"I'll know when he dies," said Taranol. "You won't be able to keep it a secret fromme. "He let himself be guided toward the tunnel that led to daylight, but at the last moment he turned back toward Cray.

"Don't expect any help from me, though. I won't battle another sorcerer, not for someone else's sake. I won't allow you to use this ear against him."

"We would not expect you to," said the lady He-laine, and with a light touch on his elbow, she easedhim and his demons out into the sunshine.

Gildrum came up beside Cray and laid an arm across his shoulders. "Will you tell her?"

Cray looked down at the white sand beneath his feet. "I must. I only wonder if it will matter to her."

"Of course it will matter. Her own grandfather ... "

"I don't know, Gildrum. She has no soul, no capacity for love or hate or grief. Her parents are like a dream to her; they have no reality in her mind. Perhaps she'll merely say that her grandfather did this, too, for her own benefit."

Gildrum's arm tightened. "Then you must convince her otherwise."

Cray sighed. "Help me, Gildrum."

"Of course," said the demon.

Chapter 11.

Aliza was yawning and knuckling sleep from her eyes when she admitted Cray to her palace.

"Forgive me," he said. "I didn't think you'd still be asleep so late in the morning."

"The sun doesn't rule in Ice, so why should I let it command me? Come, break fast with me. Regneniel should have some food ready by the time we reach the dining hall."

"It's midday meal for me," he said with a smile, "but I'll join you gladly." He waved to his three demon friends, who waited in their usual place just beyond the transparent wall, and then he fell in step beside Aliza to move deeper into the palace. "I tried to call you through the web. I thought surely it would work even here in Ice, but nothing happened. Have you tried it from your side yet?"

"No, I never had the chance. The spider died soon after I brought it home, and the web fell apart quickly after that."

"Died? It was a healthy spider, and young. Did Regneniel forget to feed it?"

"No, but Regneniel is not accustomed to having other living creatures here, certainly not any so small. I had the spider make its web in my bedchamber, and while removing the bedclothes for laundering, Regneniel accidentally stepped on it. I was very annoyed, and Regneniel was very apologetic, but of course that did no good. I was thinking ... of asking you for another one. I'll put it in a safer place this time, I promise you."

"Stepped on it," murmured Cray. "I had no idea that Ice demons were so clumsy."

"It assured me it would take greater care if you gave me another one."

"I would hope so," said Cray. "Well, I happen to have a few about my person just now, so that shouldn't pose any problem." In the dining hall the long table was set with fruit and cheese, bread and cold meat, and two cups of a steaming herbal infusion. Cray seated himself opposite Aliza and took up a slice of meat.

"Where is Regneniel?" he asked, after a moment of silent eating.

"Is there something you want?"

"Yes. I was thinking of that fine Maretian wine."

Aliza yawned again, behind her hand. "It's a little early for wine, isn't it? Even if it is midday for you."

"I wasn't thinking of drinking any now. But ... truth to tell, my mother thought it some of the best wine she had ever tasted. She'd very much like to have a cask of it for Spinweb."

"I haven't that much here at the moment, but Regneniel can easily get it."

"I was thinking," said Cray, "that Regneniel could show a couple of my demon friends where it comes from, and then she could have more whenever she wished."

"Surely," said Aliza. "Are they out there waiting for you still?"

He nodded.

"Regneniel," she said, and the demon came to her from the doorway that led to the kitchen. "Show Cray's demon companions where Maretian wine comes from. And bring a fresh cask for me as well."

"As you wish, my lady," said the Ice demon, and it marched out of the room.

Cray rose from his chair and went to the doorway to watch Regneniel go and, keeping well back, followed the demon through the furnished rooms and even the unfurnished ones, till he saw it step through a new-made gap in the outer wall and join his friends. Only then did he return to Aliza. Running.

He found her staring at the doorway through which he and the demon had gone, a piece of bread forgotten in her upraised hand. "What are you doing?"

Instead of returning to his own chair, he leaned over hers. "They'll keep Regneniel away as long as they can. I must talk to you alone."

"Alone?"

"I don't think you can trust your demon, Aliza. I don't think it really belongs to you."

Her free hand went to the sapphire pendant. "What are you talking about?"

"I know a great deal more now about your grandfa-ther than I did the last time we spoke. And I know now that he isn't the sort of man who would give up something as valuable to him as a demon slave. I think that your jewel is a fake and that your grandfather still controls Regneniel."

"What? Nonsense. I command Regneniel." "I doubt it. Your grandfather gave you the demon to make you believe in his power, his good will, and your own independence. All three were illusions. Besides being weak, he is an evil, self-centered man, and I can't imagine that you mean more to him than a dead leaf. All he cares about is the sorcery you can use on his behalf."

Aliza looked up at him, the corners of her mouth turned down by her frown. "Must we go into these foolish suppositions of yours again?"

"Yes, we must. He doesn't have your best interests at heart, Aliza, believe me. He never did." He sank to one knee beside her. "I'll tell you what I know, and then you can tell me if I'm not right." Quickly he related the story that the lady Helaine had read in Everand's ear, and through it all Aliza's expression did not change, seemed rather to be frozen upon her face, as if she were in some sort of trance. Even the part about her parents' fiery death did not move her. "Don't you see," Cray finished, "that all he cared about was power, if not directly for himself, then through your mother or through you? He tried to enslave her. He has succeeded in enslaving you."

In a remote voice, she said, "I remember that night. I remember the flames." Her eyes seemed unfocused, as if she were seeing the scene again in her mind, but as if it were something innocuous, an empty landscape, a cloudless sky. "I dreamed of it for a long time afterward, I remember-the burning cabin." She shook her head and blinked and looked at Cray once more. "No, it was an accident of sorcery. He told me so."

