There were serpents crawling about on the stones farther on, a pool of fire, and an impassable broken area with the guts of the mountain yawning under it miles below. All these elegant illusions I trampled over, without even a bow to them for their ingenuity and the accuracy of the portrayal. Though, when an eagle shot down from a tower straight for my eyes, I own I ducked. Then I remarked, as I dissolved the beating pinions and the rending beak in midair, “A single hit for you, my children.”

  Midway along the road, a lion padded from one of the palace porches, a snow lion with a gray mossy body and

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  black mane and eyes like summer heat stored up in him against the cold. He was real, a genuine inhabitant of this locus, though probably some whimsical import of the Lost Race rather than native to the western lands. After a century or two of roaming in a changeable climate he had developed a winter coat, like any fox or weasel.

  It was odd for me to confront him. I had no need of his flesh to feed me or his pelt to clothe me, and no need to beware his moods. Any attack of his would slide harmless from my invisible armor and he go toppling all the valiant, lean length of him. In my krarl youth I would have counted him a prize, hunted him with skill and hot excitement, to prove myself his better, driving my spear or knife into his brain, wearing his hide on mine. Now, needs, defenses, contests no longer meaningful, I took the time to run my eye over him, liking him for what he was in himself, rather than what he could be to me.

  His tail went this way and that, his nostrils and his glands telling him I was neither enemy nor easy prey. But as I drew level, he put his forefoot out in my path, as if to stay me. I turned and met his gaze and he moved the foot aside. It looked weighty enough to have staved in a man’s skull, but the claws were scarcely visible. He lay down like a huge cat. Somewhere there would be a lioness, and his sons and daughters, the pride.

  He reclined by the road and stared after me a minute, then I glanced over my shoulder and he was gone. There were no further illusions or beasts. The last palace loomed on my horizon. The pillars were circled with brazen bands and as I got closer I saw a rose tree growing in a bowl of earth before the steps, and it was in bloom, crimson flowers and dark green thorn daggers out of time, like the orange fruits and blossom in that room where I had lain with Ressaven.

  Ressaven, who fled me in terror of the sorceress, who thought me so feeble in Power I could not protect her from one bitch’s wrath.

  Well, we would find out, the three of us. There were three others first. I had not seen them for a moment on the steps. That white on white, marble, flesh, hair, and white velvet garments. But I caught the sudden glint of swords.

  Mazlek was the nearest, my guide to Kainium, who had crossed over the wide river with his hand on my shoulder.

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  Two others behind, a young man about eighteen and a girl in male tunic, trousers, and boots, and with a man’s sword ready, competent as a man. A white kitten had climbed into the bowl of earth and began to nibble at the roses, waking my memory. This girl was she I had met in the old city, the kitten on her shoulder. She seemed as calm now, and she called to me, “Go back, Zervarn. Was the lion in your way not presage enough for you?”

  Mazlek moved down the steps onto the paving. He held the sword negligently, and said, “The blade is only a symbol. But we will use whatever we must to drive you off, Denarl, Sollor and I.”

  “Of course,” I said. “You are the goddess’s guard.”

  “Oh,” he said, “self-elected, I confess. She has no actual requirement for us, but it was a fashion among us since we were very young-as we adopted the fashion of the jade in the forehead from her, which in turn the younger chicks of the brood copy from us. How else could we show we honored a goddess who refused to be honored? To mimic her guard seemed good to us, to offer ourselves as a weapon, however flimsy. And we have named ourselves from three captains of Ezlann who once served her, the older versions of their names, as her own people would have used them.”

  “Was one of that guard also a woman?”

  “No, to be sure. But Sollor, trust my word, is our equal. Don’t underrate her.”

  I said, “I could kill the three of you in three seconds.”

  He raised his brows. “It would take you so long?”

  “You have a nice humor,” I said. “Live to enjoy it. Get from my path.”

  But the girl Sollor called again, “Kill us, then. Do it now.”

  She was beautiful. Not as Ressaven was beautiful, but enough. I recollected how, staring at this face in the ruined city, I had not supposed I should see one lovelier.

  I did not want to slay or harm them. They knew it.

  Mazlek said, “We are only symbols, like these swords of ours, like the lion. Suffice it to say, Karrakaz begs you to return from here. To leave her in peace. And yourself.”

  “Begs me? That’s a new song, I have not heard it before. Karrakaz begs, the sorceress, the goddess-Javhetrix. On her knees, perhaps. Let her come out and kneel to me, then, where I can watch her do it, and be sure.”

  A blue cloud had lifted itself over the mountain, raising an awning of shadow above the street.

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  I went toward Mazlek, and abruptly his sword swung up and a lightning burst from its tip. There was a ripping of the air about me as the white vein struck on that psychic shield of mine, which now I did not even have to bother with but which answered for me instantly.

