Andrew’s clear, unimpassioned voice said behind him, “Canst thou catch my sister in the net of her own contrivances?”

Ted’s stomach clenched, both at the question and at the uncanny echo of his thoughts; but he managed not to start. He turned around. Andrew knelt on the floor next to him, looking not unfriendly.

“I suppose it might not be her own contrivance,” said Ted, laying his hand on the window. It was warmer than his skin, and repellent in some indefinable way; not exactly greasy, not exactly sticky, not exactly rough. He removed his hand. “Somebody might have made it for her; or she might have taken it over. But she did use it. I saw her.”

He was talking too much. Andrew might be about to learn everything; but he might not. Andrew, looking over Ted’s shoulder at the pane in which Claudia sat, did not question him further. And Ted, looking at Andrew’s face, a little lined with tiredness, did not want to be the one to shatter Andrew’s illusions about his sister.

“Where’s everybody else?” he said.

Andrew shook his head, and turned away from his sister and her fire. “Contriving baths, and a meal,” he said. “We must look our best when we seek to parley with the dead.”

His tone showed that he thought this a silly notion; Ted thought he probably considered it silly quite apart from his disbelief in the possibility of talking to the dead.

“It is possible to talk to the dead, you know,” said Ted. “I’ve been there.”

“Truly, do you believe this?” said Andrew.

“Truly, I do,” said Ted.

There was a protracted pause. Andrew sat back on his heels and rubbed a soiled finger over his moustache. “Forgive me,” he said. “This thought will not be father to any action. But hearing you speak so, my liege, I do find in me for the first time some small, weak understanding of Randolph’s reasoning, when he did murder thy father.”

“I’ve been speaking so,” said Ted, recoiling hurriedly upon the safer area of this supremely unsafe speech, “all along. What did you think, that I was lying? That I was part of some conspiracy of wizards to deceive the populace? I take that badly, my lord,” said Ted, looking Andrew straight in his troubled brown eyes. “I take that very badly.” And he did, on behalf of Edward, who might have been stuffy but had certainly been honorable and had probably never told a lie in his short life.

“If you’re not a deceiver, then you are one of the deceived,” said Andrew, unruffled. “Take you that in better part?”

“Better a fool than a knave,” said Ted, bitterly.

“Oh, aye,” said Andrew, growing rather heated, “a fool to be cozened by such a knave as Randolph. This conspiracy thou deniest did slay thy father.”

“Randolph didn’t do it,” said Ted. And that was almost true. Claudia had done it; Laura and Ruth and Ellen and Patrick had done it; Ted had done it, literally, when he knocked from Randolph’s hand the poisoned bottle into which Andrew had already slipped an antidote.

“Give me strength!” cried Andrew, jumping to his feet and glaring down at Ted.

“And I’ll tell you something else,” said Ted, tipping his head and glaring back. “Nobody is a fool in every part. I might be deceived in Randolph, and still have the right of it concerning magic. Or I might be deceived by this pack of rogue magicians, and still know Randolph’s heart better than my own. Do you think on that, my lord.”

“If you did think Randolph harmless and kindly,” said Andrew, breathlessly, “why knocked you that bottle from his hand the day the King died?”

Ted was beyond caution. “Because it did pass by you, my lord, ere it came to him.”

“Is that the story you hope will fadge?” said Andrew.

“You did put somewhat in that bottle,” said Ted.

“What I put in that bottle, sweet prince,” said Andrew, whitely, “was an antidote.”

“And who told you you’d need one?”

“My sister.”

Ted no longer felt so tender of Andrew’s illusions. “Your sister killed the King,” said Ted.

“She knew not you’d knock Randolph’s arm.”

“She could make me knock Randolph’s arm if she had to,” said Ted, “and she did know I’d do it, because—oh, hell, it’s too complicated. She did it, Andrew. I’m sorry, but she did.”

“And that’s what this mummery of visiting among the dead is to accomplish,” said Andrew, very quietly. He leaned on the left-hand wall. Behind his sleek brown head the ghostly mountains of the Secret Country floated like clouds, and a little wind rippled the water of the lake. Ted saw with compunction that Andrew was shaking. But Andrew’s voice, when he went on, was perfectly steady. “You’ll show us by your vile illusionist’s arts the piteous figure of the murdered King, all pale and wan, distraction in’s aspect, pointing a shaky finger crying, ‘She, ’twas she, thy sister, Andrew! ’”

“What the hell good would that do?” said Ted. “How should the King know who did it?”

