Sepwin laid a hand on his shoulder. "I don't believe that. The mirror is for you. I'm not wrong about it."

He pulled gently at Cray's arm. "Look once more."

Cray shook his head. "Twice is enough."

"Please."

"There's no purpose in it, Feldar."

"Please."

He shrugged Sepwin's hand away. "This mirror is a fragile thing. We don't want it damaged on your jour-ney home. I'll find something sturdy to pack it in." And he strode from the room.

Sepwin looked at the mirror unhappily. "I'm not wrong. I know what I felt when I touched him." He gripped the staff with white-knuckled hands. "Why won't it show him something?"

Delivev and Gildrum came to him then, and each put an arm around him. "You are so worried about him," Delivev said softly. "Yet he is young. There is time for anything he might wish to do. Must he have a heart's desire so soon in life?"

"Everyone has a heart's desire," Sepwin murmured.

"I think not," said Gildrum. "I think that some mortals simply live from day to day, doing whatever comes to hand and never looking to any real goal." Sepwin looked into the demon's eyes. "Those are just the ones who don't know what they want. The very ones who will come to look in the mirror." He turned to Delivev. "You'll see-someday the mirror will speak to him."

She stroked back his lank hair. "I know you only mean him well, Feldar, but don't badger him about this. I think that ... it disturbs him that the mirror has nothing for him. It may be best to put the matter aside for now. Come, it's almost time for supper." She glanced at the Air demon. "Elrelet, will you stay?"

"Thank you," it said. "I appreciate an invitation from such a fine cook."

Supper was somewhat strained, for neither Cray nor Sepwin would speak much, though Delivev and the demons were able to chat amiably enough. Afterward, they all sat in the garden over wine until Sepwin decided it was time to pack up the mirror.

"I'll carry you and it home, if you like," offered Elrelet, "as a small repayment to my lady for the excellent supper."

"Thank you," said Sepwin. "Flight would be safest for the mirror. But for myself, I'd really prefer a horse."

"That's a simple matter. My old master gave me a horse's form so he could roam the world in disguise.

As a talking and untiring horse, I am at your service."

Sepwin shook his head. "I wouldn't want to keep you in the human realm so long. The journey is a long one."

Elrelet chuckled softly. "I don't mind the human realm, as long as I'm visiting it of my own free will." For the meal, the demon had assumed a vaguely man-like shape, with torso and limbs of puffy white and a blob of a head with a large mouth but no eyes, nose or ears. Now it settled to the ground, all four limbs straight beneath it, the torso arching. The insubstantial-looking cloud solidified, smoothed out, became sleek and graceful. The horse that had been Elrelet tossed its white-maned head, and a pale leather saddle took form from the powerful muscles of its back.

Sepwin stood and bowed awkwardly to Delivev. "Perhaps you'll give me some provisions for the trip, my lady ... ?"

Her smile was puzzled. "You're not going this very moment, are you, Feldar?"

He glanced sidelong at Cray. "I don't know. Per-haps you're all weary of me ... and my foibles."

Demon and human alike, they turned to Cray at that, waiting for him to pass judgment on his friend. For just a moment, his lips made a thin, exasperated line; then he shook his head and rose to clap Sepwin on the back. "Of course you'll stay. Do you think I brought you all this way to have you leave in less than a day?"

Sepwin hesitated, looking into Cray's face, and then his mouth curved into a slow smile. "It does seem an inefficient use of time." "Of course it is. Elrelet can take you home a week hence as easily as now. There's a game of chance I've been wanting to try with you, one I observed in the webs some time ago, very popular in the south, and I was wondering if your powers as a Seer might have some effect on the outcome ... "

Sepwin stayed the week, and in that time he did not speak of the mirror again.

The fame of the Mirror of Heart's Desire spread far during the next few years. Kings and commoners came to look into it. The young, the old, the wandering, the people wanting to be told what to do with their lives, where to go, who to serve-all the folk who did not know their own minds came to the mirror.

In it they saw objects, places, people, or they saw themselves in strange surroundings, doing unfamiliar things. And the Seers stood by, Sepwin and the lady Helaine, to tell them, if they asked, what those visions meant.