  Mazlek leaped back, his sword slashing bright arcs of metal and energy. He did not aim another cut at me, nor look afraid, nor even amazed. He had known he could not match me, which made this foolhardy barricade an idiotic puzzle.

  I understood I should not get by him, however, while he was upright, nor by the other two. Even the maid had devilry ready; I could see it in the flex of her wrist and her intent mouth. I was not obliged to butcher them, merely quell.

  I sent a shaft at Mazlek that spun him about and dropped him on his back. Dual bars of light sprang from the other two, but I set them aside, and laid the protagonists down. The kitten looked up from its feast of rose petals to spit at me, but the girl Sollor had suffered no great hurt. All three appeared sleeping rather than fallen warriors. Then I imagined I had her reasoning, the reasoning of the witch. She had sent them to test me, how vast my grievance should be. That I had incapacitated but not slain would reassure her. Wrong-

  ly.

  I raised my eyes, and there on the steps above me was Ressaven.

  She wore male garb, like the kitten girl, but of black wool, and there was no blade in her hand.

  She regarded me steadily, as if there had never been a word, let alone a coupling, between us.

  “Only I separate you and Karrakaz now,” she said.

  “A dangerous separation,” I said. I did not accept her stance; it was too exact. She remembers everything, I thought, and to spare.

  “No,” she said. “I am here to prevent you, and I mean to do it. I am more gifted than the others.”

  “How she values you, that stinking hag,” I said, “to send you out against me.”

  For that last instant she was my Ressaven. Then she blazed up like a candle. The fire of the Power left her like a flight of burning birds. It burst through my shield, and hit me.

  I had not expected this strength from her, despite her trick, despite the very appearance of her, which might have warned me.

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  The blow was enough to stagger me, and the atmosphere crackled from the charge. Swiftly the thought went through my head that the lady meant business, and that she might master me if I did not settle her first. But I did not like to strike back at her. Though neither she nor I, the descendants of Karrakaz, could receive death, and each must be aware of that.

  A second fire sizzled from her; I blocked it as best I could, and sent my own bolt flying, running after it up the staircase toward her. As her Power impaired mine, mine must lessen hers. The daylight seemed to detonate about her. That she felt the impact I never doubted, and in its aftermath I seized her and held her pinned against me. Though her psychic force rivaled my own, physically she was not at all my match. I searched her eyes, in which the Power flicked and surged.

  “Ressaven,” I said. “Know me, Ressaven. Cease fighting me.”

  “And you, cease fighting me,” she answered, her voice the coldest thing I ever heard, and the most desolate.

  “You could not kill me,” I said, “nor I kill you. Even if both of us willed it. And would you see me dead, even for an hour, and rejoice? Do it, then.”

  “As you say, I could not. But I ask you-“

  “I will go up to her,” I said, “and no threat or plea of yours will stop me.”

  She smiled and said, as one other woman once said to me, “I am so little to you.”

  “You are world’s end to me, and the heart of my life. But this has been before me since I was begun in her womb.”

  She eased herself from me.

  “There is the door, then,” she said to me. “If I cannot keep you from it, I cannot.”

  I turned from her and stared up the steps to the wide-open porch under the pillars. Her resistance had seeped suddenly from her as occasionally it will in any hard battle where the cause is already lost. I thought no more of it.

  I had not lied; I loved her and had determined to have her, but for now, only that stairway and that door had meaning. The slow thudding in my side reminded me of disquiet, and the ice of the winter had pierced through into my vitals.

  “Ressaven,” I said, though I recall I did not look at her, only at the door ahead of me. “If there is anything in this

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  you must forgive me for, I hope you will forgive me. And have faith in me, too.”

  She did not reply, and I did not glance again at her, but went up the stairs in long strides to keep pace with the pounding in my chest, beneath the porch and through the portal.

  The discarded whimperings and sweats of childhood and the sick fears of a man had found me out. I swam through a heavy sea of horror, but nothing could push me from it.

  The hall was lofty, sculptured with gloom. I grasped not much of it, its size or shape or furnishing. Only one rich chair of ivory and jade, placed to confront any who dragged himself through that door as I had done.

  I stopped and faced the chair, and ached with my fear to the roots of my bones and the beds of my teeth, like a whipped boy of three or four who is hauled to the priest of the tribe for a further striping. Then everything went from me, and there was just a blank immobility and a silence in me, like death.

  For sitting in the ivory seat, veiled and unmoving and as immediate as the ground, or the air, or my own future, was the sorceress. Was Karrakaz, my mother.

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  I could not make out her face.

  I had come this far and through this much, and yet I could not see her.

  I stood there, stuck to the spot, and gaped at what I could not see. She spoke to me.

  “A last favor, Zervarn. Come no closer.”

  “I owe you no favor,” I said. I swallowed and got it out, “No favor, my mother.”

  Her voice was like a mist. It floated about in my head rather than in the room, where my own rang and roused echoes.

  “What do you want from me?” she said.