That remark, he was pleased to see, stopped Andrew. “I’d thought the dead knew all things.”

“Why should they?” said Ted. He grinned suddenly. “Yes, I know; they should in order that they may serve the conspiracy of wizards. But really, Andrew, I don’t see why they should know any more than they did while they were alive.” He felt much better, for a moment. Then he stopped grinning. Edward had certainly known who killed him. Ted did not know if Edward had found this out before or after he died. What did go on down there? “Well,” said Ted, “we’ll have to wait and see, won’t we?”

“‘Never put off,’” said Ruth, quoting Agatha. “Randolph, how do we get where we’re going?”

“Through the cellar,” said Randolph.

“Oh, great,” said Ted. “I suppose it’s full of cobwebs and spiders and all the doors creak?”

“In Claudia’s house,” said Randolph, dryly, “I doubt the doors creak not.” He stood up, brushing crumbs of oatcake from his shirt. “Ted?” he said.

Ted, startled at being addressed by his ordinary name, stared at him. Randolph said, “Is it cold below?”

“Haven’t you ever been there?” said Ted, without thinking.

Randolph didn’t answer him. Ted said, “I was dead. It didn’t feel like anything. It looked cold. There’s a river and a lot of mist. Let’s not go dancing down there in our shirt-sleeves, if that’s what you mean. We’ll be cold with nerves, if nothing else.” Nerves was right; he was talking too much. Ruth, sitting on the floor across from him in a welter of blue wool and pink legwarmers, smiled and shook her head.

They all stood up and put on some or all of their outer garments. Randolph took something rather like a hurricane lamp from a carved shelf. It was made of a rough, greeny metal like the door knocker, and consisted of three cats wound lovingly around the central glass chimney, their tails encircling it at the top and their bodies at the bottom. Randolph made a small motion in the air with his free hand, and a little flame bloomed obediently from the candle in the middle of the lamp. Without a word, he walked through the hall into the kitchen, and they followed him.

The door to the cellar was undersized, but otherwise normal. Randolph pushed it open and ducked through it. He went down the steep flight of steps, set the lamp on a short stone pillar, and beckoned to Ted. Ted came cautiously down the steps, and the others followed.

The cellar was a little damp and completely empty. Its floor was made of great blocks of stone, like the floors of High Castle. Two of these had been propped up. Darkness gaped below them. Randolph held the lantern down near the opening, and Ted bent over next to him and looked. A clean smell of rock and water rose from the depths. A shaft walled with stone blocks dropped maybe twenty feet to a stone-block floor. Down at the bottom of the shaft were six square dark doorways. Thick metal bars were fastened into two of the walls of the shaft, to make ladders. They shone as bright as a well-kept sword, with no sign of rust.

“This lamp casts a lot of light,” said Ted.

“’Twill cast less below,” said Randolph. “Only honest light’s allowed below, and this flame’s someways tainted with sorcery.”

Ted wondered at his choice of words; was he baiting Andrew?

Randolph went down the ladder one-handed, carrying the lamp. Then he stood at the bottom, out of the way, and held the light for the rest of them. The metal bars were so cold that Ted expected his hands to stick to them. It was colder at the bottom of the shaft than in the cellar.

Ted began to fasten, absently, the brooch of his cloak, watching Ruth’s nimble progress down the ladder and worrying a little about Andrew’s intent eyes on her downbent head. Then some warmth, some slight tingling, in his cold hands made him look at the brooch. It was of twisted silver, set with a blue stone. He had taken it from Shan’s robe of state, in the West Tower, on that day in August when he and Randolph chose their costumes for the feast at which the King died. He tried to remember, of all the times he had fastened and unfastened this cloak in the course of their journey, one in which he had noticed the brooch. He couldn’t. He finished fastening it, and said nothing.

“What passage?” said Andrew, arriving last.

Lo! said Edward, richly and pleasurably. Death hath reared himself a throne / In a strange city, lying alone / Far down among the dim West, / Where the good and the bad and the worst and the best / Have gone to their eternal rest.

And, “West,” said Randolph, “but westward, look, the land is bright.”

