Lehuster nodded. “He is as he should be. Calanctus, hold out your arm! I will give you a scarab worn by the first Calanctus, whose identity you must assume. This bracelet is yours. Wear it always around your right wrist.”

Calanctus said: “I feel the surge of power. I am strong! I am Calanctus!”

Rhialto asked: “Are you strong enough to accept the sleight of magic? The ordinary man must study forty years even to become an apprentice.”

“I have the power to accept magic.”

“Come then! You shall ingest the Encyclopedia, then the Three Books of Phandaal, and if then you are neither dead nor mad I will pronounce you a man strong beyond any of my experience. Come! Back to the work-room.”

Ildefonse remained in the parlour … Minutes passed. He heard a queer choking outcry, quickly quelled.

Calanctus returned to the parlour with firm steps. Rhialto, coming after, walked on sagging knees with a green pallor on his face.

Calanctus spoke somberly to Ildefonse: “I have accepted magic. My mind reels with spells; they are wild, but still I control their veering forces. The scarab gave me the strength.”

Lehuster spoke. “The time is near. Witches gather on the meadow: Zanzel, Ao of the Opals, Barbanikos, and others. They are fretful and agitated … In fact, Zanzel approaches.”

Rhialto looked to Ildefonse. “Shall we use the opportunity?”

“We would be fools if we did not!”

“My thoughts precisely. If you will take yourself to the side arbor …”

Rhialto went out on the front terrace, where he met Zanzel, who lodged an emphatic protest in the matter of the missing IOUN stones.

“Quite right!” said Rhialto. “It was a dastardly act, done at the behest of Ildefonse. Come to the side arbor and I will redress the wrong.”

Zanzel walked to the side arbor where Ildefonse desensitized her with the Spell of Internal Solitude. Ladanque, Rhialto’s chamberlain, lifted Zanzel to a barrow and wheeled her to the gardener’s shed.

Rhialto, emboldened by his success, stepped to the front terrace and signaled to Barbanikos, who, following Rhialto into the side arbor, met a similar disposition.

So it went with Ao of the Opals, Dulce-Lolo, Hurtiancz and others, until the only witches remaining upon the meadow were the absent-minded Vermoulian and Tchamast the Didactor, both of whom ignored Rhialto’s signal.

Llorio the Murthe dropped down upon the meadow in a whirl of white cloud-spume … She wore an ankle-length white gown, silver sandals, a silver belt and a black fillet to confine her hair. She put a question to Vermoulian, who pointed toward Rhialto, at the front of Falu.

Llorio slowly approached. Ildefonse, stepping from the arbor, bravely directed a double spell of Internal Solitude against her; it bounced back and, striking Ildefonse, sent him sprawling.

Llorio the Murthe halted. “Rhialto! You have mistreated my coterie! You have stolen my magic stones, and so now you must come to Sadal Suud not as a witch, but as a servant of menial sort, and this shall be your punishment. Ildefonse will fare no better.”

From Falu came Calanctus. He halted. Llorio’s taut jaw sagged; her mouth fell open.

Llorio spoke in a gasping voice: “How are you here? How did you evade the triangle? How …” The voice seemed to catch in her throat; in consternation she stared into the face of Calanctus. She found her voice. “Why do you look at me like that? Faithless I have not been; I now depart for Sadal Suud! Here I do only what must be done and it is you who are faithless!”

“I also did what must be done, and so it must be done again, for you have ensqualmated men to be your witches; so you have broken the Great Law, which ordains that man shall be man and woman shall be woman.”

“When Necessity meets Law, then Law gives way: so you spoke in your Decretals!”

“No matter. Go you shall to Sadal Suud! Go now, go alone, without the ensqualmations.”

Llorio said: “It is all one; a sorry band they are, either as wizards or witches, and in candour I wanted them only for entourage.”

“Go then, Murthe!”