  I laughed, or I believe I did, some stupid noise that meant nothing.

  “Yes, I suppose I must want something, or I should not be

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  here. Are you alarmed, Mother, to find me here? Your son you imagined safely stowed in the northlands, in the tent of Ettook.”

  “You wanted at one time to kill me,” she said, “but you have become aware, I would hazard, that you cannot kill me. What else is there? There is no love between us, no claim.”

  All true. I could not kill her, could not avenge my father, no longer meant to try. What questions could I ask her that she would not turn aside with lies? What could I demand from her even? I had grown into my Power, and wealth and kingship I could take, as Ressaven had said. And for Ressaven, I could attempt to make her go with me, and if she would not both of us would lose some part of ourselves, but I could not force her after all. She was not a woman I could simply take. She was as much as I. Thus, in the end, what did I want here before the witch-goddess? Yet I did not turn about to leave.

  “I request you to tell me,” I said, “what passed between you and my father. I would get it clear, you understand.”

  “I am willing to show you, in your mind, what passed between Vazkor and Karrakaz. But you will not credit what I show you as being accurate.”

  “Probably not. But do it. I can judge you, lady; even the falsehoods will reveal events to me you strive to hide.”

  I knew it meant I must let her further in my brain, but that, of all things, did not trouble me, nor the contact seem distasteful. Let her come in and observe how cunning the apartment was, the glints and fires of a magician’s cleverness, that could withstand her, now that I was ready and alert. Let her notice I had done well without her.

  She came there. She gave me her history, her time with Vazkor, which had not been long, not even a year, although she bore the scar of it, his cicatrix that he had scored in her emotions as he marked it on the bodies of others.

  Despite my own reassessment, it was bitter for me to face the actuality of Vazkor. Most surely not my god or guide. The antithesis of myself. No fervor in him, no greed for life, only his ruthless craving to possess, which took no pleasure in possession. He would have mocked my method of existence; he would have warped me from myself if he could. She did not lie to me, I grasped that in an instant. It was full of the turmoil of her woman’s pain, that story, and its rawness proved its authenticity. Yet, he was a man, an emperor, a mage. His genius stirred me then, and to this hour. I wish I

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  could go back across the years to him to find him out. I pity him, my father, who began me in a single spasm of calculated sex. I pity and I revere him.

  He had risen from obscurity, the Black Wolf of Ezlann, some city noble’s bastard got on a girl of the Dark People, and inveigled his way into the proud ranks of the Gold Masks by means of treachery, violence, and sorcery. He was a magician, self-taught, and he meant to build an empire worthy of his stature. He removed what came in his path. When Karrakaz came there, he used her to create a goddess figurehead, the curtain that concealed his power-lust and made it possible. He taught her misery, cynicism, and hubris. She would have given him her service from love, if he had asked it, but he left her at length no option but dislike. He had scourged her spirit in his efforts to crush her ego. At the end he had destroyed any of humankind who were dear to her, not to influence her then, but merely because it was expedient. All cloth must be cut to his fit. Me, he put in her like a beast in a stall, both to chain her and to ensure his kingdom. When she would be a warrior he reduced her to a womb, and when she would be a lover he showed her she was a garment hung on the wall for his occasional wearing. Some women are such things, but not Karrakaz. He overreached himself with her, as in all else. Presently his luck turned, his empire tottered, his armies deserted him and the jackals howled about his stronghold. Then came a day when he dealt one final blow to her she would not brook. In her desperation, she found she could outmatch him. Thus, she killed him with Power, as sometime one with Power must have done, as I should have, I believe, if I had lived as his son and he had set such lashes on me as he set on every other. Yes, I should have slain Vazkor, as I had slain Ettook. Indeed, I should have hated Vazkor with a hatred beyond any hate I ever experienced. If she had bowed herself beneath such a yoke as his forever, she could not have been the vessel that fashioned me.

  Her magic left her at his death; she did not think she would regain it. She bore me in the tent on Snake’s Road, glad to be rid of the last fetter of Vazkor. But she had no enduring gladness; her demons belled at her heels. She had nothing to give any other, even if she had wanted me. So I was her gift to Tathra, which saved my mother (I cannot call her otherwise) from disgrace, ousting, perhaps, a blacker wage. I had been the sword that kept off Ettook’s injustice

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  from Tathra for nineteen years. Only her gods know if there was any joy in them for her, but I will hope that there was. She would not have had them if she had not been given the status of a living son.

  When I raised my head, my eyes burning and my mind tender from the beating it had got, there was a desert in me, as if the cities of my character had crumbled. For the truths I had sketched for myself so glibly were riveted now upon the wall.

  “My thanks for your account,” I said to the veiled figure who sat quiet as a stone before me. “I will decide some other day how I am to swallow it. But I admit that if you have wronged me, you also have been wronged. There is an emptiness between us, lady. That is the sum of it.”