But though he visited the Seers' cave often in those years, and though he passed the velvet drapery that hid the mirror a dozen dozen times, Cray did not look, no matter how obliquely Sepwin suggested it.

Chapter 2.

Atop the only remaining tower of a ruined castle, a gaunt, pale-bearded man raised his arms in conjura-tion. He was Everand, who had lived three mortal lifetimes already and called himself a sorcerer.

His clothes were rags, his fingernails and the creases of his skin were dark with grime, his eyes were reddened with lack of sleep, but he smiled. He savored the moment as if it were fine wine, and then he could not keep from shouting, "Now! Now!" as exultation rose strong within him, and power. And with a wild ges-ture, he flung both at the clear evening sky.

From the horizon, scattered wisps of cloud, flushed pink by the setting sun, came like starlings to a cherry tree. From every direction they sped, meeting above the crumbled walls of the castle in a wild cyclone, darkening as they gathered and piling up, up, into a towering thunderhead. Roiling, billowing like smoke from some vast conflagration, the cloud expanded upward until its summit began to flatten and spread as against some invisible barrier. Only then did the first bolt of lightning lash earthward, illuminating Everand and his lonely citadel with a ghastly whiteness.

The castle stood in the heart of a great and trackless forest. Once, it had been many-spired, its lofty walls and turrets built of demon-quarried marble. Once, solid and polished smooth and ever-renewed, it had been the proud residence of a powerful sorcerer. But with his death the castle, too, had died, its towers collapsing, roofs caving in, walls crumbling. Now, where stone still stood on stone, weeds grew from the cracked mortar, and even trees had taken root.

Everand called the ruin his home; he had no other.

His poor shelter of wood and broken stone, patched together with his own hands against the base of the standing tower, betrayed his weakness as a sorcerer. Though he could command clouds, though he could strike men dead from afar, though he could turn the forest night into day with a nod of his head, he could not build himself a proper dwelling. For three mortal lifetimes he had studied sorcery, and still there were many things other sorcerers accomplished easily that remained beyond him. Too many.

In the castle's open courtyard, upon the bare ground where the lightning danced and crackled, lay acirclet of copper-gold alloy as big around as a man's arm. Bolt after bolt of lightning played about it, making its ruddy, polished surface gleam sun-bright; Everand could feel the force of each stroke in the fine-drawn copper wires wound about his wrists and arms, in the copper-gold ring on the first finger of his right hand. And with each stroke he looked for flames to gush abruptly from the circlet, flames that would roar and thrash and finally subside into some bizarre, misshapen creature that would yield him its name and do his bidding forever. A Fire demon. The first of many Fire demons. Everand's fingers curled and worked against each other with his eagerness.

Brilliant in the lightning's glare, the arm ring lay empty on the steaming earth.

Empty.

Thunder seemed to echo in his ears long after dark-ness had settled upon the castle, long after he had allowed the cloud to shred apart like rotting cloth and reveal the icy stars. He stood in the dark for a time, the afterimage of the armlet glowing in his mind's eye. Step by step, he called the details of the conjuration from his memory, searching for some flaw. But no; everything had been perfect-the weighing and mixing and smelting of the alloy, the words, the gestures, everything precisely as Regneniel had taught him. Yet the procedure had yielded nothing.

Rage grew thick and hot within him. He snapped his fingers to bring a dazzling blue-white spark into being on the nearest wall and, by its glare, stalked down the tower stairs. In the courtyard, he picked up the copper-gold armlet and turned it slowly in his hands. It had not changed; its inner surface was blank where he desired a demon's name to be inscribed. He gripped it hard, and its edges pressed painfully into the flesh of his palm, his fingers. For a moment, he focused all his rage on that piece of metal; he wanted to slam it against a wall, to trample it under his feet, to hurl it into the furnace and melt it down to a formless lump, as if any of those actions could somehow force it to obey him and produce a demon. He gripped the circlet so hard that his hands shook. At last, very softly, he said, "Regneniel, come here."