The western passage was perhaps seven feet high, and seven feet wide, clean, cold, and empty. The wavering light of the cat-lantern made and then spurned behind it twisty shadows that proved, when walked through, to hold only air. Little echoes ran away from their footsteps. Ted felt no urge to yell something and hear its echo come back to him. There was nothing here to dislike, and yet he did not like it here. After fifteen minutes or so, Ruth, who had been ranging among the company like somebody looking for a dropped pin, fell into step with him and put a cold hand in his.

“This place mislikes me,” she said.

“You too? I thought I felt so creepy because I’ve been there before.”

“Don’t turn around,” said Ruth, “but Andrew’s got a look on his face as if he’s being followed by a hoofed fiend.”

This seemed to wake up Edward. “‘He can sleep while the commonwealth crumbles,’ ” repeated Ted, hazily, “ ‘but a strange sound in the pantry at three in the morning will strike terror into his stomach.’ ”

Ruth exploded into giggles, then stopped suddenly and said, “Why are you quoting Thurber?”

Ted said, “Edward was.”

“I don’t know why that should be any more mysterious than Edward quoting Shakespeare,” said Ruth, “but it seems so.”

“I know,” said Ted.

“Ted? Was it really bad down there?”

“It’s a fine place to visit,” said Ted, seized by a desire to laugh, “but I wouldn’t want to live there.”

Ruth squeezed his hand. “You must have a pulse of a hundred and fifty,” she said. “Your hand’s all sweaty.”

“You can go hold Randolph’s hand if you’d rather,” said Ted, irritated. “What does he look like he thinks is following him?”

Ruth didn’t let go; nor did she seem angry. “He doesn’t look like he thinks anything is following him,” she said. “He looks as pleased as punch.”

“I was afraid of that,” said Ted.

“And I wouldn’t hold Randolph’s hand for a wager,” said Ruth.

Something in her tone made Ted wary of questioning her. They walked on. The passageway sloped downward. After a while a breeze began blowing up it. The lantern Randolph carried dimmed and wavered. The passage turned a sharp corner, and another, and another. Then a square of dim gray light made itself known ahead of them. They stepped through it, out onto a glimmering, featureless plain, under a dull, gray, misty sky.

It was subtly different from the place in which Ted had found himself after he was killed in the battle. After a little thought, he realized why. He had not been, really, in the land of the dead. He had been on its borders. They had refused to let him cross the river, because he was neither dead nor alive, but being bargained for. Why he and his companions, who were unequivocally alive, had been allowed this time into the very midst of this realm, he had no idea. But they were in it, and probably in for it, now.

“Well,” said Andrew, “call your ghosts.”

Ted stared at him. They had forgotten the blood. The ghosts would talk to you if you gave them blood to drink. “Living man,” they had said to him, “hast thou brought blood?” Edward had talked to him without it, but Edward had recognized himself. Shan and whoever else Randolph might want to talk to would probably not be so accommodating.

The lantern went out. Randolph set it on the ground and put a hand on his belt. Ted, in the wake of a horrible suspicion, leapt wildly at Randolph and grabbed his arm with both hands. “Oh, no, you don’t,” he said.

Randolph looked at him without surprise. “It needs but a little,” he said. “Do it thyself, if thou wilt.” And as Ted’s nerveless hands fell from his arm, he pulled the dagger out of his belt and offered it.

Everybody else was staring. Ted felt profoundly stupid, but he did not quite regret his action. Randolph wanted to die, and his moods had been erratic. Ted took the dagger. Its hilt was silver, with blue stones in it. Ted wondered if Randolph was still allowed to use it. Fence had not required it of him when he took Randolph’s ring of sorcery away; and it did not make Ted’s hand prickle as an enchanted weapon would.

Randolph was holding out his hand to Ted. Ted took a firm hold of his chilly wrist, drew a deep breath, and made a small cut on the side of Randolph’s hand, where it should give the least trouble. A thin black line of blood sprang up. Randolph took the knife back, squeezed the blood onto its blade, knelt, and drove the knife up to its hilt in the gray stuff of the ground.

“We call,” he said, “by Chryse’s blood and the mercy granted to Shan, the smilers with the knife under the cloak, the gracious presences of the Lords of the Dead.”

Then he stood and waited. Nothing happened.

“This entertainment’s someways lacking,” said Andrew, after perhaps fifteen minutes. He grinned at Ted. “I’m for a jig, or a tale of bawdry, or I sleep. I’ll go sit on the wholesome stone; do you call me when your prompt arriveth.” And he turned his back on them, walked over to the little square stone house they had emerged from, and disappeared inside.