"He lied. He's lied to you about a great many things."

"Or you lie." She leaned back in her chair, away from him, and folded her arms across her bosom.

"Who am I to believe-my own grandfather, or you, whoever you are."

"I am your friend. You know that."

"Do I? No, all I really know is that you want to turn me against him, for reasons that I don't understand."

Cray stood abruptly. "He killed your parents, and he intends to use you as a slave. Aren't those enough reasons?"

"If he did kill my parents ... " Her mouth made a thin line.

"Don't tell me you think that's excusable. Your future as a sorcerer could not have been worth their lives. If you think it was, then their deaths are onyour head as well as his."

"No," she said. "It wasn't excusable. They had just as much right to live as I do. It was wrong for him to kill them. If he did."

"You can ask Taranol," said Cray. "He heard the tale, too."

"He heard what the Seer told him."

He backed off a pace. "You would rather believe that the Seer and I are lying, wouldn't you?"

Aliza's cool dark eyes narrowed. "In my place, wouldn't you?" Cray said, "I would want to know the truth."

"As do I."

He turned away from her, clasping his hands behind his back. "If I show you that you do not truly command the demon, will that convince you I'm not totally wrong?"

"And how will you show that?"

"Your grandfather doesn't like me, does he?"

"That's something of an understatement, I'd say."

"He thinks I distract you from your studies. He doesn't like me to visit you. And he knew of those visits even though you didn't tell him about them."

"Does that seem so strange to you? After all, we have a bond of blood, he and I."

He turned back to her. "Now I say nonsense, Aliza. If he were a great sorcerer, I might say yes, a bond of blood, and power, might enable him to spy on you himself. But he has no power, not by any standards I know. Regneniel does his spying for him. And I don't think Regneniel would allow me to stay here for any length of time unobserved. I think that nearly all the hours you and I have spent together have been watched, whether we knew it or not, whether here or in the Seer's cave. Only my mother's castle would have been beyond your icy spy, and she would have been willing to let it in if you had asked. But you didn't ask. Oh, how he must have gnashed his teeth overthose hours!"

Aliza stroked her lower lip with one forefinger. "He told me himself about this bond between us. He told me just the last time I saw him."

"He lied, Aliza. One lie among many."

She touched the sapphire. "Very well, if you can prove to me that I don't command the demon, I'll give some thought to believing some of the other things you've said. I'll have to."

Cray nodded. "Then you must do two things when it returns with the wine-send it back to its home in Ice for a long vacation, and let Gildrum into your palace."

Her frown was deep. "No demon but Regneniel has ever been inside this building."

He gripped her shoulder. "Aliza, I'm trying to prove that Regneniel is the slave of your greatest enemy.

Won't you let a friend help me do that?"

Her cool dark eyes looked up into his. "Grandfa-ther has always said that any demon who entered here while I am still an apprentice would have an easier time doing it later, even against my will."

"That's true," Cray said softly. "And Regneniel is such a demon. Your grandfather can use it against you, Aliza, and you can't bar it from these walls. But Gildrum would never harm you, and he can't be enslaved and forced to it, either."

"He would do it for your sake, though, wouldn't he?" His fingers tightened on her shoulder. "Do you think that I would ever wish to harm you? Do you think that I could allow you to visit my home, to share a meal with my own mother, if I wished you any harm?"

"I don't understand you, Cray Ormoru," she whis-pered.

"I have not cultivated your friendship just to de-stroy you, Aliza. I could have donethat during our visit to Air or Water. Please trust me now. What I do is for your sake."

"I don't understand you," she repeated, and then she just stared into his face, as if somehow she could read his motives there, until the demon Regneniel returned, a cask of Maretian wine clutched by its snakelike neck as by an arm.

"I apologize for the delay, my lady," it said, "but the other demons were somewhat confused by the route. They have your wine, Cray Ormoru, waiting for you where you entered the palace."

"Thank you," said Cray, walking around the table to his own chair. There he made a show of resuming his interrupted meal.

"Regneniel," said Aliza, "pour us two fresh, hot cups of the herbal infusion." When the demon had done so, she added, "And invite Cray's friend Gildrum to join us here for dessert."

Regneniel hesitated. "Gildrum is a demon," it said.

"I know that very well."

"As your tutor, I must remind you that allowing demons that do not belong to you inside your palace is a dangerous practice."

"You have reminded me. Now do as I command."

"As you wish, my lady."

Gildrum wore his man shape as he entered the room. At the doorway, he bowed to Aliza and then he took the chair that she indicated, a crystalline chair that she had just raised from the floor beside Cray's wooden one.

"Fruit?" she said.

With a smile, he took a pear and began to eat it.

She turned to Regneniel again. "I have been think-ing about all I have learned about demons these past months, Regneniel. I have been thinking that you have served me faithfully, and my grandfather before me, for a very long time, without any opportunity to live as you did when you were free. I believe I understand, a little at least, what sadness slavery must be to you, taking you away from the peace and quiet of your home in Ice, making demands of you when you really only want to be left alone. So I have decided to give you a vacation. I want you to go home and enjoy yourself for two months."

The demon stood very still for a long moment, its tapering beak pointed at her, as if there were an eye on the end that could see her. "My lady," it said at last, "your studies."

"My studies go well, and I know what I have to do for almost the next year. I don't need your tutoringfor now."

"If not my tutoring, then my services. How will you live if I go away for two months?"

"Cray has promised me that his demon friends will bring me food, and he himself will teach me to cook."

"But the laundry, the cleaning, the water ... "

"They will be taken care of."

"But I have always taken care of them, and I know best how they should be done."

Aliza's expression became stern. "Are you arguing with me, slave?"