The creature that answered his summons was taller than a man and grotesquely storklike. It walked on two spindly, multi jointed legs, and its apple-sized body sprouted three tiny arms as well as a snaky neck that blended into a long-beaked head. It had no eyes or ears, no feathers or fur or scales, just a smooth unbro-ken skin as polished and gleaming as milk glass. Sink-ing to the ground at Everand's feet, it said, "My lord, what is your will?"

Everand tore his left hand from the armlet and raised it as a fist. The third finger bore a silver band set with a large, faceted diamond, and that gem caught the glare of the blue-white spark and shattered it into a thousand colors. Playing across the unearthly creature's skin, these fragments of light shivered with the tremor of the hand.

"By this ring I command you, Ice demon," said Everand, and now his voice, too, shook with his an-ger, though it was very low. "Have you lied to me, my slave? Have you given me false instruction in any particular?"

The beak tilted upward, as if the eyeless head were watching him. The voice was human as his own, but level and emotionless. "My lord, I have done everything you required."

"Think before you speak again, creature! Think of the prison I could send you to, of the dark solitude that would close you in for the rest of your slavery. Think of that, and tell me again if you have obeyed me to the letter!"

"My lord," said the demon, "your conjuration was correct in every detail. I swear this on the ring thatbinds me to you."

"Then where is my Fire demon?" He raised the armlet as if to strike his slave. As so often before, though Regneniel bent low to the ground, Everand saw defiance in that posture rather than submission. The demon despised him, he knew it. "Speak!"

"My lord," said Regneniel, "there are none to be had."

"What? What do you mean?"

"No more than that, my lord. At this moment, there are no Fire demons obliged to answer your summons."

"What-every one claimed by some other sorcerer? Am I to believe that?"

"Many are indeed claimed," said Regneniel.

"And the unclaimed?"

"They are all beyond your reach."

He did strike the creature then, anger overpowering him, and the copper-gold armlet rang against that glassy surface as against bare metal. "Why are they beyond my reach?" he shouted. "Is it you, you cursed monster? Don't you know how to conjure them?" He struck again, harder, and this time he felt the armlet go cold and the cold rush up his arm as if he had plunged it into icy water to the shoulder. The sensa-tion merely fueled his rage, turning from ice to fire inside his heart. "I am a sorcerer, and I will be a greater one! You shall not stand in my way!"

"My lord, I am not to blame," whispered the demon.

"Are you saying that it'smy fault? Do you dare to say that, slave?"

"My lord-"

"Monster, beware-you walk close to the brink!"

The beak sank to the ground, almost touching his feet. "My lord, you misunderstand me. Forces outside the two of us prevent your conjuration from being successful."

Everand glowered at the creature, the pressure of his rage a beating pain in his throat, at his temples, inside his ears. The demon's voice was so calm, so quiet that he wanted to smash it into a million milky shards. Cursing, he turned away, and then he tossed the copper-gold circlet from him as if it were a piece of rotten meat.

Slowly, he regained control of himself. Losing his temper at the demon was pointless, he knew that. He could not punish it-he needed its services too much. He had no other slaves. He hugged his icy arm to his chest and massaged away the chill. When he turned back to the demon at last, he was the image of cool restraint, though his throat was hot and raw.

"What forces do you speak of, my slave?" he said quietly. Regneniel's beak barely moved with its words. "There is a sorcerer, my lord, who gives eternal freedom to masterless demons. He has been doing this for some years now, and as long as he continues, there will be no reservoir of potential slaves."

Everand stroked his pale beard with the hand that bore the diamond. "None at all? Fire, Ice, Water, and Air-none?"

"None, my lord."

"And Regneniel, my slave, did you know this before you began to teach me how to conjure them?"

The demon hesitated for just a moment. Then it whispered, "Yes, my lord."

"So, all the while you were teaching me this useless knowledge, you were mocking me behind my back."

"My lord, you bade me teach you how to conjure a Fire demon, and I obeyed."

Everand drew a ragged breath and kept his voice from rising into a shout again. "Yes, you did obey me.

And you taught me more than you think, my icy slave. I promise you, this lesson shall not be forgotten.

