"For now, for the near future, just simple talk, not of my grandfather, not of my soul, not of love. Just simple talk. Perhaps near the tapestry. Perhaps ... over a goblet of wine?" Her eyes were wide, almost pleading as she looked into his face.

"Your grandfather won't like it," he said.

"We won't speak of my grandfather."

He felt his terrible smile begin to relax. "Are you sure, Aliza? Are you absolutely sure?"

She pursed her lips for a moment, then said, "You've made a place for yourself in my life, Cray Ormoru.

I want you to continue to occupy it."

He felt the stiffness drain out of him like a windy breath, and suddenly he became aware of a thousand aches, in his back, his legs, his neck, overstrained muscles making their protest known at last. "Very well," he said. "I think I could relish a goblet of wine just now."

He had scarcely passed through the doorway with Aliza when he remembered Gildrum and glanced back.

He saw the Fire demon still standing by the hearth, watching the embers as if they held some fascinating secret. "Will you come along, Gildrum?"

The demon shook his head. "I think I'll stay here and look for Regneniel to come back. I'll call you when it happens."

Cray hesitated, looked sidelong at Aliza, then said, "No, don't call. We'll discuss the matter later, at home."

Gildrum shrugged. "Then I'll prepare dinner. Regneniel left plenty of food."

"If you like," said Cray, and he followed Aliza from the room.

In the chamber where the tapestry hung, they spoke very little at first, both lavishing most of theiratten-tion on the wine, admiring its color, inhaling its bou-quet, sipping, but actually consuming very little of it. They sat at opposite ends of the couch, and when words did pass between them, they were mostly remi-niscences of their experiences in the other demon worlds. Compromise was a barrier between them, and neither wished to be the first to test it.

As they talked of nothing much, Cray watched Aliza and thought of love. Now that he had admitted it, to her and to himself, he felt the terrible irony of it. He had denied that he loved her, but only he had been fooled by that denial. His mother, Sepwin, the Seer-all of them had known. He had thought to interpret the mirror in his own way, but the mirror was its own master, and gave only the simplest truth. What a per-fect song this would make for some troubadour, he thought-the man in love, the woman incapable of returning that feeling, incapable even of understand-ing what it was. And how perfect was the pain that he felt in his chest as he wished to reach out and pull her into his arms, and dared not. Just simple talk, she said, and no mention of love.

Perhaps, he thought, she was better off this way, better off without a soul. Sepwin hadn't found it anyway; it was hidden more cleverly than he or Cray had hoped. Perhaps they would never find it, never be able to offer it to her. Perhaps she wouldn't accept it, even if they did. Who was to say that she was really not better off without love, without anger, without grief? Without pain. Cray looked long and long at her, and in the unnatural light of the palace, her flawless skin seemed to glisten, as if she, too, were made of some kind of crystal.

"Why do you stare at me so?" she said at last, shifting her posture on the couch as if her muscles were cramped.

He smiled. "Haven't I always stared at you?"

"Not like this."

"You are very beautiful," he said. "I've never real-ized quite how beautiful. Such beauty warrants staring."

"I find the tapestry beautiful," she said, gesturing toward it.

"It is, but I would rather spend my time here looking at you. I would like to stay here and be able tostare at you always."

"I'm sure you would find it rather boring after a while."

"I assure you, I have nothing better to do with my life."

She shook her head. "I can't imagine how it must feel to have no compulsion to study, to learn."

"Someday you may understand it. Someday you may discover that sorcery is not the whole of life."

She looked down into her goblet. "Are you going to speak of love now?"

"There are other things besides love. The worlds are wide."

She rolled her goblet between her palms. "I am very young, Cray."

"Yes." "I haven't your perspective."

"I'm not old, Aliza, not by our standards. I'm really not much older than you are."

"But you have experience with other people, with things beyond me."

"That's not a difficult thing to have."

"Grandfather always said I was ... special."

"And so you are," Cray said.

"He always said I was the brightest, the cleverest, the best. That no other sorcerer would ever match me once I reached my full potential. He said I must work hard to achieve that potential."

"An admirable goal," said Cray.

She looked up at him. "But if I am the best and the cleverest, why does my head spin at the thought of all the things you've shown me? Why do I want to go to the cradle room and clutch my stuffed toy instead of going back out to see more?"