Something in the air of the place, thought Ted, squelched the desire for action. Just standing and waiting was a wearisome task. He went on doing it. Nobody spoke. Then the character of the plain they stood on changed. It might have been a field of white flowers under the moon. Somebody was walking toward them, a short, slight figure. He came closer, a young man with dark hair and decided eyebrows, with a cat on his shoulder. He wore a robe like those worn in High Castle, like Apsinthion’s. It might have been red.

The young man came to within two feet of Randolph, and said, “Who calleth Shan?” He had a light, very pleasant voice, a voice you would like to hear reading to you at bedtime when you were very young. But now we are six, said Edward.

“Randolph,” said Randolph, “King’s Counselor of the Hidden Land.”

“You are welcome,” said Shan, gravely. “Take back my greetings to the world of light. How may I serve you?”

“Act as our ambassador to the Lords of the Dead,” said Randolph. “They answer not, and our errand is most urgent.”

“I will essay it,” said Shan. He cocked his head, and his inquisitive eyes moved from one to another of them, and finally returned to Randolph, at whom he looked steadily for a very long time. Randolph returned the look, with no particular expression; but Ted, behind him, saw how his hands clenched in the folds of his cloak.

“What’s amiss?” said Shan at last, in the friendly and resigned tones of a parent or a cousin.

“Naught that death can’t mend,” said Randolph, tranquilly.

“Randolph,” said Ted, stepping forward.

Shan looked at him; and stared; and put out a hand. Ted felt it on his arm, very lightly, like the brushing by one’s legs of a cat that has other business. “Edward Fairchild,” said Shan. “How art thou translated?”

“Edward Fairchild’s dead,” said Ted. “I come from elsewhere; and I came,” he added, “by your sword.”

Shan’s whole face lit up in a flash of delight so intense that Ted found himself smiling back. “That,” said Shan, “is news I have waited long to hear. Soft you now,” he said, apparently to himself, and stopped smiling. “How came Edward Fairchild dead?”

Faith, e’en with losing his life, said Edward.

Shan’s head jerked upward and his hand fell from Ted’s arm. The cat jumped from his shoulder and stalked away into the misty distance. “Leave thy unicornish games and speak to me,” Shan said.

Then he stood waiting. His face was remote and a little worried. Ted considered his flesh-and-blood companions. Randolph was looking at Shan as if he were the answer to a prayer. Ruth was looking at Randolph as if he were crazy.

After some indeterminate time, the shape of the cat returned across the flowery field, followed not by one figure but by five. Edward Fairchild, in an unlaced white shirt and hose and soft boots, a velvet cap on his head and on his face a kind of eager scorn, walked up to Shan, swept off the hat, and bowed. He was taller than Shan, and taller still than Ted. Behind him the dimmer forms of Lady Ruth, of Prince Patrick and the Princesses Laura and Ellen, stood silent, the sourceless light gleaming in their eyes. Ted heard Ruth draw her breath in.

Shan did not return Edward’s bow. He said, “How came you here?”

“Ask thy lady,” said Edward.

“Oh, Lord,” said Ruth.

Lady Ruth said, “What distorting mirror is this?”

“Be quiet,” said Shan, without heat. “Edward: what power hath the Hidden Land over the Lords of Death?”

“That the mercy granted to Shan did leave that land at the mercy of Melanie,” said Edward, with an astonishing bitterness. He sounded as if he were reciting a rote answer that had suddenly taken on meaning, and that meaning was not a welcome revelation but a disaster.

“And what mercy did she show to thee?”

“As much as she did show to you,” said Edward, more calmly.

“What wouldst thou have then from the Lords of Death?”

“That they bestow the same mercy upon Melanie as she did bestow upon us,” Edward rattled off, and flung his cap to the ground. “My lord, this is folly. Death is no mercy, nor is the death of our murderer a boon to us. We died almost before we lived. What will it avail us to bring Melanie to cheer our exile? The boon I beg from the Lords of Death is our lives again, in their full measure.”

“Edward,” said Ted, “you told me to avenge your foul and most unnatural murder.”

