Llian was at the window of the salon when a six-horse carriage drew up outside, just on dark. Snoat got in, accompanied by Ifoli, and the coach drew away. It was followed by his mounted escort, the tetrad, their muscles straining their purple and yellow uniforms to bursting point.

Llian knew where Snoat was going because he had gloated about it – to the same place he had gone last night and the night before. He kept returning to the private library of the College of the Histories, to sigh and drool over the manuscripts of the other twenty-two Great Tales.

Snoat could not touch them, for they were protected by an enchantment of such potency that not even the demolition of the library would have released them. But he was determined to have the tales, and Unick was working on a means to break the enchantment. Llian had no idea if it was a task for a week or a decade, though, judging by Snoat’s demeanour, it was going well.

Unick, however, looked worse every time Llian saw him. The drumming was corrupting him by the hour, which suggested that the summon stone was the source of the power he had found, and that his newly completed Origin device was linked to it. Dare Llian sneak into the workshop to find out? The best part of a month had passed since Sulien’s nightmare about the Merdrun, and his thwarted quest to find the stone grew more urgent by the hour.

Unick would be drunk by now – he always was by dinnertime – though drunk could mean more dangerous, not less. But Llian had to try. If he could locate the stone and get a message to Shand or Tallia, they could go after it. It would begin to make up for all the damage he had done since arriving in Chanthed.

Unick’s workshop was at the back of the South Wing, below ground, in a part of the villa that was little used as it was close to the river and had a problem with damp. The door was not locked, and the smell of him was muted, as if he had not been there in hours. Even so, Llian hesitated. If he was caught snooping, Unick might well kill him.

It had to be done. He entered a large pentagonal room containing a labyrinth of tables and benches, haphazardly arranged. Half of the benches were covered in clockwork mechanisms and other mechanical devices in various stages of disassembly.

The others held a variety of alchemical equipment, all as filthy as Unick himself. The contents of one distillation flask had congealed to a festering brown sludge covered with blue and red mould. A zinc-covered bench was corroded through to the timber, while pits in the metal were coated with fantastic growths of white and yellow crystals.

The stench became gaggingly strong, then the door slammed. Llian whirled. Unick stood there, holding a flask in each hand and rocking like a dinghy in a heavy sea. He was clad in the same stained trousers he’d been wearing during his attack on Llian the other day. His bare chest and belly were covered in a thicket of wiry hair, the hair of his armpits was six inches long and clotted into rat-tails, and his feet were filthy.

“Looking for another Great Tale, chronicler?” sneered Unick. “Stick around and I’ll write it with your broken bones.”

The bruises from his beating had faded, though his bloated face was as purple as ever, as if he was only seconds away from apoplexy. Llian prayed it would take the brute sooner rather than later.

He edged along the benches, always keeping one between him and Unick.

“If you want to know what I’m up to,” Unick said conversationally, “all you have to do is ask.”

He seemed in a rare good humour tonight and Llian wondered why. “Why would you tell me?”

“Snoat doesn’t want anyone to know, and I hate him even more than I hate you.”

Unick upended one flask into his mouth, drained it and tossed it into a pile of rubbish in the corner. He wrenched the bung out of the other one.

“All right,” said Llian, suspecting a trick. “I’m asking. Have you found the source?”

If the source was the summon stone, which was corrupting people to gain enough power to let the Merdrun through, how could it ever be used safely? Was that why Unick was decaying so rapidly?

“Snoat wants the Command device to break the college’s protection and steal the twenty-two Great Tales,” Llian added. “How far have you got?”

“I built the Origin device in less than a day,” Unick boasted, “then tapped the source for the very first time.”

And it had corrupted him. Ifoli was right – this secret was too dangerous to use.

“Snoat has ordered his artisans to copy each device as soon as I finish it,” Unick added, “but they’ll fail. It’s not that simple.”

“Have you made the other two devices?”

“Very soon.”

“Can I see the Origin device?”

Unick shrugged. “I might even test it on you.”

He waded through the mess to a bench next to the mould-streaked south wall and picked up a long brass tube. It resembled a telescope but had a cluster of blue needle-shaped crystals on one end and a pair of glass lenses in the other. Silver and gold wires were wound tightly around the middle, and more crystals, red rubies and green emeralds, could be seen through the windings.

Unick gave the tubes a half-twist and the blue needles began to glow. He touched the jewels in a complicated sequence, raised the device and put his eye to the lenses, and swung the tube from left to right.

The drumming swelled and Llian felt a mad urge to attack Unick. Though it would have been suicidal, it took all his strength to beat the compulsion.

Unick’s tiny eyes were darting now, his fists balling up. Then, in an instant, he went into a berserk rage and hurled himself at Llian, who leaped back, crashed into a bench and dodged behind it, trying to get to the door.