Now-tell me if there is any way I can acquire a Fire demon, or any sort of demon, in the future."

"It will not be easy, my lord."

"So I suspect. Still."

Regneniel arched its neck, swanlike, raising its head to the level of Everand's knees. "This sorcerer knows when demons are loosed by their master's deaths, and also when new ones are born. He is always ready, it seems, with rings to conjure them and set them free. You could not be quick enough to snatch them from him, my lord, not even with my help. Therefore, if you wish another slave, you must prevent him from practicing his art."

Everand stared down at. the beak that poised, mo-tionless, before him. "Prevent? You mean ... kill him?"

"That would be the surest way."

Everand looked up to the jagged battlements of his citadel, to the ruined towers and the crumbled walls.

He shook his head. "In a contest with another sor-cerer,I'd be the one more likely to die." He lowered his gaze to the demon once more. "Tell me, slave-why has no other demon-conjurer killed him already?

Surely his work does harm to all of them. Or is he so very powerful that they dare not try?"

"My lord, they cannot touch him. They don't know who he is."

Everand's eyebrows showed his disbelief. "How is that possible? They have only to ask their slaves for his name."

"My lord, his identity is the great secret of the demon worlds. Those he has freed never reveal it to those still enslaved. All I know of him is that he exists, and he is a man."

"No more than that?" The beaked head wagged in a very human fashion. "No, my lord."

Everand's lips tightened for a moment. "Not easy," he whispered. "Not easy." His hands curled into fists at his sides. "Hear me, my icy slave. This is my command-that if ever you should encounter the slight-est hint of his identity, you will inform me immediately. I hope that is clear, Regneniel."

"Quite clear, my lord. I am not the first demon to be given those instructions."

"No, I wouldn't think so." He looked down to the bare ground of the courtyard. Here, and for a narrow space about the castle walls, Regneniel had frozen the earth with its icy breath, frozen grass and shrubs and trees, frozen even unsprouted seeds to death. Regneniel was a destroyer; its breath on the walls would make stone fracture and mortar crumble until even the wretched ruins that now stood fell to dust.

The only structure such a demon could build would be of ice, a frigid dwelling whose master would be forced to live in furs summer and winter alike. Everand needed Fire demons to make him a proper castle, to fulfill all his deepest desires. He glanced sidelong at the spark that had bloomed to his bidding. With a nod, he snuffed it and stood in the darkness, a greater darkness growing in his heart. Three lifetimes of study had yielded so little! He raised his eyes to the castle's single standing tower, its outline barely visible against the starry sky. He lifted a hand toward it, and pale St. Elmo's fire leaped from its crenelations, slid down to the lower battlements, and flickered across the ruined walls till the whole perimeter of the citadel was crowned with simmering light.

"They laugh at my sorcery," he said in a low, tight voice. "They call it ... pitiful." He looked down at the demon, a pale ghost at his feet. "You are all I have, Regneniel. Now between us we must find another way to gain power."

The demon lowered its head to the ground. "I don't know what to tell you, my lord," it murmured. "I am only an Ice demon."

Everand rubbed the diamond with the palm of his ringless hand. "All the knowledge of the human realm, and more, can be found in the demon worlds. You and I shall pick over that knowledge, and we shall find a way, Regneniel. They shall eat their laughter, my icy slave; they shall choke on it. Andhe ... " His voice dropped to a harsh whisper. "This secret, nameless sorcerer. For what he has done to me ... he shall die. Somehow. Someday."

At his feet, Regneniel said, "You command me, my lord, and I obey."

By nature, Cray was as curious as he was stubborn. As long as Sepwin seemed to want him to look into the Mirror of Heart's Desire, so long he ignored it; but once his friend could pass the velvet drapery without glancing at it meaningfully, Cray's interest began to revive. He found the mirror invading his dreams, where once again he saw the metal fog settling on the web-covered wooden frame, the Air demon polishing that curving surface, and the glitter that resulted, the empty glitter. In his deepest slumber, the mirror seemed to call to him, and often he awoke then, to toss fitfully and wonder if he should answer.