Edward wheeled on him. This was not the diffident, stuffy prince Ted remembered from their last meeting. Edward said, “I was but half awake when I told thee that; and what else hadst thou power to do?” He turned back to Shan. “The Lords of Death are very great in power; and by their debt to all my country, Shan the Red, I do demand this recompense. Let them sate their greed on Melanie; she’s lived more years than I and all my cousins can come close to. But send us home again.”

“Wait,” said Ted. He pressed both hands to his head, where the blood was pounding like drumbeats. “Wait. You told me Claudia killed you.”

“Verily, in that guise were we slain.”

Ted was speechless. Ruth came up beside him and said carefully, “The Melanie? Who helped kill the unicorn?”

“She is that.”

“Angels and ministers of grace defend us,” said Ruth.

Ted looked at her. Claudia’s being Melanie would explain a lot; but the explanations would be worse than the mysteries. “Amen,” said Ted.

“How?” said Randolph to Edward. He had no expression at all, and there was very little breath behind his voice.

“She’s of the blood of the unicorn,” said Edward, rather impatiently.

Shan said, “She hath a blithe spirit, when she doth choose to set it free. And in her time she’s learned every trick, great or trifling.”

Ted remembered that Shan had loved Melanie too. He was answering the question Randolph had really asked. Ted watched this realization come more tardily to Randolph, who looked blankly at Shan and then nodded.

“Thou canst not flee her beneath the earth,” said Shan.

Around them rose a thin murmuring, like the wind in a grove of willows. Ted looked up. The whole gray plain, which had seemed like a field of white flowers when Shan walked across it, was thronged with ghosts. Looking at them, he realized how solid by comparison Shan and Edward had become. Very distantly, a voice that was not Edward’s said, and what i want to know is / how do you like your blueeyed boy / Mister Death?

“Melanie, the architect of all our woes,” said Randolph, as if Shan had said nothing at all. “Well, ’tis tidier so. But heavens, what a web of deception must we now unravel.”

“Andrew thinks she’s his sister,” said Ruth, suddenly. She flung her cloak about her with a determined motion and marched off to the little stone house. She returned very shortly with Andrew, talking vigorously and keeping a wary eye on him, like somebody shut in a room with a bat. Andrew wore a weary, resigned look under which some wilder emotion was struggling to make itself known. Ted felt rather like that himself.

“Shan,” said Ted, “where are the Lords of Death?”

“They came not,” said Shan, perplexed.

“Call them louder, then,” said Andrew, in a cracked voice.

Shan turned and looked at him with an expression that froze Ted where he stood, although it was not aimed at him. Andrew stared back as if he were looking at a very badly painted picture. Shan’s face cleared suddenly, and he said, “What’s amiss here?”

“Leave thy damnable doctorings and call thy masters,” said Edward. Shan swung on him as if he would have liked to knock him down; but Edward had forgotten him. He was gaping at Andrew; and then his anger seemed to clear away and he said, “My Lord Andrew of the limpid thoughts. What do you in this cloudy place? Edward Carroll, this is very ill done.”

“Very ill done indeed,” said Andrew, “if you must be your own commentary.” He looked shaken just the same, and stood staring from Ted to Edward and back again.

“Shan,” said Ted, “please call your masters.”

“Those are not my masters,” said Shan, his face shadowed again by a lighter version of the look he had turned on Edward.

“All right, I’m sorry. I’m a stranger. We have got to speak to the Lords of the Dead. This is getting out of hand.”

“Your presence alone should draw them,” said Shan. “Forgive me; I’ll return.” He disappeared into the crowd of ghosts.

Ted’s gaze, following him and trying to distinguish his wake through the crowd, stuck suddenly on a very tall figure moving purposefully toward them, out of the drifting mass of figures. It was King William.

Ted took two steps and closed his hand hard around Randolph’s arm. “Brace yourself,” he said, and pointed.

Randolph looked along his extended arm, and Ted felt him shiver. Then he smiled, which was even worse.

“Don’t do anything stupid!” said Ted.

“That advice cometh too late,” said Randolph; but he neither shook off Ted’s hand nor advanced to meet the King.

He did not need to. The King was coming to him. In his lined face were purpose and knowledge and recognition; but no anger, and no accusation. Maybe he didn’t know.

The ghosts of the royal children sank suddenly to their knees. Andrew, his face like a mask, knelt too. Randolph stood where he was; Ted, feeling obscurely that while he had hold of Randolph he had some small control over the situation, stayed standing too. Ruth came up on Ted’s other side and said, very softly, “Why is Andrew kneeling for a bad play?”

