Nepanthe screamed.

Mocker turned to see what new factor had to be considered.

An old man, surely the fabled Old Man of the Mountain, stood just within the door. He seemed stricken. Behind him stood someone else, clad all in black and cowled so deeply that his face remained invisible.

"Yo Hsi," Varthlokkur gasped. "You're a bit earlier than we expected."

The dark one jerked slightly, as if startled.

Mocker was startled. That name-like an ill wind, long ago, he had heard it come whispering down from the borderland mountains above Matayanga, wrapped in tales of horror and evil. It was the name of one of the Princes Thaumaturge, one of the two dread lords of Shinsan.

So this was why Varthlokkur had been unconcerned with his own approach. A small fish indeed was he beside this grim destroyer. Could Bragi and Haroun have possibly hired?... But no. Yo Hsi mastered half an empire. He would be no man's hireling. There must be a depth to recent events that he had never suspected. He glanced at Varthlokkur's complex magical construct. Was that elegant device fated to play a part in this drama?

"The curse of the Golmune pollutes even its bastard blood," said Yo Hsi. His laughter filled the room.

The Golmune had been the ruling family of llkazar.

"What?" Varthlokkur demanded. He was weakening.

Mocker examined faces quickly. Nepanthe's eyes still sought his own, pleadingly. Varthlokkur stared at Yo Hsi, obviously more distressed by the easterner's presence than by his own approaching death.

The Old Man stood still as stone, expression agonized. But his stillness wasn't the uncanny frozennness of the servants below. His eyes remained in motion. To him Yo Hsi was an enigma, an unfathomable black hole in the fabric of the situation. His would be the direction to strike. Mocker was but a man with a sword.

"Vilis slew his father, Valis, by poison, for the crown, as ever it had been with the Imperial succession. Vilis took a mistress. On her he fathered a son she called Ethrian, after the philosopher. A time came when Imperial political pressures made disavowal of the son necessary. The mistress had become a liability in other affairs. Conveniently, a witchcraft charge was tendered by an intimate of the King."

"No!" Varthlokkur gasped. And yet, from his expression, Mocker saw that he wasn't surprised. There was nothing sudden about the guilt in the wizard's face.

"The woman was burned. Her possessions reverted to the Crown. The son disappeared. Years later he reappeared, to waste llkazar, to destroy his father in the family tradition. I was pleased." Yo Hsi laughed that evil laughter.

"Later, there came another Ethrian, born of a serving woman but with the Imperial blood, who was spirited off in revenge by a castle fool, under my protection. In time the child became a wanderer, a thief, an actor."

Mocker's gaze locked with Varthlokkur's. Not possible, he thought. Yet, if the wizard had suspected even a little, some of his strange reluctances would be answered.

"Tonight the father again dies by the hand of the son."

"Why?" The Old Man spoke for the first time.

"The curse of Sebil el Selib. And even now the woman carries in her womb the son that will be the death of this one." Laughter.

Nepanthe whimpered, looked to her husband, nodded slightly. She might indeed. She thought that she had conceived that wedding night on the Candareen.

"Not that," snapped the Old Man, his normal testiness returning. "Why are you here? Why have you, for centuries, fed false divinations to my friend?"

"You know that, do you?" Yo Hsi didn't seem pleased.

"Yes. An answer, if you please. You've offered nothing but nonsense and laughter since appearing." He didn't believe this encounter to be part of the Director's plan. The scripts had never thrust him into such deadly peril.

"A game? An old contest. A war, a struggle." Yo Hsi gestured sweepingly. For a moment the Old Man was puzzled. Then he identified the wrongness. The Prince Thaumaturge, called the Demon Prince in his home domain, was missing a hand. "My brother and I have been using the West as a board on which to play for mastery of Shinsan," said Yo Hsi. "Warfareandthaumaturgicdispute have proven pointless on our home grounds. We're too evenly matched. Yet one of us must be master. An empire divided against itself can't grow. The way to shift the balance of power may exist somewhere out here, where there're so many unknowns and unpredictables. Here one of us migh: find the knowledge or weapon to seize the day. So here we do battle, each to grab first or to deny the other.

"Varthlokkur was once my agent, once my most important tool, for which I made him powerful. My Tervola trained him well. He began his service elegantly, by shattering the single power capable of keeping Nu Li Hsi and myself from using the West-the wizards of Ilkazar. And he demolished the Empire itself, a state with such iron control that nothing could be accomplished here while it endured. But he stopped with that. He ceased returning knowledge to me. Eventually, he hid himself here. I sent divinations meant to get him back in harness, but Nu Li Hsi interfered, subtly twisting them to his own ends. Varthlokkur continued to do nothing. In time 1 became angry. My Tervola have advised me to come west myself, to punish him for not fulfilling the contract he made with me. I have come, though, too late. Centuries too late. I see that Varthlokkur had forgotten that contract till just now."

"I cheated you," Varthlokkur gasped. "As you would've cheated me. I made that bargain knowing Nu Li Hsi would cleanse from my mind anything that didn't suit him. And now I've cheated you again," he declared, his words scarcely audible. "You destroyed my soul in Shinsan. Your machinations have robbed me of love, cursed me with the hatred of an unknown son, and killed me. But I've done the impossible. I've repaid my debt to Ilkazar. I've defied Yo Hsi, and won. Nu Li Hsi has won, and thus I fulfill one promise made in Shinsan, to the lesser of a pair of evils." He laughed weakly. "His Tervola taught me too, Yo Hsi."

"You're wrong," the easterner replied, but with little of his earlier certitude. "I win. I've found my victory. In this old man lies knowledge forgotten by all but himself and the Star Rider. Knowledge the like of which you can't even imagine. From him I will milk the weapons of a new, invincible arsenal." To the Old Man, "I've found you out. I know what you are. From now on you have a new master."

With a croaking chuckle, Varthlokkur died. His face seemed beatific. In his own mind, at least, he had redeemed himself.

Still stunned by the revelation of his paternity, Mocker stared down at that man younger than he, whose head lay cradled in Nepanthe's naked lap. Her eyes still pleaded forgiveness. His anger and hatred surged up again, but now they were directed elsewhere. In a fluid, lightning motion he threw himself at Yo Hsi. For an instant he saw startled, cadaverous features within the sorcerer's cowl- then something seized him, hurled him aside, turned him round, round, round. Colors whirled, mixed. He struck confusedly. A scream was his reward. He laughed insanely, was joined by Yo Hsi in his laughter.

Sense returned and, in horror, he stared down at the tiny line of redness where his blade had penetrated Nepanthe's chest inward of her left breast. And still she prayed with her eyes. And Yo Hsi kept on laughing. The madness returned. He flung himself at the easterner again.

Followed a clown's dance, futile as tilting at windmills. Nothing could reach the sorcerer. But the madness wouldn't set him free. Finally, apparently forgetting his earlier oracle (now, with Nepanthe's imminent demise, in doubt), Yo Hsi drew a bronze dagger, plunged it into Mocker's chest.

He fell slowly, his sanity returning, his eyes turning accusingly toward Nepanthe. So long, so far, for this. Briefly, he wondered if Varthlokkur were truly his father, and if he had judged Nepanthe wrongly. Then darkness closed in.