer so that her fetid breath washed over Garth.

“This is the final face of love,” she hissed. “This is the final face of loyalty, of honor, of glory, of vengeance, of all that is living. It is this,” she said, and, laughing, she pointed to her sagging folds of flesh, yellowed hair, and toothless mouth.