Llorio instead looked at Calanctus with a peculiar expression mingled of puzzlement and dissatisfaction on her face. She made no move to depart, which would seem to be both a taunt and a provocation. “The aeons have not dealt kindly with you; now you stand like a man of dough! Remember how you threatened to deal with me should we meet again?” She took another step forward, and showed a cool smile. “Are you afraid of my strength? So it must be! Where now are your erotic boasts and predictions?”

“I am a man of peace. I carry concord in my soul rather than attack and subjugation. I threaten naught; I promise hope.”

Llorio came a step closer and peered into his face. “Ah!” she cried softly. “You are an empty façade, no more, and not Calanctus! Are you then so ready to taste death’s sweetness?”

“I am Calanctus.”

Llorio spoke a spell of twisting and torsion, but Calanctus fended it away with a gesture, and called a spell in turn of compressions from seven directions, which caught the Murthe unready and sent her reeling to her knees. Calanctus bent in compassion to lift her erect; she flared into blue flame and Calanctus held her around the waist with charred arms.

Llorio pushed him back, her face contorted. “You are not Calanctus; you are milk where he is blood!”

Even as she spoke the scarab in the bracelet brushed her face; she screamed and from her throat erupted a great spell — an explosion of power too strong for the tissues of her body, so that blood spurted from her mouth and nose. She reeled back to support herself against a tree, while Calanctus toppled slowly to lie broken and torn on his back.

Panting in emotion, Llorio stood looking down at the toppled hulk. From the nostrils issued a lazy filament of black smoke, coiling and swirling above the corpse.

Moving like a man entranced, Lehuster stepped slowly into the smoke. The air shook to a rumble of sound; a sultry yellow glare flashed like lightning; in the place of Lehuster stood a man of massive body, his skin glowing with internal light. He wore short black pantaloons and sandals, with legs and chest bare; his hair was black, his face square, with a stern nose and jutting jaw. He bent over the corpse and taking the scarab clasped it to his own wrist.

The new Calanctus spoke to Llorio: “My trouble has gone for nought! I came to this time as Lehuster, thus to leave sleeping old pains and old rages; now these hopes are forlorn, and all is as before. I am I, and once more we stand at odds!”

Llorio stood silent, her chest heaving.

Calanctus spoke on: “What of your other spells, to batter and break, or to beguile men’s dreams and soften resolve? If so, try them on me, since I am not the poor mild Calanctus who carried the hopes of all of us, and who met so rude a destiny.”

“Hope?” cried Llorio. “When the world is done and I have been thwarted? What remains? Nothing. Neither hope nor honor nor anguish nor pain! All is gone! Ashes blow across the desert. All has been lost, or forgotten; the best and the dearest are gone. Who are these creatures who stand here so foolishly? Ildefonse? Rhialto? Vapid ghosts, mowing with round mouths! Hope! Nothing remains. All is gone, all is done; even death is in the past.”

So cried out Llorio, from the passion of despair, the blood still dripping from her nose. Calanctus stood quietly, waiting till her passion spent itself.

“To Sadal Suud I will go. I have failed; I stand at bay, surrounded by the enemies of my race.”

Calanctus, reaching forward, touched her face. “Call me enemy as you like! Still, I love your dear features; I treasure your virtues and your peculiar faults; and I would not have them changed save in the direction of kindliness.”

Llorio took a step backward. “I concede nothing; I will change nothing.”

“Ah well, it was only an idle thought. What is this blood?”

“My brain is bleeding; I used all my power to destroy this poor futile corpse. I too am dying; I taste the savor of death. Calanctus, you have won your victory at last!”

“As usual, you overshoot the mark. I have won no victory; you are not dying nor need you go off to Sadal Suud, which is a steaming quagmire infested by owls, gnats and rodents: quite unsuitable for one of your delicacy. Who would do the laundry?”

“You will allow me neither death, nor yet refuge on a new world! Is this not defeat piled on defeat?”

“Words only. Come now; take my hand and we will call a truce.”

“Never!” cried Llorio. “This symbolizes the ultimate conquest, to which I will never surrender!”