The Origin device jerked so wildly that Unick lost his grip on it. It went flying through the air; he dived after it but it bounced off a bench and the cluster of blue crystals fell out. The drumming stopped instantly.

Unick pulled himself to his feet, rubbing a bruise on his forehead. He turned slowly and for a second Llian heard the drumming again, though this time it seemed to be thumping inside Unick’s head. His eyes bulging, he sprang onto a bench, then to the next one and launched himself at Llian.

He gave in to the call of the drumming, using it to defend himself. The closest object was a two-foot-high glass still. Its cooling jacket was full of water and it was very heavy. He grabbed it and smashed it down on Unick’s head, scattering glass and water everywhere and knocking him to the floor. Unick should have been unconscious but he was tearing his fingernails on the floorboards as he clawed his way towards Llian.

He bolted.

“What the hell have you done now?”

Thandiwe was shaking Llian by the shoulder. As he sat up she gave him a last furious shake, banging his head on the head of the bed.

“What do you want?” he muttered. It was just getting light outside.

“Why has Snoat stopped questioning you? I haven’t got nearly enough for Mendark’s Tale.”

Llian took a malicious pleasure in enlightening her. “He doesn’t give a damn about it. The tale was just bait to get me here.”

“What an ego you’ve got! Why on earth would he want a failed chronicler and murderer, anyway?”

“He framed me! And you know it.”

“Answer the bloody question!”

Llian told her about Snoat’s plan to make the three devices, and what Unick had done so far.

“So it’s all been for nothing,” she said bitterly. “No! I’ve got to have the tale, or I’m ruined.”

“Right now we’ve got more important things to worry about.”

“Like what?”

“Once Unick completes the Identity and Command devices, Snoat will get rid of us. We know too much.”

Thandiwe’s full lips moved but no sound emerged. She scrubbed her mouth with the back of her hand. “But —”

“Surely you thought about that before you approached him?”

“Why would he hurt me? I’m —”

“Beautiful?” said Llian without sarcasm. “Clever? A great chronicler?”

“I don’t believe he would just… kill me. For nothing.”

“Believe it!”

“What am I supposed to do?”

“Make yourself useful to him.”

“You mean sleep with him?” said Thandiwe.

“I’m not sure you’re his type.”

“You mean I’m too old! You’re a cruel bastard, Llian.”

“I didn’t mean that at all. Besides, aren’t you forgetting something?”

“What?”

“I said he’d get rid of us. We’re in this together, and you put us here, but your only thought has been about how I can help you.”

“I didn’t have my college fees and stipend paid for by one of the most powerful people of all. Everything I’ve gained in life, I’ve had to work for.”

“And there was nothing you wouldn’t do to get it.”

She slapped him, a stinging blow that knocked his head sideways. “You slimy hypocrite! How dare you?”

“What are you talking about?”

“A great chronicler you may be, Llian, but you are not a worthy master,” she quoted in a passable imitation of Wistan’s voice from the never-to-be-forgotten night when he had banned Llian. “Your tale proves your dishonour.”

“I’m sorry,” he said after a mortifying minute of self-analysis. “I’ve no right to point the finger at anyone.”

She sat beside him, a trifle mollified. “What are we going to do?”

“Sell him on Mendark’s Tale.”

“I tried that already.”

“No, really sell it. He’s a rapacious collector, remember? The moment he got my manuscript and realised how rare and important it was, nothing would satisfy him except owning all the Great Tales. But what then?”

“I don’t understand.”

“Collectors have to keep collecting, but once Snoat steals the other twenty-two Great Tales he’ll have the perfect collection – the originals of all the greatest tales ever written, the very core of the Histories. Nothing can ever be more valuable, except…”

“A twenty-fourth Great Tale,” Thandiwe said slowly.

“And if it also featured Snoat – as one of the great people in the Histories – his ego would drive him to have it.”

“Doesn’t necessarily mean he’d want me to write it.”

“You underestimate yourself. If anyone can sell you as the best person to tell the story, you can.”

Thandiwe stood up, her breast heaving, and walked around the room. Llian’s news had shaken her, but she was as resourceful as anyone he had ever known.

“I think I can do it,” she said.

“Unless you know you can do it, you’ll never convince him.”

“I know I can do it.” She sat beside him again. “Thank you, Llian. We… we could have been good together.” She looked at him expectantly, almost coquettishly.

He wasn’t going down that road. “I don’t know what I’m going to do, though. He could come for me at any time.”

“You’ve got a ready-made means of making yourself useful.”

“What’s that?”

“A private telling of your Great Tale.”

“What a good idea. If I drag it out I could increase my life span by days.”