He gazed at her sadly. "I don't know what lies inside you, Aliza. I only know how it seems from here, at the other end of the couch, behind another pair of eyes. To these eyes, it seems that this palace and Ice are your refuge and your prison. I saw a leopard once, kept in a cage by a sorceress, well fed, with a golden collar. The sorceress died, and one of her demons took pity on the beast, and rather than leave it to starve in that cage, opened the cage door. Forest lay beyond that door, where deer and smaller game were plentiful. But the leopard would not go out. It knew nothing of hunting; it only knew how to lick the hand that gave it food. It died of hunger at last, and its bones are still there, in the rusted cage, for any passerby to see. The golden collar, of course, was stolen by one of them some years since."

Aliza touched the sapphire with one finger. "Is this my golden collar?"

"If you see it so."

She held the glittering gem up for a moment, and then she loosed it, sighing. "But I am still young. There is time yet."

"Time enough for everything, if you wish, my lady."

"Time enough to travel again someday. Not soon, but ... someday?"

"If you wish it."

"And you'll show me more of the human realm, when I'm ready?"

He smiled at her. "You have only to ask, and I am completely at your service."

She tilted her head to one side, as if to see him better from that fresh angle. "And you won't ... kill yourself or put out your eyes or go on some long, pointless quest after you leave here today?" His smile broadened, and then he laughed softly. "I don't think I was planning on any of those things."

"In the songs, rejected lovers did one or another of them. They jumped off cliffs and such like."

He shook his head slowly. "Perhaps I shouldn't have let you listen to so many of those songs. You are too innocent to consider the possibility that a troubadour may embellish reality for the sake of drama.

And for the sake of his purse. A tale of unrequited love and suicide earns a prettier payment than one of unre-quited love and a return to ordinary existence. Such is the nature of the audience."

She leaned farther back on the couch. "Good. I wouldn't want your mother thinking I was responsible for your death."

He laughed again. "Dear Aliza, by asking me to remain your friend, you have given me life. If I had left, thinking that I would never see you again, then truly some part of me would have died. But here we are, and I'll ask no more than to spend whatever time you will with you."

She fingered the rim of her goblet as she gazed down into the translucent red of the Maretian wine. "Is it that you think, someday, I may come to love you?"

"We weren't going to speak of love, Aliza."

"No, but ... the sound of your voice when you said you loved me. I will never forget that. What is it like, to love?"

"I don't think it's something you can understand with your mind, Aliza. You understand it with your soul."

She raised her eyes to his. "Then I'll never know, will I? Unless he gives it back."

The silence that followed, a silence in which they drank more wine and avoided each other's eyes, was broken by a voice calling Aliza's name. It was a reso-nant voice, echoing, as if it were reaching them through a long tunnel.

Aliza sprang to her feet, her goblet falling from her fingers, spilling its contents across the couch.

"Grandfather!"

"I await you, Aliza," cried the voice.

A moment later Gildrum appeared in the doorway that led to the inner rooms. "There's a human outside, in Ice."

"Come to me, Aliza!" said the voice.

Lifting her velvet skirt above her knees, she ran. Cray and Gildrum followed her through the unfur-nished portions of the palace, to one of the outer chambers, not the one Cray knew well, but the newest one, which was still scarcely larger than the cradle room. Beyond its transparent wall, in a fracture held open by an Ice demon, floated a tall, pale-bearded man. He was heavily swathed against the chill of Ice, in hooded cloak and boots; one gloved hand showed, clutching the cloak together at his throat.

"Come in, Grandfather," said Aliza, and the wall that separated her from him melted away like frost touched by a breath of flame. The chill of Ice entered the room like a fist, and though Aliza did not seem to notice it, Cray shivered, gooseflesh rising all over his body. Gildrum stepped close to him then, radiating warmth even though he wore a human guise.

Everand eased back against the body of the demon, a blunt cylinder like a plug in the fracture. "No," he said. "We will talk like this. I am too displeased to enter your home."

Aliza lowered her eyes. "I regret that you are dis-pleased, Grandfather."

"Do you? Yet I see this fellow here, this Cray Ormoru, even though I asked you not to associate with him again. And a Fire demon, too, inside the very walls of your palace. Did you think these things wouldn't displease me? You waste your time traveling about with them when you should be studying.

You listen to their attempts to turn you against me-me, your teacher, your master, your own flesh and blood, to whom you owe everything. Did you think I knew nothing of these matters? Foolish child, you have precious few secrets from me."

Slowly, Aliza lifted her gaze to his. "What do you wish of me, Grandfather?" she asked quietly.

"Obedience, child," he replied. "Nothing more or less. You have paid too much attention to thisfriend of yours. You have forced me to reveal that which I would have preferred not to-that Regneniel is mine.