King William stopped a foot away from Randolph and said in his firm, carrying voice, “How fared the battle with the Dragon King?”

“My lord, we have won it,” said Randolph. His voice was steady, but not very strong.

“Using what strategies?” said the King.

“My lord, those in King John’s Book.”

“Thou hast done well, then,” said the King; and he put his ringed hands on Randolph’s shoulders and kissed him.

Randolph’s arm under Ted’s was like wood. Ted was the one who was shivering. The King was within six inches of him; the trailing sleeve of the King’s gown brushed Ted’s hair. And yet Ted had no feeling of any living presence; no warmth, no breath, hardly even the differences in the feel of the air that one has from a chair or a wardrobe. But the figure of the King filled his vision and the King’s voice lingered in his hearing.

The King stood back from Randolph, still holding him by the shoulders, and said, much more quietly, “By the oath you swore me, dear friend, I do abjure you now—hold your tongue.”

“I thought all for the best,” said Randolph, as if he were in the middle of some other conversation altogether.

“I know it,” said the King. “I tell thee again, Randolph, hold thy tongue. Take thy doom from the mouth of thy victim: guide my son, and confess not this deed.” He said in his original tones, “Where’s Fence?”

“Gone north, my lord, to beg with Chryse and Belaparthalion that they will impose some order on the Dragon King.”

“Edward,” said the King, turning his hollow eyes on Ted.

“Here, Father,” said Edward from behind the King.

The King turned; Ted saw his straight, broad back grow rigid. When he spoke he woke echoes, in this place that should be capable of none, and stilled the murmuring dead. “What makest thou here below the earth?”

“Oh, God,” said Ruth.

Randolph leaned suddenly on Ted’s shoulder and began to shiver. After a moment he sat down on the ground and put his face in his hands. Ted sat down with him, keeping hold of his arm.

“Don’t listen,” said Ruth. “Randolph. Don’t listen. If you don’t concentrate, the voices fade away.”

Randolph did not answer her; Ted, unable not to listen while actually looking at the tight cluster of King and children, turned around.

“Andrew?” said Ted. “How is it?”

Andrew’s strained gaze, stretched wide over Ted’s shoulder, jerked to Ted’s face. Andrew said, in a stronger voice than Ted had been able to muster, “’Tis a pretty show, my prince; you must show me the strings and the mirrors one day.”

“I hope,” said Ted, judging that concern was not what Andrew wanted from him, “that you note the absence of the piteous figure and the shaky finger and the distraction in the aspect?”

“The distraction’s all in Randolph’s,” said Andrew.

This was inaccurate, since nobody could see Randolph’s aspect. But Randolph instantly dropped his hands and tossed his hair out of his eyes. Ted let go of his arm, and Randolph laid a hand on Ted’s knee. Ted suspected that it meant, “Keep your mouth shut.”

“’Tis in your aspect also,” Randolph said.

“He spoke you very lovingly for one so estranged in his philosophy,” said Andrew.

“He’ll speak you twice as fair do you but pluck his sleeve,” said Randolph.

“He loved you ever,” said Andrew. “I made him doubt you, but to hate you I could not move him one whit.”

“Nor could your attempts move him to hate you,” said Randolph. “Go speak to him; you’ll have no peace else.”

Andrew looked over Ted’s shoulder again, and shock wiped his face clear of all expression. “With whom doth he speak so close?” he said. He snatched his horrified gaze back to Ted. “Lady Ruth, in her habit as she lived,” he said. “What are you?” He half rose, telling over one by one the dim figures grouped around the King. Then he sat down hard and awkwardly, and looked for a very long time at Ruth.

“Edward,” he said to her at last, “I cannot tell one from t’other; but thee, my lady bright, I know for a false jade. My lady’s with her father; and what art thou?”

“Hold your tongue,” said Ted, creakily.

“Wert puzzled?” said Andrew to Ruth, in rising tones. “Wert much afeared? Didst wreck thy thoughts on the tangle of my most—” He let out a wavering breath very like a sob, and set himself, visibly, to regaining his control. “How came matters to this pass?” he said at last; and he said it to Randolph.

“Later,” said Randolph. “Speak to the King.”

Andrew got up unsteadily and walked past Ruth and Ted and Randolph. None of them watched him go. Randolph put one hand over his eyes for a moment, and said, “Ruth, take not on so.”

