"Astounding!" declared Desme'i in a voice of boredom.

"Would you say that here is an ordinary feather taken from the carcass of a dead blue jay?"

"Yes. Dead or even alive. So I would assume."

"You would be as wrong as an umpdoodle's trivet."

"Indeed. How is this miraculous feather used?"

"Nothing could be simpler. If you suspect a cheat, a liar or a swindler, touch him with the feather. If the feather turns yellow, your suspicions are confirmed."

"If the feather remains blue?"

"Then the person with whom you are dealing is staunch and true!

This excellent feather is yours for six crowns of gold."

Desmei uttered a metallic laugh. "Do you think me so gullible? It is almost insulting. Evidently you expect me to test you with the feather, then when it remains blue, I pay over to you my gold!"

"Precisely! The feather would verify my assertions!"

Desmei took the feather and touched it to the split nose.

Instantly the feather became bright yellow. Desmei repeated her scornful laugh. "No less than I suspected! The feather declares you to be a cheat!"

"Ha ha! Does not the feather perform exactly as I have claimed?

How can I be a cheat?"

Desmei frowningly regarded the feather, then threw it back upon the counter. "I have no time for conundrums!" Haughtily she strolled away, to inspect the sale of a young harpy in a cage.

After a moment Casmir approached. "You are the sorceress Desmei?"

Desmei fixed her attention on him. "And who are you?"

"I call myself Sir Perdrax, knight errant from Aquitaine."

Desmei smiled and nodded. "And what do you wish of me?" "It is a delicate matter. May I count upon your discretion?"

"To a certain extent." "I will express myself bluntly. I serve King Casmir of Lyonesse, who intends to restore the throne Evandig to its rightful place. To this end he implores your advice."

"The arch-magician Murgen forbids such involvement."

"Already you are at odds with Murgen. How long will you obey his precepts?"

"Not forever. How would Casmir reward me?"

"State your terms; I will communicate them."

Desmei became suddenly fretful. "Tell Casmir to come in his own right to my palace at Ys. There I will talk to him."

Sir Perdrax bowed and Desmei moved away. Presently she departed through the forest in a palanquin carried by six running shadows.

Before setting out for Ys, King Casmir brooded long and well; Desmei was known for her bitter bargains.

At last he ordered out the royal galleass, and on a sparkling windy day sailed out past the breakwater, around Cape Farewell and so to Ys.

Casmir disembarked upon the stone jetty and walked down the beach to Uesmei's white palace.

Casmir found Desmei on a seaward-facing terrace leaning on the balustrade, half in the shade of a tall marble urn, from which trailed the foliage of sweet arbutus.

A change had come over Desmei. Casmir halted, wondering at her pallor, hollow cheeks and gaunt neck. Her fingers, thin and knobbed at the knuckles, hooked over the lip of the balustrade; her feet, in silver sandals, were long and frail and showed a net of purple veins.

Casmir stood slack-jawed and graceless, feeling himself in the presence of mysteries far beyond his understanding.

Desmei glanced at him sidelong, showing neither surprise nor pleasure. "So you have come."

Casmir made a rather strained effort to regain the initiative which he felt should rightly be his. "Did you not expect me?"

Desmei said only, "You are here too late."

"How so?" exclaimed Casmir in new concern.

"All things change. I have no more interest in the affairs of men.

Your forays and wars are a trouble; they disturb the quiet of the countryside."

"There is no need for war! I want only Evandig! Give me magic or a mantle of stealth, so that I may take Evandig without war."

Desmei laughed a soft wild laugh. "I am known for my bitter bargains. Would you pay my price?"

"What is your price?"

Desmei looked out toward the sea's horizon. At last she spoke, so quietly that Casmir came a step closer to hear. "Listen! I will tell you this. Marry Suldrun well; her son will sit on Evandig.

And what is my price for this presagement? Nothing whatever, for the knowledge will do you no service." Desmei abruptly turned and walked through one in a line of tall archways into the shadows of her palace. Casmir watched the thin form become indistinct and disappear. He waited a moment, standing in the hot sunlight. No sound could be heard but the sigh of surf.

Casmir swung away and returned to his ship.

Desmei watched the galleass dwindle across the blue sea. She was alone in her palace. For three months she had awaited Tamurello's visit; he had not come and the message of his absence was clear.

She went into her workroom, unclasped her gown and let it slip to the floor. She studied herself in the mirror, to see grim features, a body bony, lank, almost epicene. Coarse black hair matted her head; her arms and legs were lean and graceless. Such was her natural embodiment, a self in which she felt most easy.

Other guises required concentration lest they become loose and dissolve.

Desmei went to her cabinets and brought out a variety of instruments. Over a time of two hours she worked a great spell to sunder herself into a plasm which entered a vessel of three vents.

The plasm churned, distilled, and emerged by the vents, to coalesce into three forms. The first was a maiden of exquisite conformation, with violet-blue eyes and black hair soft as midnight. She carried within her the fragrance of violets, and was named Melancthe.

The second form was male. Desme'i, still by a trick of time, a husk of sentience, quickly shrouded and covered it lest others

(such as Tamurello) discover its existence.

The third form, a demented squeaking creature, served as sump for Desmei's most repugnant aspects. Shaking with disgust Desmei quelled the horrid thing and burnt it in a furnace, where it writhed and screamed. A green fume rose from the furnace; Melancthe shrank back but involuntarily gasped upon a wisp of the stench. The second form, shrouded behind a cloak, inhaled the stench with savor.

Vitality had drained from Desmei. She faded to smoke and was gone.

Of the three components she had yielded, only Melancthe, fresh with the subtle odor of violets, remained at the palace. The second, still shrouded, was taken to the castle Tintzin Fyral, at the head of Vale Evander. The third had become a handful of black ashes and a lingering stench in the workroom.

Chapter 11

IN THE CHAPEL AT THE TOP of the garden Suldrun's bed had been arranged, and here a tall dour kitchen maid named Bagnold daily brought food, precisely at noon. Bagnold was half-deaf and might have been mute as well, for all her conversation. She was required to verify Suldrun's presence, and if Suldrun were not at the chapel Bagnold trudged angrily down into the garden to find her, which was almost every day, since Suldrun gave no heed to time.

After a period Bagnold tired of the exertion and put the full basket on the chapel steps, picked up the empty basket of the day before and departed: an arrangement which suited both Suldrun and herself.

When Bagnold departed she dropped a heavy oaken beam into iron brackets thus to bar the door. Suldrun might easily have scaled the cliffs to either side of the garden, and someday, so she told herself, she would do so, to depart the garden forever.

So passed the seasons: spring and summer, and the garden was at its most beautiful, though haunted always by stillness and melancholy. Suldrun knew the garden at all hours: at gray dawn, when dew lay heavy and bird calls came clear and poignant, like sounds at the beginning of time. Late at night, when the full moon rode high above the clouds, she sat under the lime tree looking to sea while the surf rattled along the shingle.