Yes, it's true. You are far too young and inexperienced to have total control over such a powerful crea-ture. I allowed you to think it belonged to you because I believed that a tangible reward would spur you tostudy harder than ever. But now I see that your stud-ies have become unimportant to you, and you nolonger deserve that illusion. Now, I think, it will be better that you know my eye is at your shoulder every moment Regneniel is with you. And it shall always be with you. Always."

"You misjudge me, Grandfather," said Aliza. "My studies have not become unimportant."

"Disobedient child, I judge you precisely. I set you a course of study to make you the equal of any sor-cerer living, and now this man has become more im-portant to you than my teaching." He pointed at Cray with his free hand. "He is your enemy. He wants you to be weak. You must send him away, never to return."

Aliza's lips tightened to a thin, pale line. "I have never given over studying, Grandfather, and I shall not in future. You may test me if you wish, and you will not be disappointed. But I shall not give up my friendship with this man. Do not ask it of me."

"I do not ask it," Everand said in a strained voice. "I command it."

Aliza shook her head. "I cannot obey that command."

"His influence is injurious to your development as a sorceress, child. For your own sake, you must obey me."

Firmly, she said, "For my own sake, Grandfather, I must not. I believe that he has a great deal to offer me in knowledge and experience. But I promise you that I won't neglect the studies you set me. I have the capac-ity for both, in proper proportion. I know it."

"You know it?" Everand shouted, and his whole body shook with the force of his voice, so that he would have begun to tumble if the fracture had not been so small. He stopped his motion bythrusting outboth arms, and he stood there, braced within the fracture, his cloak billowing about him as if it had some life of its own. "What do you know?" he shouted. "How to disobey me? How to betray me! I took your soul so that you'd never betray me, but you've done it anyway. Now listen to me, Aliza my apprentice-I have your soul. Yes, I know thisfriend of yours has been looking for it most diligently, but it's hidden where he and his minions will never find it. And while I have it, I haveyou. I hoped this day would never come, believe me. I hoped that you and I could reach some satisfactory arrangement, when you were ma-ture. I'm not greedy, Aliza. I won't need you to serve me every moment of every day. But youwill serve me, now and always, and you will serve me with sorcery as excellent as any that exists.

They laugh at me now, child, but they won't laugh when you are mature. Now get rid of this interloper, permanently, and get back to your studies, or I will use your own soul against you."

Aliza stared at him with her cool dark eyes. "Grandfather, are you threatening me?"

"My child," he said in a hoarse whisper, "you don't dream of the extent to which I am threatening you.

"I am not afraid of your threats," she replied. "You yourself have seen to that."

He showed his teeth in a grimace that was half smile, half snarl. "Then let us move a bit beyond mere threat." His right hand made a twisting gesture, sharp as a blow.

Aliza gasped, her eyes widening, one hand clutching at her belly.

"More?" said Everand.

She doubled up and fell to one knee. Her breath came hoarsely, ragged. Her free hand formed a fist, opened, closed spasmodically, on empty air.

Cray dropped to her side and put his arms around her. To Everand he said, "Stop! Stop this!"

"Very well," said Everand.

Aliza went limp in Cray's arms, her head lolling against his chest. She panted as if she had just sprinted to safety ahead of ravening wolves. Then she pushed swaying a little, her back straight and her head high.

"You would do that to me?" she said, her voice shak-ing. "Your own flesh and blood, Grandfather?"

"I will do it again if I must," he replied. "If you do not obey me."

"I am your apprentice, Grandfather, and I do owe you a great debt. But repayment does not mean that I must be your slave forever."

"Ah, but it does, child. That is exactly what it means."

The expression on her face was stark, and she was paler than Cray had ever seen her. "I am not afraid of pain, Grandfather. You may strike me down as often as you wish, but you will not win my obedience."

"No? Taste this, then!" His hand moved again, and Aliza clutched her belly with clawed fingers and pressed her other fist against her mouth. She did not fall this time, and she made no sound. She seemed, in fact, to be holding her breath.

"Gildrum!" cried Cray, and the demon turned to flame and flashed toward Everand. At the open end ofthe fracture, where the wall of the palace had formerly been, there was a crackle as from a blazing log, and a flash of blinding blue-white light, and the ball of fire that was Gildrum rebounded from an invisible barrier. A sharp, sour smell pervaded the small chamber.

"Don't think you can touch me, any of you," said Everand. "They laugh at me, but I have my defenses."