Ted looked quickly at Ruth, who was choking into the crook of her elbow. Ruth never cried.

“Sorry,” said Ruth, thickly, from behind her arm and a cloud of hair. “What a fiasco.” She sniffed hard and shook herself as if she were about to emerge; then she said, “Oh, hell,” and choked again.

Randolph fished in his sleeve, and in his belt pouch, and then patted himself vaguely, like a man in a three-piece suit looking for his parking ticket. He finally pulled a handkerchief from the sleeve of his cloak and tucked it into Ruth’s hand. Ruth blew her nose and tidied her hair back from her face.

“There’s Shan,” said Randolph, and stood up hurriedly. “I pray you pardon me.”

He strode past the clump of King, children, and Andrew, and walked into the clustering ghosts. They parted for him like a curtain of beads. Once Ted was alone with Ruth, he was able to pull her hair and say, “‘I have a speech of fire that fain would blaze, but that this folly douts it.’ ”

“Don’t quote Edward to me.” Ruth blew her nose again.

There was some commotion among the ghosts. Ted looked over Ruth’s shoulder and said, “Randolph did see Shan.”

Ruth stood up; so did Ted. Randolph and Shan were coming slowly toward them; Shan kept stopping to talk to the ghosts, who then grew noisy. It seemed that, after he had spoken to a group of them, its members grew more solid and distinguishable, and their voices less shrill.

Shan and Randolph came out of the crowd and crossed the open gray ground toward Ted and Ruth. Something in their walk, their disparate heights, the absorption on their faces, was familiar to Ted. As they arrived before him, and Shan bowed, Ted realized what it was. Just so were Fence and Randolph accustomed to pace around together, arguing.

“What news?” said Ruth, in a not altogether natural tone.

“Good for these folk,” said Shan, “but bad, I fear, for all your party.”

“Don’t tell me,” said Ruth. “They heard we were coming and they’ve fled the country.”

“I know not what they’ve heard, my lady, but in truth, they are not here.”

“They’re all gone?” said Ruth.

“All nine,” said Randolph.

“What about the Judge of the Dead?” said Ted.

“You may speak to him, my lord, an you will,” said Shan. Ted surmised that Randolph had told him that Ted was the King of the Hidden Land. Shan went on, “But he cannot act; he can but bring suasion to bear upon the Nine Lords, when they do return.”

“I want to ask him some riddles,” said Ted.

“Why bother with him?” said Ruth. “You’ve got Shan right in front of you.”

“Ask, by all means,” said Shan. “Most I meet here do ask me riddles, and cry aloud when I do answer them, for ’tis too late. For you the answers may prove more timely. Say on.”

“What beast,” said Ted, obediently, “is it the unicorns pursue each summer?”

“The dragon,” said Shan, in a curious voice.

“Before what beast doth winter flee?”

“The dragon.”

“And what beast maketh that which putteth words to the flute’s song?”

“Not the dragon,” said Shan. “The third question is rightly—”

“But what’s the answer to our third question; please?” said Ruth.

And Shan said, “The Outside Power.”

The three living people looked at one another.

“Outside power is unfurled,” said Randolph.

Shan caught hold of his cloak, altering its hang only by a little; and said excitedly, “You did use the Ring?”

“Why don’t you tell us,” said Ruth, in a flat voice, “about the Ring.”

“Why don’t we sit down?” said Ted.

They did. Watching Shan sit down was rather disturbing; where he and the ground met it was hard to tell which was which. The ground was soft, dry, and cold, and gave no reassurance by any of its characteristics that it would still be there the next minute.

Shan told them, with a loving attention to detail that reminded Ted of Patrick, about Shan’s Ring. The unicorns had given it to him in reparation for some injury, which he did not elaborate. They had told him it would bring him his heart’s desire. Shan’s heart’s desire, it appeared, was death. Randolph raised his head at this point, and he and Shan exchanged a very long look, which Shan ended by saying, “Take better heed than I was able of dear, beauteous death, the jewel of the just.”

Randolph said nothing, and Shan went on. He had thought, he said, that this remark of the unicorns was one of their cruel jests, because they themselves had deprived him of his death. He thought of his next dearest desire, and whether Shan’s Ring might aid him to achieve it. This was some means whereby the mere people of the Secret Country and its surrounding lands might receive justice from the magical creatures they lived with. There was no meeting ground between them, no appeal. The dragons and unicorns took offense, or took a fancy, and did what they would without consulting the people involved.

