Steps sounded on the stairs coming down from the balcony into the reception hail, and Duncan looked around. Still dressed in her green gown, Diane seemed to be floating down the stairs. Only the tapping of her sandals betrayed her walking.

Duncan got off the bench and Scratch also clambered off to stand stiffly beside him.

"Scratch," asked Diane, "what are you doing off your pillar?"

"Milady," Duncan told her, "I asked him to come down and sit with me. It was more comfortable for me. That way I did not need to stand, craning up my head to look at him."

"Has he been pestering you?"

"Not at all," said Duncan. "We've had a pleasant talk."

"I suppose," said Scratch, "I'd best get up again."

"Wait a second," Duncan said, "and I'll lend you a hand." He reached down and hoisted the demon so he could catch hold with his crippled hands and scramble back atop the pillar.

"It was good talking with you," Duncan said. "Thanks for giving me your time."

"That is gracious of you, my lord. We will talk again?"

"Most assuredly," said Duncan.

The demon squatted atop the pillar and Duncan turned back to Diane. She was standing in the entrance waiting for him.

"I had thought," she said, "we might take a turn around the grounds. I'd like to show them to you."

"I'd be delighted," said Duncan. "It is kind of you."

He offered her his arm and they went down the stairs together.

"How is Cuthbert feeling?" Duncan asked.

She shook her head. "Not as well as yesterday. I am worried for him. He seems so irrational. He's asleep now. I waited to come down until he was asleep."

"Could my visit with him…"

"Not at all," she said. "His ailment grows upon him. It progresses day by day. Occasionally he has a good day, but not too often now. Apparently he has not been himself since I left to go in search of Wulfert. I suppose I should not have left him, but he said he'd be all right, that he could get along without me."

"You have great love of him?"

"You must remember, he has been a father to me. Since the time I was a babe. The two of us are family."

They reached the bottom of the stairs and now turned to the left to follow a path that led to the back of the castle park. The lawn ran down to just short of the river, fenced in by the ring of standing stones.

"You think, undoubtedly," she said, "that I am harsh with Scratch."

"It seems to me you might have been, a little. Certainly he has a right to come down off his pillar and sit upon a bench."

"But he pesters everyone," she said. "It is seldom now that we have visitors, but in the olden days there were many who came to the castle, and he always pestered them, wanting to pass the time of day with them, hanging onto them as long as possible to engage them in his silly jabber. Cuthbert felt, and I think the others did as well, that he was an embarrassment."

"I can see how that might be," said Duncan, "but he really is all right. I'm not an authority on demons, naturally, so I can't…"

"Duncan."

"Yes?"

"Let's stop all this foolish chatter. There's something that I have to tell you, and if I don't tell it to you now, I'll never have the strength to."

She had halted at the bending of the path, opposite a large clump of birch and pine. He swung about to confront her and saw that her face was drawn and white.

"There can't anything be that bad," he said, startled by the look of her.

"Yes, there can be," she told him tightly. "You remember just an hour or so ago you said that you must be leaving soon, and I said there was no hurry, that you should stay a while and rest."

"Yes, I remember that."

"I should have told you then. But I couldn't tell you. I simply couldn't say the words. I had to leave to try to find the courage."

He started to speak, but she held up a hand to stop him.

"I can't wait," she said. "There can be no further talk. I must tell you now. Duncan, it is this: you can't leave. You can never leave this castle."

He stood stupid in the path, the words not sinking in, refusing to sink in.

"But that can't be," he said. "I don't…"

"I can't say it any plainer. There's no way for you to leave. No one can help you leave. It's a part of the enchantment. There's no way to break it…"

"But you were just telling me you had visitors. And you, yourself…"

"It takes magic," she told him. "Your personal magic, not someone else's magic. It takes an arcane knowledge that one holds oneself. The visitors have had that kind of knowledge, that kind of magic. Because of that, they could go where no others could. I have some of that knowledge myself, also a special dispensation…"

"You mean because none of us has that knowledge…" She nodded, tears in her eyes.

"And you can't help us? The wizard can't help us?"

"No one can help. The ability must be yours."

Suddenly anger flared within him, blinding him.

"Goddamn it, then," he yelled, "why did you tell us to run for the castle? You knew what would happen. You knew we would be trapped. You knew…"

He stopped in mid-sentence, for he doubted she was hearing him. She was weeping openly, head bowed, arms hanging at her side. Just standing there, all alone, and weeping.

She raised a tearstained face to look at him, cringing away from him.

"You would have been killed," she said. "We broke the Harrier line, but they'd have been back again. It was only a momentary battle lull. They'd have returned and hunted you down, like wild animals."

She reached out for him. "You understand?" she cried. "Please do understand!"

She took a step toward him and he put his arms around her, drawing her close against him, holding her tightly. She bowed her head against him, weeping convulsively, her body shaking with the sobs.

Her muffled voice said, "I lay awake last night, thinking of it. Wondering how I could have done it, how I'd ever tell you. I thought perhaps I could ask Cuthbert to tell you. But that wouldn't have been right. I was the one who did it, I should be the one to tell you. And now I have-and now I have…"

24

They sat in silence for a time after Duncan had finished telling them-not so much a shocked silence as a benumbed silence.

Meg was the first to speak, attempting to cast a cheerful light on it. "Well, I don't know," she said. "It's not too bad. There are a lot worse places for an old bag such as Meg to live out her final days."

They disregarded her.

Finally Conrad stirred and said, "You say one has to have some knowledge of the arcane arts. What are the chances that we could acquire that knowledge?"

"I'd say not too good," said Duncan. "I suspect it would have to be a detailed and specific knowledge, perhaps well backgrounded by even other knowledge. Not all of us could learn these arts, perhaps not any of us. And who is there to teach us? Cuthbert is old and dying. Diane's knowledge is too small. I gather that it is not the knowledge that she has, but a special dispensation, that enables her to come and go."

"I suppose that's right," said Conrad, "and, anyhow, it would take too long a time. We haven't got that kind of time."

"No, we haven't," said Duncan. "Two dying men-a dying man here and another one at Oxenford."

"And what about Tiny? What about Daniel and Beauty? They could not be taught the arts. Even could we go we couldn't leave them behind. They're a part of us."

"Probably we could take them with us," Duncan said. "I don't know. There is Diane's griffin; he can come and go. Certainly he does not know the arts."

"Even if there is none to teach us," Andrew said, "there are books. I found the library this morning. A huge room and tons of writing."

"It would take too long," objected Duncan. "We'd have to sift through heaps of scrolls and might not recognize what we sought even should we find it. And there's no one to guide us in our studies. There'd also be the problem of language. Many of the books, I suspect, may be written in ancient tongues that now are little known."