“You will tell me everything Mendark ever told you about the Secret Art,” said Snoat, “and everything you read about mancery in his personal papers.”

“Why?” said Llian.

“Yorgee, answer Llian’s question.”

“Never mind,” Llian said hastily.

The loincloth-clad brute thumped Llian in the belly, lifting him off his feet. He got up, breathless and aching, staggered to the podium prepared for him, searched his perfect memory and began to recite. He could recall hundreds of conversations on the topic and many pages of documents, though, having no talent for mancery, they meant nothing to him. What was Snoat looking for?

Everything Llian said was written down by a pair of secretaries, then compiled into a master copy by Snoat’s beautiful assistant Ifoli. Snoat sat quietly in the background, eyes closed and one silk-slippered foot tapping. Occasionally he raised a hand. Ifoli stopped Llian, checked with the secretaries and, without notes, gave Snoat a perfect summary of what Llian had remembered.

On the second morning, before he began, Snoat said, “Is Unick here yet?”

Ifoli looked uneasy. “He arrived an hour ago.”

“Call him in.”

Gurgito Unick was a red-faced bull of a man, well over six feet tall and powerfully built. He had the scarred face and knuckles of a barroom brawler and bloodshot eyes that seemed too small for their sockets. The smell of stale drink preceded him into the salon.

He caught Llian’s eye and sneered. “Stinking teller!” He spat on the floor and dropped into a chair.

A servant ran across and cleaned the spittle up.

“Continue, Llian,” said Snoat.

Llian wondered why Unick was there, since he did nothing save slump in his chair, breathing noisily through a badly broken nose. His clothes were shabby and none too clean, his nails were chewed to the quick and the sole was coming off his left boot.

Llian’s recital continued until he had told Snoat everything he knew about Mendark’s use of the Secret Art. Unick disappeared.

The following day Llian was allowed to read, or write in the journal he carried everywhere with him, but nothing more was asked of him. Snoat spent hours conferring with Ifoli regarding one detail or another and making pencil sketches.

Her duties were assigned to another young woman of almost equally perfect beauty, a tall grey-eyed redhead. Ifoli began to turn Snoat’s sketches into working drawings done with a draughtsman’s precision and lettered in an elegant hand. Llian had no idea what they were about.

Later that day Unick was brought back. He was sober this time and his raw eyes darted around the room as if he suspected everyone of conspiring against him. As he lumbered to Ifoli’s table she rose abruptly, leaning away from him as if her skin was crawling.

Snoat shot Ifoli a sharp glance. She calmed herself and began to describe the first of her drawings in a low voice. Unick snatched it out of her hand, studied it for a few seconds and tossed it down. He did the same with all her other drawings.

“Well?” said Snoat.

“Worthless rubbish,” said Unick.

“What about this?” said Snoat, opening a black ironwood box and showing Unick the contents, which Llian assumed to be a device of some kind.

Unick reached for it greedily. Snoat moved it out of reach.

“Where did it come from?” said Unick in a thick voice.

“The Council’s secret spell vault.”

“It looks like Mendark’s work.”

“Yes.”

Unick took another look, then grinned. “I know how to do it.”

“Really?” cried Snoat.

“Yes.”

“How many devices will be required to use the secret of mancery?”

“Three.”

“Only three?”

“Origin. Identity. Command.”

“What do they do?”

“Origin allows one to find and study sources, previously unknown, of great natural power, and it can also find enchanted objects. Identity identifies people who are using mancery, allowing one to spy on them. Command allows one to control and use the sources of power, and also control other mancers. A mancer who has all three devices will be more powerful than all other mancers put together – assuming he has the strength to wield such mighty and ruinous artefacts.”

Llian was staggered. Such power, vastly greater than anything the world had ever known, would change Santhenar for ever.

“And if he doesn’t?” said Snoat.

“The Command device will splatter his remains across a hundred acres.” Unick grinned at the thought.

Snoat’s breath hissed between his perfect teeth. “All right. Show me your drawings when they’re done.”

“No drawings. All I need is head and hand and eye.”

Unick slumped in Ifoli’s chair and stared hungrily at a glass-fronted case. It held ten cut crystal bottles, all different. Snoat had said that they contained the rarest liqueurs in the world. Unick licked his scarred lips.

Snoat looked out the paired windows for a minute or two, then called Ifoli. “What do you think?” he said quietly.

“Mendark may not have known what he was doing. He may have been mistaken, or —”

“Unlikely – he was both brilliant and careful. And over his many lifetimes he analysed the work of dozens of other great masters.”

“Yet he sought –” Ifoli lowered her voice but Llian could read lips “– that which no other master ever found.”

“Continue.”

“Alternatively, Mendark may have been led astray to protect the secret.”

“Who would do such a thing?”

“Mancers are notoriously jealous of their art. Some would sooner it died with them than hand it on, even to a valued protégé.”

“I feel the same way about my collection,” said Snoat. “Why should some unworthy person benefit from my hard work after I die? It would diminish everything I’ve done. I’d sooner burn this place to the ground, and everything in my collection, than allow anyone else to possess the least part of it.”

Ifoli stiffened. She was part of Snoat’s collection, and so was Llian. He shivered. Their lives were in the hands of a perfect narcissist.

It was warm in the salon but Ifoli’s arms had goose pimples. After a minute of silence she said, “There’s another possibility, Cumulus. A disturbing one.”

“Go on.”

“Mendark may have been used. His work on this secret project may even have been directed.”

“He worked on it for hundreds of years, and outlived dozens of great mancers. How could any of them have used him?”

“It could have been these Merdrun we keep hearing about.”

“They’re a fantasy designed to rally support against me.” Snoat walked back to Ifoli’s table.

“Cumulus?” she said urgently.

“Yes?” he said without turning around.

“I must warn you that this is a very dangerous project.”

“You exceed your licence.” He gestured to Unick. “Begin on the Origin device.”

Unick was still staring at the bottles, his throat moving as if he were swilling grog. He left without a word. Snoat left as well. Ifoli gathered her sketches and locked them in a drawer, then removed the chair Unick had used and washed her hands. A servant carried the chair out and brought her another one. Ifoli sat at her desk, staring into space. Every so often a shudder racked her.

Llian wondered how Mendark’s meteoric rise to power had come about. The Histories were silent on the matter, though he was aware of the rumours, all unsubstantiated, that as a young man he had “done a deal with a demon”.

There were no such things as demons, but could the rumours be true in another way? He knew from personal experience how ruthless Mendark had been.

And, remembering the corruption only revealed at the very end of his life, could Ifoli’s stab in the dark be true? Could Mendark have been used all that time by the Merdrun?

Three devices to find, take and master. Origin. Identity. Command.

They were the real reason Snoat had brought him here. And if he got them, how could he ever be defeated?