Now the Red Sorcerers, of whom Shan was one, had been accustomed to use enchanted mirrors to see things far away.

“That’s a device of the Red Sorcerers?” broke in Randolph. Ted remembered the hand mirror in Fence’s room, that they had used to scan the two hundred and eight steps for signs of Claudia. He thought of the innumerable mirrors in the stark house of Apsinthion.

Shan grinned at Randolph. “Aye, Blue Mage, that it is.” He went on. He had found that if one looked in such a mirror while wearing Shan’s Ring, one saw many and diverse places, some pleasant and some dangerous. In one of these places, which looked like the Hidden Land and yet unlike, he had seen unicorns. After a great deal of thought and what he called “blundering,” he had made a sword to take him there. And on that ground he had proposed to the unicorns that they consent to bargain with anyone they had wronged who had the courage and the means to take himself there. The unicorns had been amused, and had consented; but there was a catch, as always. Anyone who found them on their bargaining ground might indeed bargain; but if he lost, worse would befall him than he had already suffered. If he won he would truly be better off; but it would be hard to win.

“What about ‘Time awry is blown’?” said Ruth.

“That,” said Shan, soberly, “is an incidental kindness of the unicorns the backlash whereof I do still await. They do nothing that profits them not, but this attribute of the ring seemeth to profit only their petitioners. For look you, time in this place of the unicorns runneth quicklier; an Shan’s Ring did not yoke it to the time of the human lands, for the duration of a human visit, even a man who won his petition might return to find his family dust and his grandchildren old as he.”

Ted began to laugh. “Wouldn’t you know it!” he said. “In our world, time runs the same as it does in the Hidden Land. But that didn’t suit us; so we used Shan’s Ring for just the opposite effect, to slow down time at home so we could return a bare instant after we left.”

“Why so?” said Shan.

“To keep the grown-ups off our backs,” said Ruth.

“Art so young, then?”

“Not anymore,” said Ruth, with unexpected grimness.

“Well,” said Ted, “the bargaining ground of the dragons?”

“I found it not,” said Shan. “Nor, they tell me, did any Red Sorcerer ever lay eyes on’t.”

There was a brief silence. Ted, looking around, saw that most of the crowding ghosts had dispersed. Andrew still stood with the King and the five royal children, but their voices were subdued. Ted was cold, and very tired. He pulled his cloak more tightly around him, and his hand brushed Shan’s brooch. He unpinned it hurriedly and held it out. It blazed like the ocean under a noonday sun.

“Is this yours?” he said.

“It was,” said Shan. In the rich blue light his face was thoughtful.

“Then take it back again,” said Ted.

“I’d not thought,” said Shan, not taking it, “that it would prove so potent below the earth.”

“You could use some power around here,” said Ruth.

Shan said to Ted, “These things do not fall out by chance.” “Well, maybe I found it so I could give it to you. You take it.”

“An I may hold it,” said Shan. He took it from Ted’s fingers, and it lay on his small, wavery hand and did not fall to the ground.

“My thanks to you,” said Shan. “May it be long ere I see you again. Or thou,” he added, to Randolph.

Ted looked at Randolph, but Randolph only smiled. He looked back at Shan, and for a moment saw through him Randolph’s hand and arm.

“My lord, you look tired,” said Ted to Shan.

“The blood runneth dry,” said Randolph.

“Where’s your dagger?” said Ted.

“No,” said Shan. “You’ll need a whole skin and all the blood that’s in you. Quickly, have you any questions more?”

“How did Melanie get hold of your sword?”

“Melanie!” said Shan, scrambling to his knees and staring.

“She left it for us to stumble on,” said Ted. He added, “And she left her own for some friends of ours. Did you know she had one that would do similar work?”

“Of what color?”

“Green,” said Randolph.

Shan slapped his hands down on his knees, a violent motion that made hardly a whisper of sound. “Oh, I’m justly served,” he said. “I should have stayed. I am sorry, that I left this menace to ravage you. My lords and ladies, beware that sword of green. It will show you your own hearts in such a guise you’ll cut them out.”

He stood up, an agitated, wavering figure fading rapidly into the gray land and the gray sky.

“Where’s the dagger?” shouted Ted, leaping up himself.

“No,” said Shan; he was gone.